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Persian Gulf War Essay

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The Persian Gulf War all started because of one country’s greed for oil. Iraq accused Kuwait of pumping oil and not sharing the benfits, and Kuwait was pumping more oil than allowed under quotas set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, it decreased the price of oil, Iraq's main export. Iraq's complaints against Kuwait grew more and more harsh, but they were mostly about money. When Iraqi forces began to assemble near the Kuwaiti border in the summer of 1990, several Arab states tried to intervene the dispute. Kuwait didn’t want to look weak so they didn’t ask for any help from the United States or other non-Arab powers for support. Arab mediators convinced Iraq and Kuwait to negotiate their differences in Saudi Arabia, on …show more content…

Still other countries made other contributions: Turkey allowed air bases on its territory to be used by coalition planes, and Japan and Germany gave financial support. The primary goal of the force was to prevent further Iraqi action, but most countries were aware the force might eventually be used to drive Iraq from Kuwait.
The Iraqis tried to prevent and split the growing international coalition through several means. They made it clear that their adversaries would pay heavily if war broke out, and they hinted they would use chemical weapons and missile attacks on cities. Iraq also held citizens of coalition countries who had been in Kuwait at the time of the invasion and said they would be held in militarily camp areas in effect using them as human shields to prevent coalition attacks. Iraq finally released the last of the foreigners in December 1990 under pressure from several Arab nations. The coalition's greatest military concern during the closing months of 1990 was that Iraqi forces would attack before coalition forces were fully in place, but no such attack took place.
On November 29, with coalition forces over whelming in Saudi Arabia and Iraq showing no signs of retreat, the

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