George HW Bush, the president at the time, immediately condemned Hussein's decision, as did the British and Soviet governments. They called for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, but Hussein did not follow their orders. On August 8th, Iraq formally annexed Kuwait, and shortly after that, America took military action. On November 29, 1990, the UN security council authorized the use of "all necessary means" to force Iraq out of Kuwait if they did not leave themselves. A coalition force of 750,000 people got ready to push the Iraq and Hussein out of Kuwait, 540,000 of which were Americans.
The battle, also known as the Persian Gulf War, started on January 17, 1991. By late February, after about a month and a half of fighting, the Iraqi forces were mostly defeated. On February 28th, president Bush declared a ceasefire, ending the war. Hussein accepted peace terms which stating that Iraq would recognize Kuwait's sovereignty and get rid of all of its weapons of mass destruction. As a result of the war, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi forces and 300 coalition forces were killed.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/persian-gulf-war
https://www.britannica.com/event/Persian-Gulf-War
Nice post Ryan. It is interesting to note how quickly American forces were able to crush and drive out Iraqi forces. At the time Hussein had the fourth largest army in the world, yet we were still able to beat them so decisively and quickly. The was actually so quick that many soldiers felt frustrated with all the sitting around they had to do before Desert Shield became Desert Storm and how little they did during the actual fighting. The movie Jarhead is does a nice job depicting this.
ReplyDeleteThis was definitely an interesting post. What I found questionable was Hussein's decisions leading up to this war. After realizing that two thirds of the arab league did not support his actions, why exactly did he still carry through with his plan to invade kuwait? It also seems like the UN did not do a good job of punishments after the war, as even though Hussein was soundly defeated and ordered to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction, he still had chemical weapons that he would use later.
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