“My fellow citizens, at this hour American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger,” said President George W. Bush on the Morning of March 19, 2003, declaring the U.S. involvement in the Second Gulf War. On March 17, 2003, President Bush gave Suddam Hussein, the President of Iraq, an ultimatum: demanding the Hussein leave Iraq within a forty-eight-hour period or The United States would declare war. Suddam Hussein had been the President of Iraq since 1979 and was a major reason for the First Gulf War. In 2002, Congress and the Senate passed a law “authorizing the use of armed force against Iraq. This resolution empowered the President …show more content…
Neither of Hussein’s parents were a part of his life: his father ran away before he was born and his mother was depressed because of one of her other son’s death. When Hussein was three-years-old, his mother sent him to live with his uncle, Khairallah Talfah, in Banghdad. Talfah’s strong nationalist political views strongly wore off on the young Hussein and Hussein later joined the Ba’ath Party. At a young age, he started pushing for his own power in government. On July 16, 1979, Hussein became the President of Iraq when he forced his distant cousin, Hassan Al-Bakr, to retire. “To ensure his control, Suddam ordered the execution of dozens of top ranking soldiers.” The first Gulf War began when Hussein ordered the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In the second Gulf War, there was three ways Hussein could have gone about the situation of refusing the U.N. inspectors to search Iraq for weapons of mass destruction: he could prove that Iraq does not have any weapons of mass destruction which will make him lose domestic and regional control and dominance, he could have weapons of mass destruction ambiguity which would preserve Iraqi power, or he could tell people that Iraq does in fact have weapons of mass destruction which would violate U.N. resolution 687 and face western intervention. Because Hussein wanted to remain in power of Iraq, his best option, which he followed, would be the WMD ambiguity. This way, no one …show more content…
When the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, heard of this, he immediately “initiated negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait.” Hussein changed his mind about the negotiation two hours later and ordered the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. On August 6, 1990, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia met with the U.S. Secretary of Defense to ask for U.S. military assistance. During this time, Iraq had over a million men in his military, 120 thousand soldiers at the beginning of the invasion which increased to about 300 thousand soldiers. Although Iraq had a large Air Force, it was weak and its military had almost no Navy. Iraq’s invasion in Kuwait initiates the First Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Shield. In January of 1991, the United Nations Security Council commands Hussein to remove his army from Kuwait: Hussein defied this order. After Hussein refused, the U.N. gave him until January 15, 1991 to leave Kuwait. January 17, 1991 begins Operation Desert Storm, a United States operation that lasted forty-two days. Operation Desert Storm began as a “massive U.S. led air offensive." “The main strategy was to support a coup or a palace revolution, and not to undertake any active American involvement to remove the Ba’ath regime.” In mid-February, Operation Desert Storm switched their strategy from mainly air fighting to mainly ground fighting. During