The World’s Response

the Detachment was in Kuwait. The embassy itself did take fire from small arms into the buildings on the compound including the Chancery and the Marine House. Tank and artillery rounds also were fired over the embassy compound; two tank rounds hit a building adjacent to the compound. The Marines were still in defensive positions during the firing of these rounds, except on occasions during the second through sixth days [when they had] to locate civilians that were off the compound taking refuge and escort them to safe buildings on the compound. SSgt J. B. Smith, Sgt Paul G. Rodriguez, and Cpl Mark E. Royer were involved in these actions.

46

On 23 August 1990, the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait ordered the Marines to escort a convoy of all nonessential embassy personnel and other civilians from Kuwait City to Baghdad. The Iraqis would not permit the embassy personnel to drive south into Saudi Arabia. The 30-vehicle convoy departed Kuwait City with the Marines spread among the convoy in an attempt to keep all the vehicles together.

47

Travel was slow, with a great deal of traffic, and a serious accident occurred just outside Kuwait City:

In one vehicle an elderly woman was thrown under the front seat; her hip was broken and she received lacerations on the face and leg. The other two elderly occupants of the vehicle received facial bruises and lacerations. [Sergeant David K.] Hudson, upon seeing this, proceeded to the accident site and performed first aid on the elderly woman with the broken hip. He proceeded to help her by talking to her and administering to her medical needs. The tail vehicle was used to transport her back to a hospital in Kuwait, and Sgt Hudson accompanied her back to the hospital. She was admitted and Sgt Hudson then proceeded to return to the convoy at the Kuwait/Iraq border. The decision and initiative of Sgt Hudson to accompany the woman back to the hospital took great courage and sacrifice because of the possibility of not being able to return to the convoy or quite possibly loss of life.

48

In the early morning hours of 24 August, the convoy reached Baghdad and discovered that they would not be able to depart Iraq from Baghdad as intended. The Marines from Kuwait assumed Marine Security Guard duties at the Baghdad embassy but “were not permitted to use mace, handcuffs, [or] ammunition . . . all of which were to be secured in a safe.” The Marines were handicapped by this policy until the arrival of a State Department inspector, James J. “Jim” Blystone, in Baghdad. Blystone recommended the Marines take up their proper security duties, and on 1 October they assumed these duties, conducting security sweeps in addition to standing post.

49

Life in Baghdad settled into a routine for the Marines, despite the uncertainty and tension. Iraqi soldiers were stationed near the embassy, and Iraqi secret police followed the Marines whenever they left the embassy, but no incidents occurred. The Marines performed their assigned duties, conducted physical training and security drills, and watched the unfolding Kuwait crisis from Baghdad throughout the fall of 1990.

Finally, in early December, Saddam Hussein decided that no further benefit could be gained from holding the foreign hostages he had taken. On 9 December, the Marines were relieved of their duties at the Baghdad embassy and returned to the United States via Germany.

50

The international response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait was overwhelmingly negative. On the day of the invasion, the United Nations (UN) Security Council passed Resolution 660, which condemned the invasion and called for Iraq to immediately withdraw all of its forces from Kuwait. Providing convincing evidence that the Cold War was well and truly over, the United States and the Soviet Union issued a joint statement condemning the invasion.

51

The United States took the lead early, alarmed at the prospect of Iraq controlling such a large percentage of Middle Eastern oil reserves, as well as the blatant violation of international norms in place since the close of World War II. Both Kuwaiti and Iraqi overseas assets were frozen, and extensive diplomacy to isolate Iraq from potential allies was begun. Great Britain and France supported the United States in diplomatic efforts to reverse the conquest; British Prime Minister Margaret H. Thatcher met with President George H. W. Bush urging that Iraq’s action be reversed, by military means if necessary, and that no compromise be accepted.

52

The Arab world was shattered by the Iraqi invasion; no Arab state had invaded another in modern history. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states were di-

Defense Imagery DN-SC-89-05558 George H. W. Bush fought as a Navy pilot in World War II and served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency prior to becoming President Ronald W. Reagan’s vice president in 1980. He was elected the 41st president in 1988. President Bush assembled and led the largest international Coalition since World War II in opposition to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.

rectly threatened by Iraq’s aggression (Iran is a Persian, not an Arab, state). Militarily these states were no more prepared for conflict than Kuwait had been, and they shared similar political and economic systems with Iraq’s victim. Iraq remained a Baathist state, and Saddam’s political rhetoric over the previous two years had combined increasingly strident calls for opposition to Israel with denunciations of the oil-rich Gulf states’ economic policies.

Egypt and Syria shared Baathist histories with Iraq, as well as some of Iraq’s hostility toward the oil-rich Gulf states. Nevertheless, the Egyptians had been viciously denounced by Saddam following the Camp David Accords and the resulting truce with Israel, and they had helped broker the 31 July meeting at Jeddah, which appeared in retrospect to have been merely an Iraqi ploy. Moreover, Syria and Iraq had a long history of antipathy that simmered just below the boiling point for most of the two nations’ modern history. Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia were the top contenders for leadership of the Arab world, and none of the four were inclined to see any of the others succeed on a scale as large as the Iraqi conquest of Kuwait.

On 6 August, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 661, an economic embargo of Iraq. That same fateful day, American and Saudi Arabian discussions resulted in the Saudis agreeing to a deployment of American military forces to defend Saudi Arabia against the perceived Iraqi threat. The remarkable international Coalition that would eventually coalesce to drive Iraq from Kuwait was now taking shape.

Iraq responded to the outrage and admonishments of the international community with defiance. On 7 August, Saddam declared that Iraq had deposed Kuwait’s monarchy and that Kuwait was now a republic. On 10 August, the Arab League met in Cairo to debate Iraq’s invasion. After an acrimonious meeting, 12 of the 20 states voted for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and to allow the al-Sabah monarchy to return. They also called for troops to defend Saudi Arabia from Iraq. Iraq in turn linked its invasion of Kuwait to a resolution of the Arab world’s open sore, Israel and Palestine.

Many of Iraq’s diplomatic and military strategies throughout the crisis would turn on Saddam’s understanding of the Arab world. By invading Kuwait, he believed, Iraq was not making an opportunistic land grab, but rather striking at the Middle Eastern status quo. Saddam argued that most Arab governments were corrupt remnants from the Age of Imperialism and that while he worked for the favor of Arab popular opinion, the opposition of the Arab governments was expected. “Any state that takes us further and brings our enemies closer to their evil goals,” he asserted, “we must refuse, even if our blood reaches our chest.”

53

Iraq had begun making conciliatory diplomatic overtures to Iran prior to the invasion of Kuwait. Following the invasion Saddam offered to give up all of Iraq’s gains from its minor victory in 1988, securing Iraq from Iranian interference in the unfolding crisis. Iran responded cautiously to Iraq’s proposals during the early weeks of the situation, and despite the hesitation of some of Iraq’s senior leaders, Saddam continued to pursue a conciliatory policy toward Iran throughout the crisis.

54

Iraq’s most brutal method of shaping international reaction involved the use of hostages. Thousands of foreigners were trapped in Kuwait and Iraq by the invasion. The Iraqis refused to allow most of them to depart the country; they were collected in hotels in Baghdad and released on a country-by-country basis only after delegations from individual states arrived and provided proper “respect” to the Iraqi government. The goal was to buy time and build a community of nations committed