Operation desert storm biography

Background of the Persian Gulf War

The long-running Iran-Iraq War had ended in a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in August 1988, but by mid-1990 the two nations had yet to begin negotiating a permanent peace treaty.

When their foreign ministers met in Geneva that July, prospects for peace suddenly seemed bright, as it appeared that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was prepared to dissolve that conflict and return territory that his forces had long occupied.

Operation desert storm biography

Two weeks later, however, Hussein delivered a speech in which he accused neighboring nation Kuwait of siphoning crude oil from the Ar-Rumaylah oil fields located along their common border. He insisted that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia cancel out $30 billion of Iraq’s foreign debt, and accused them of conspiring to keep oil prices low in an effort to pander to Western oil-buying nations.