Gulf War

:See also: Iraq War and Gulf War (disambiguation)

Iraq and the United States before the war

Prior to the Iran-Iraq War, U.S.-Iraqi relations were cool. The U.S. was concerned with Iraq's belligerence toward Israel and disapproval of moves towards peace with other Arab states. It also condemned Iraqi support for various Arab and Palestinian nationalist groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to its inclusion on the incipient State Department list of states that sponsor terrorism on December 29, 1979. The U.S. remained officially neutral during the outbreak of hostilities in the Iran-Iraq War, as it had previously been humiliated by a 444 day long Iran hostage crisis and expected that Iran was not likely to win. In March 1982, however, Iran began a successful counteroffensive (Operation Undeniable Victory). In a bid to open the possibility of relations to Iraq, the country was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime's record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about continued involvement in terrorism....The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran." http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume1/july_2003/7_03_2v2.html

Related Topics:
Iran-Iraq War - Israel - Abu Nidal - State Department list of states that sponsor terrorism - December 29 - 1979 - Iran hostage crisis - United States Assistant Secretary of Defense

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With Iran's newfound success in the war and its rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales from other states (most importantly the USSR, France, Egypt, and starting that year, China) reached a record spike in 1982, but an obstacle remained to any potential U.S.-Iraqi relationship - Abu Nidal continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When the group was expelled to Syria in November 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld as a special envoy to cultivate ties.

Related Topics:
July - Arms sales - USSR - France - Egypt - China - Syria - November - 1983 - Reagan administration - Donald Rumsfeld

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From 1983 to 1990, the U.S. government approved around $200 million in arms sales to Iraq, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI). http://web.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/atirq_data.html These sales amounted to less than 1% of the total arms sold to Iraq in the relevant period, though the US also sold helicopters which, although designated for civilian use, were immediately deployed by Iraq in its war with Iran. http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume1/july_2003/7_03_2v2.html

Related Topics:
1983 - 1990 - Arms sales to Iraq

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An investigation by the Senate Banking Committee in 1994 determined that the U.S. Department of Commerce had approved, for the purpose of research, the shipping of dual use biological agents to Iraq during the mid 1980s, including Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), later identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program, as well as Clostridium botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella melitensis, and Clostridium perfringens. The Committee report noted that each of these had been "considered by various nations for use in war." http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/riegle1.html Declassified U.S. government documents indicate that the U.S. government had confirmed that Iraq was using chemical weapons "almost daily" during the Iran-Iraq conflict as early as 1983. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/index.htm

Related Topics:
Dual use - 1980s - Bacillus anthracis - Anthrax - Biological warfare - Clostridium botulinum - Histoplasma capsulatum - Brucella melitensis - Clostridium perfringens - Chemical weapons

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Chiefly, the U.S. government provided Iraq with economic aid. Iraq's war with Iran, and the consequent disruption in its oil export business, had caused the country to enter a deep debt. U.S. government economic assistance allowed Hussein to continue using resources for the war which would have otherwise had to have been diverted. Between 1983 and 1990, Iraq received $5 billion in credits from the Commodity Credit Corporation program run by the Department of Agriculture, beginning at $400 million per year in 1983 and increasing to over $1 billion per year in 1988 and 1989, finally coming to an end after another $500 million was granted in 1990. http://archive.gao.gov/d38t12/143407.pdf Besides agricultural credits, the U.S. also provided Hussein with other loans. In 1985 the U.S. Export-Import Bank extended more than $684 million in credits to Iraq to build an oil pipeline through Jordan with the construction being undertaken by Californian construction firm Bechtel Corporation. http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume1/july_2003/7_03_2v2.html http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/112684/841126008.html

Related Topics:
Department of Agriculture - Export-Import Bank - Bechtel Corporation

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Following the war, however, there were moves within the Congress of the United States to isolate Iraq diplomatically and economically over concerns about human rights violations, its dramatic military build-up, and hostility to Israel. Specifically, the Senate in 1988 unanimously passed the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988," which would have imposed sanctions on Iraq. The legislation died when the House balked as a result of intense lobbying against it by the Reagan administration. http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1188/8811008.htm

Related Topics:
Congress of the United States - Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988

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These moves were disowned by some Congressmen though some U.S. officials, such as Reagan's head of Policy Planning Staff at the State Dept. and Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs Paul Wolfowitz disagreed with giving support to the Iraqi regime.

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The relationship between Iraq and the United States remained collaborative until the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. On October 2, 1989, President George H.W. Bush signed secret National Security Directive 26, which begins, "Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security." http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsd/nsd26.pdf With respect to Iraq, the directive stated, "Normal relations between the United States and Iraq would serve our longer term interests and promote stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East."

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In late July, 1990, as negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait stalled, Iraq massed troops on Kuwait's borders and summoned American ambassador April Glaspie for an unanticipated meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Two transcripts of that meeting have been produced, both of them controversial. According to the transcripts, Saddam outlined his grievances against Kuwait, while promising that he would not invade Kuwait before one more round of negotiations. In the version published by The New York Times on September 23, 1990, Glaspie expressed concern over the troop buildup, but went on to say:

Related Topics:
1990 - April Glaspie - The New York Times - September 23

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:We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late '60s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly.

Related Topics:
Arab League - President Mubarak

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Some have interpreted these statements as signalling a tacit approval of invasion, though no evidence of this has been presented. Although the State Department did not confirm the authenticity of these transcripts, U.S. sources say that she had handled everything "by the book" (in accordance with the US's neutrality on the Iraq-Kuwait issue) and had not signaled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein any approval for defying the Arab League's Jeddah crisis squad, which had conducted the negotiations. Many believe that Saddam's expectations may have been influenced by a perception that the US was not interested in the issue, for which the Glaspie transcript is merely an example, and that he may have felt so in part because of U.S. support for the reunification of Germany, another act that he considered to be nothing more than the nullification of an artificial, internal border. Others, such as Kenneth Pollack, believe he had no such illusion, or that he simply underestimated the extent of American military response.

Related Topics:
Germany - Kenneth Pollack

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In November 1989, CIA director William Webster met with the Kuwaiti head of security, Brigadier Fahd Ahmed Al-Fahd. Subsequent to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Iraq claimed to have found a memorandum pertaining to their conversation. The Washington Post reported that Kuwaiti's foreign minister fainted when confronted with this document at an Arab summit in August. Later, Iraq cited this memorandum as evidence of a CIA-Kuwaiti plot to destabilize Iraq economically and politically. The CIA and Kuwait have described the meeting as routine and the memorandum as a forgery. The purported document reads in part:

Related Topics:
William Webster - The Washington Post

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:We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country's government to delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition that such activities be coordinated at a high level.

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