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Fall 2014
History 218

Supplement to the Notes for the First Gulf War

In late August 1990, the emir of Kuwait from exile offered the Iraqi government 500 million dollars as partial compensation for oil siphoned from its side of the Rumalia oil field and as the first step toward a negotiated settlement to the conflict.  The US government, however, intervened and asked the Kuwaiti emir to withdraw the offer because “it did not want Saddam Hussein to benefit from his act of aggression.”

In mid-October 1990, Saddam announced that he had had a “prophetic vision” telling him to withdraw from all of Kuwait except for two islands off the coast of the two countries and the disputed Rumalia oil field, but again the Bush administration’s response was that Iraq should in no way be rewarded for its act of “naked aggression.”

In January 1991, European leaders (especially Gorbachev) attempted to call a Peace Conference to settle the crisis.  The US, however, refused to participate because it promised to raise the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian call for autonomy (Saddam Hussein pointing out that this was another example of a Middle East occupation).  The Bush administration argued this issue was irrelevant to Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. The UN set a January 15, 1991, deadline for Iraqi troops to be out of Kuwait, and when that deadline was not met, the US-led bombing campaign began.  His country quickly and easily defeated, Saddam sued for peace a few weeks after the ground war began in February 1991.