George H.W. Bush: Gulf War

History

In July 1990, Iraq became embroiled in a dispute with neighboring Kuwait, accusing it of bringing down the market price of oil by exporting more than OPEC rules allowed. Iraq also wanted forgiveness on $30 billion worth of loans from Kuwait and other Gulf states. On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, and a few weeks later, it declared Kuwait to be a province of Iraq. Reaction from the international community was swift; most of the world, including many of Iraq's neighbors, condemned the invasion of Kuwait.

President Bush immediately condemned Iraq's actions, and on August 7, he set U.S. troops into neighboring Saudi Arabia to ensure that Iraq could not attack its oil fields. The United Nations (U.N.) Security Council called for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, and it implemented a trade embargo. American diplomats continued to work with the U.N. to pressure Iraq, and in November, the U.N. issued a deadline of January 15, 1991 for Iraqi troops to leave Kuwait.

President Bush continued to apply pressure, but Iraqi President Saddam Hussein refused to budge. The rhetoric grew more heated as the weeks went by, and in October, President Bush met with military leaders to discuss options for removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait by force. At the request of the Bush administration, Congress passed Public Law 102-1, which authorized the President to use military force to remove Iraq from Kuwait if diplomatic efforts were unsuccessful.

The U.N. deadline passed without any movement on the part of Iraq. On January 16, President Bush authorized the first round of air strikes on strategic targets in Iraq and Kuwait. In a speech to the American people that night, the President listed all of the efforts made to date to resolve the conflict peacefully, and made it clear that the objective was to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. He promised that the war would not be "another Vietnam," and that the fighting would be brief.

In February, Hussein was still defiant, promising "the mother of all battles" with the U.S. and coalition forces. President Bush was undeterred, and gave the order for a ground invasion to begin on February 24. Hussein's prediction turned out to be false; the war was over in less than a week. The air strikes over the course of the previous month had weakened the Iraqi troops on the ground, and they left Kuwait days after the invasion began. A cease–fire took effect on the morning of February 28.

Some officials in the Bush administration wanted to see the U.S. take the opportunity to go further, and push onto Baghdad to remove Saddam Hussein from power. President Bush refused, saying that the U.N. mandate and coalition support was only focused on liberating Kuwait. He did, however, encourage Iraqis to "take matters into their own hands." This prompted an uprising in the Shiite south of Iraq and in the Kurdish north. Hussein quickly crushed both revolts, and casualties on the part of the insurgents were heavy.

Aftermath

The decision of the Bush administration to not to take direct action remove Hussein from office during the Persian Gulf war grew more controversial in the early 2000s, when the U.S. discovered intelligence that led it to believe that Iraq had developed weapons of mass destruction. By then, George H. W. Bush's son, George W. Bush, had been elected president, and the younger President Bush made the decision to invade Iraq in the spring of 2003. Critics at the time argued that part of the reason for this action was the fact that many of the younger President Bush's cabinet members were officials who had served in his father's administration, and had wanted to push on to Baghdad and remove Hussein in 1991.

While no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, the effort to remove Hussein from office were successful. He fled the capitol in April 2003, and remained in hiding until U.S. forces found him in December. He was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed in December 2006.