This is the story of a larger, more powerful country invading its weaker neighbor to the south,
but in this story, a coalition of 35 countries came to the rescue.
The rumors are true. I’m Mr. Beat, and this video is about one of the quickest wars in
American history, the Persian Gulf War, often just called The Gulf War….because…talking is hard.
It started with Iraq invading Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and ended on February 27, 1991, just four
days after troops from around the world landed in Kuwait and kicked the Iraqi soldiers out.
But wait, why did Iraq invade Kuwait? Why was the
war so short? What was the legacy of the Gulf War? Oh I got answers
alright. Just keep watching and you shall hear answers to those questions and more.
Causes of the Gulf War
It’s late 1988. The country of Iraq is headed by a ruthless dictator named Saddam
Hussein. He had just led his country through a brutal war with Iran over
the previous eight years. The war definitely devastated Iraq. It resulted in possibly more
than half a million soldiers dead. It cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fight,
and the Iraqi government had to borrow MUCH of that money.
One country that loaned money to Iraq for that war was its neighbor to the south,
the tiny country of Kuwait, a country with less than 2 million people,
more than half of those people not even native to Kuwait. Kuwait had been a relatively wealthy
country due to having more oil than most other countries on the planet,
but had recently gone through economic troubles ever since its stock market collapsed. Now, it was
wanting Iraq to start paying all that money it had borrowed back. However, Iraq was in no position
to pay it back, even trying to convince Kuwait to forgive the debt. Kuwait was like “nuh-uh.”
But there were other reasons for tension between the two countries. Kuwait was likely producing
too much oil, making oil too cheap. You see, both countries were part of the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, a cartel formed to get oil prices
artificially high so that they make more money exporting it to the rest of the world. Well,
Iraq and others in OPEC talked trash about Kuwait exceeding their quotas for oil production,
and Iraq had good reason to be mad- it was losing billions of dollars thanks to Kuwait.
In July 1990, Saddam ramped up talking trash about Kuwait, and said if their government continued to
disrespect the oil production quota, Iraq would take military action. Soon after this, Saddam sent
30,000 troops to the Iraq-Kuwait border. But this was about more than oil. Saddam was
also hoping to make Iraq great again through gaining territory that once was kind of part
of Iraq. You see, before the British came in and drew up borders of the Middle East,
modern-day Iraq and Kuwait used to be part of the same territory within the Ottoman Empire. Thus,
Saddam, and others in the Iraqi government thought that Kuwait ought to be part of Iraq.
On July 26, 1990, Kuwait announced it would limit their oil production,
but Iraq was still mad at them for something ELSE they were apparently doing, man.
Iraq claimed Kuwait was sneakily stealing oil through cross-border
slant drilling in an area known as Rumaila. To make up for it,
Iraq demanded Kuwait pay them $10 billion. Eh, Kuwait offered $500 million instead.
What went down in the Gulf War
And so, uh yeah instead of taking Kuwait’s counteroffer…it just invaded them instead.
What was Kuwait gonna do, anyway? They barely had a military. On August 2, 1990,
Iraq marched right in and easily took over the country. The Kuwait military
didn’t put up much of a fight at all. Heck, many soldiers were on vacation,
anyway. Within two days, the Iraqi military had installed a puppet government . A few days later,
Saddam Hussein announced that Kuwait was just another province of Iraq, dude.
While the speed of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was surprising,
the rest of the world’s response was just as swift.
On August 3, the United Nations Security Council unanimously denounced the invasion
and demanded the immediate withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from the country. On August 6,
it implemented a full trade embargo on Iraq, with the exception of food and medical supplies. And
yet, Iraq refused to leave, even after a growing Kuwaiti resistance movement. The Iraqi military
often tortured and killed Kuwaitis resisting, even though most of them were just civilians.
By November, it was clear to the United Nations Security Council that more would
have to be done. It gave an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein- leave Kuwait OR ELSE. Specifically,
it gave Iraq until January 15, 1991 to leave Kuwait,
or United Nations forces would “use all necessary means” to push them out.
Of course, when I say “United Nations,” I mainly mean (turns) The United States, amirite?
The American President at the time, George Herbert Walker Bush, worried that Saddam
might eventually attack Saudi Arabia, who was a big ally to the United States, next. First,
he got Congress’s permission to intervene. They were like, “sure.” Next, Bush got Saudi Arabia’s
permission to increase the number of American soldiers stationed in Saudi Arabia to 400,000.
Bush then worked with other countries in NATO, which I have a video about here, I mean over
here. Gosh, sorry about that. Getting MANY of them on board with helping the United States
military invade Kuwait to kick the Iraqi military out if they, ya know, ignored the ultimatum.
By January 15, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom,
France, and Egypt had all agreed to fight if needed, and before the war would be over,
all THESE countries offered at least some sort of support. That’s quite a team there. Yeah,
Afghanistan even helped out. For real. Still, the United States overwhelmingly
led this effort. They were the world’s lone superpower by the point, after all.
As you probably predicted already, Saddam Hussein ignored the ultimatum,
and coalition forces promptly started bombing the heck out of
them from the air on January 16. Thus began (turns) Operation Desert Storm.
The coalition…ok mostly the American military, led by general Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., dropped bombs
on Iraqi forces for 37 straight days. Meanwhile, around 539,000 American soldiers surged into the
Persian Gulf region, joined by an additional 270,000 soldiers from 28 different countries.
