Why did Saddam attack Kuwait and provoke the Persian Gulf War of 1991?
Historically, Kuwait was part of Iraq under the Ottoman Empire. In 1899, Kuwait became a British protectorate, and in 1961, it was granted independence. Though Iraq objected and asked for reunification with Kuwait, the Iraqi government eventually recognized Kuwait as a separate country in 1963. Relations remained uneasy, but during the Iran-Iraq war Kuwait lent diplomatic and economic support to Baghdad. The costly war resulted in a huge debt for Iraq, and Baghdad asked Kuwait to forgive the debt. Edward Peck, a former U.S. chief of mission in Baghdad, said that a variety of factors led to the invasion of Kuwait, including a sense in Iraq that it was being cheated out of Iraqi oil by Kuwaiti oil rigs on the border between the two nations, which were drilling at a slant and therefore accessing Iraqi oil. Iraq also accused Kuwait of producing more oil than agreed to under OPEC quotas, thus depressing the price of international oil, Iraq’s main export. Saddam decided that these circumstan
