Pros And Cons Of Operation Desert Shield

Hussein’s main objective seemed to be to get another ten percent of the world’s oil supply that was flowing beneath the teeny country, but it was more than that. After taking the oil, he hoped to reunite his own country with the money he made from additional oil sales. Iraq also owed a large sum of money to Kuwait for expenses in the Iran/Iraq war. Taking over Kuwait would cancel this debt. Hussein also clamed that he had fought the Iranians for the benefit of all Arab nations, and that Kuwait owed him for that. He also somehow convinced himself that Kuwait should be part of his country because it had been a province of the Ottoman Empire, which was based in Iraq. Kuwait became independent just before Iraq itself was formed (Deese 300B). Having considered all of his reasons to invade Kuwait, it almost made sense.

Unfortunately for Saddam, the U.S. wasn’t about to stand around and let this happen. Within hours of the attack, President Bush had started making a broad-based international coalition. On August 7, five days after the invasion, Bush announced he would send troops to the Middle East to assist in defending Saudi Arabia (Deese 300C). This action came to be known as Operation Desert Shield. Before even that was done, all Iraqi assets in the U.S. such as money and other useful things had been shut down. When the …show more content…
They soon passed several resolutions to condemn Iraq and demand a complete withdrawal from Kuwait (Encarta n.p.). Many countries in the UN that couldn’t afford to send troops sent money instead. Over $53 billion dollars were raised this way, with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait acting as the largest donors (“The Gulf War” n.p.). The UN also agreed to start an embargo against Iraq. An embargo is when nothing is bought from or sold to a country. Only medical supplies and emergency food could be purchased (Bratman 31). On Aug. 25, 1990, the UN authorized use of force to carry out the embargo (Deese