In response to the daily airstrikes, Iraq launched missiles at Saudi Arabia and Israel. Wait,
why the heck did they attack Israel? Israel had nothing to do with this war! Well,
the Iraqi government hoped attacking Israel would cause Israel to attack right back,
and thus getting all the Muslim-majority countries to leave the coalition against
them. But Israel smartly did not respond to any Iraqi attacks.
While the daily airstrikes wore down the Iraqi military, the coalition knew that,
in order to end their occupation, they’d have to land troops on the ground to fight.
On February 23, 1991, they did just that. The coalition forces, again…mostly American
forces…launched an assault in Kuwait that quickly overwhelmed Iraqi forces there. Iraqi soldiers,
most who were veterans of the Iraq-Iran War, weren’t that motivated to fight. Not only that,
their weapons were crap, relatively speaking anyway. Within hours, Iraq was on the retreat,
but coalition forces quickly outflanked them, blocking their ability to further
retreat or get reinforcements. It was obvious that the American military was far superior,
especially with its ability to use precision-guided weapons aided by lasers,
as well as state of the art helicopters and tanks. Speaking of tanks, this ground assault
featured some of the biggest tank battles in American military history. Much of Iraq’s
remaining fighting force was completely destroyed, leading to scenes like this,
aka the “Highway of Death,” in which up to 2,000 Iraqi military vehicles were either hit by
coalition forces or abandoned. While retreating, Iraqi forces destroyed everything they could,
famously setting fire to at least 700 oil wells. Some of these fires would burn for as long as
10 months, causing severe air pollution and costing Kuwait at least $1.5 billion.
The ground assault of Operation Desert Storm lasted just 100
hours. It was a decisive victory for coalition forces. Kuwait was free.
The coalition could have attempted to take over all of Iraq,
but instead held back. Bush later said “To occupy Iraq would shatter our coalition,
turning the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab
hero.” On February 27, that broken tyrant, Saddam Hussein, accepted a ceasefire. The war was over.
Effects of the Gulf War
The Gulf War was uh lopsided, to say the least. Just 292 coalition soldiers died in this war,
and nearly half of those were accidents not caused by the enemy. Compare that to as many as 50,000
Iraqi soldiers killed. Despite being so short, the war cost more than $110 billion in today’s money.
Most Americans were happy about the quick and decisive victory,
and George H.W. Bush’s approval rating skyrocketed to around 89%,
the highest approval rating for an American President recorded in history up to that point,
only surpassed once, 10 years later, by his son, George Walker Bush, right after 9/11.
Thanks to the emergence of the cable news network CNN, the Gulf War was the first
war continuously televised live around the world, right near the front lines. That said,
the American military did heavily restrict press coverage of the war,
not wanting unauthorized footage to become public like it did in the Vietnam War.
Many coalition soldiers came home with lingering sickness with common symptoms
like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and serious stomach issues. In fact, this sickness was so
common it became known as “Gulf War syndrome.” Historians still debate what caused this sickness,
but one recent study found a strong link to exposure to the nerve agent sarin.
There were other unintended consequences of the Gulf War.
Because the embargo against Iraq for invading Kuwait was never lifted by the United Nations
after the war was over, millions of ordinary Iraqis suffered. Poverty dramatically increased
in Iraq over the next several years. Not only that, after the Gulf War the Shiite in the
south of Iraq and Kurds in the north of Iraq both rebelled against Saddam’s regime. Well,
Saddam responded to these rebellions with extreme brutality, and this brutality led to the United
States and United Kingdom continuing to patrol skies over Iraq, setting up no-fly zones, which
are basically areas where aircraft are not allowed to fly and if they do they may get shot down.
After the United States accused Saddam of developing weapons of mass destruction and
him refusing to let the United Nations look for them, the next President,
Bill Clinton ultimately ordered Operation Desert Fox in December 1998. The American military
dropped bombs on around 100 military sites around Iraq, killing or wounding as many as 1400 Iraqis.
And then, of course, the much more controversial and devastating Iraq War,
which the United States started after invading Iraq again, this time without support from the
United Nations. While it DID ultimately lead to the overthrow and execution of Saddam Hussein,
the war, and especially the occupation of the country by American forces afterward,
did not go so well, especially compared to the Gulf War. And this ultimately led to what’s simply
known as the War in Iraq later on, which many people don’t realize was just as devastating.
Simply put, because of all these conflicts hundreds of thousands
of civilians have died in Iraq since the Gulf War.
Even today, Iraq is not a stable place, still recovering from decades of warfare. Now, we often
treat the Gulf War as a blip, a short victory overshadowed by much bigger losses later on.
In fact, while we SHOULD remember what went RIGHT during the Gulf War,
we are more likely to remember what went WRONG after it.
This video is sponsored Again by Raycon earbuds I've been enjoying my Raycon earbuds for a couple
months now especially when I'm at the gym they offer eight hours of play time and a 32 hour
battery life it's pretty amazing Raycon earbuds offer a premium sound useful features and a
very comfortable fit it almost feels custom to my ears and I'm not the only one who loves my Raycon
everyday earbuds they have over 50 000 five-star reviews Raycon's noise isolation on their earbuds
is incredible they really do block out all outside sound and there's even sound profiles like bass
sound which boosts the bass and is really good in particular for rap you can buy Raycon earbuds from
stores like Walmart and Kohl's but you're gonna get the best deal by going to my special link
Raycon what is it oh buy raycon.com/mrbeat is this still there going there gets you 15 off
of your Raycon purchase what should I make a video about next let me know down below also I
do this thing called social media it'd be great to connect on all the social medias Twitter Instagram
I even started the Mastodon account because all the cool kids are doing it I'm on YouTube
www.youtube.com/iammrbeat okay you already knew that