Persian Gulf Wars or Gulf Wars, two conflicts involving Iraq and U.S.-led coalitions in the late 20th and early 21st cent.

The First Persian Gulf War, Jan.-Feb., 1991, was an armed conflict between Iraq and a coalition of 32 nations including the United States, Britain, Egypt, France, and Saudi Arabia. It was a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990; Iraq then annexed Kuwait, which it had long claimed. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein declared that the invasion was a response to overproduction of oil in Kuwait, which had cost Iraq an estimated $14 billion a year when oil prices fell. Hussein also accused Kuwait of illegally pumping oil from Iraq's Rumaila oil field.

The UN Security Council called for Iraq to withdraw and subsequently embargoed most trade with Iraq. On Aug. 7, U.S. troops moved into Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi oil fields. On Nov. 29, the United Nations set Jan. 15, 1991, as the deadline for a peaceful withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein refused to comply, Operation Desert Storm was launched on Jan. 18, 1991, under the leadership of U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.

The U.S.-led coalition began a massive air war to destroy Iraq's forces and military and civil infrastructure. Iraq called for terrorist attacks against the coalition and launched Scud missiles at Israel (in an unsuccessful attempt to widen the war and break up the coalition) and at Saudi Arabia. The main coalition forces invaded Kuwait and S Iraq on Feb. 24 and, over the next four days, encircled and defeated the Iraqis and liberated Kuwait. When U.S. President George H. W. Bush declared a cease-fire on Feb. 28, most of the Iraqi forces in Kuwait had either surrendered or fled.

Although the war was a decisive military victory for the coalition, Kuwait and Iraq suffered enormous property damage, and Saddam Hussein was not removed from power. In fact, Hussein was free to turn his attention to suppressing internal Shiite and Kurd revolts, which the U.S.-led coalition did not support, in part because of concerns over the possible breakup of Iraq if the revolts were successful. Coalition peace terms were agreed to by Iraq, but every effort was made by the Iraqis to frustrate implementation of the terms, particularly UN weapons inspections.

In 1993 the United States, France, and Britain launched several air and cruise-missile strikes against Iraq in response to provocations, including an alleged Iraqi plan to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush. An Iraqi troop buildup near Kuwait in 1994 led the United States to send forces to Kuwait and nearby areas. Continued resistance to weapons inspections led to bombing raids against Iraq, and trade sanctions imposed on Iraq remained in place, albeit with an emphasis on military-related goods until the second Gulf conflict. See also Gulf War Syndrome.

The Second Persian Gulf War, also known as the Iraq War, Mar.-Apr., 2003, was a largely U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. In many ways the final, delayed campaign of the First Persian Gulf War, it arose in part because the Iraqi government failed to cooperate fully with UN weapons inspections in the years following the first conflict.

The election of George W. Bush to the U.S. presidency returned to government many officials from his father's administration who had favored removing Saddam Hussein from power in the first war. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the United States moved toward a doctrine of first-strike, pre-emptive war to eliminate threats to national security. As early as Oct., 2001, U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld publicly suggested that military action against Iraq was possible, and in November President Bush asked Rumsfeld to undertake a war-plan review. In Jan., 2002, President Bush accused Iraq. along with North Korea and Iran, as being part of "an axis of evil," and with the Taliban forced from power in Afghanistan in early 2002, the administration's attention turned to Iraq.

Accusing Iraq of failing to abide by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire (by developing and possessing weapons of mass destruction and by refusing to cooperate with UN weapons inspections) and of supporting terrorism, the president and other officials suggested that the "war on terrorism" might be expanded to include Iraq and became more forceful in their denunciations of Iraq for resisting UN arms inspections, called for "regime change" in Iraq, and leaked news of military planning for war. President Bush also called on the United Nations to act forcefully against Iraq or risk becoming "irrelevant." As a result, Iraq announced in Sept., 2002, that UN inspectors could return, but Iraqi slowness to agree on inspection terms and U.S. insistence on stricter conditions for Iraqi compliance stalled the inspectors' return.

In October, Congress approved the use of force against Iraq, and in November the Security Council passed a resolution offering Iraq a "final opportunity" to cooperate on arms inspections. A strict inspections timetable was established, and active Iraqi compliance insisted on. Inspections resumed in late November. A December declaration by Iraq that it had no weapons of mass destruction was generally regarded as incomplete and uninformative, but by Jan., 2003, UN inspectors had found no evidence of forbidden weapons programs. However, they also indicated that Iraq was not actively cooperating with their efforts to determine if previously known or suspected weapons had been destroyed and weapons programs had been ended.

Despite much international opposition, including increasingly rancorous objections from France, Germany, and Russia, the United States and Britain continued their military buildup in areas near Iraq, insisting that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Turkey, which the allies hoped to use as a base for a northern front in Iraq, refused to allow use of its territory, but most Anglo-American forces were in place in Kuwait and other locations by March. After failing to win the explicit UN Security Council approval desired by Britain (because Britons were otherwise largely opposed to war), President Bush issued an ultimatum to Iraqi president Hussein on Mar. 17, and two days later the war began with an airstrike against Hussein and the Iraqi leadership. Ground forces (almost exclusively Anglo-American and significantly smaller than the large international force assembled in the first war) began invading the following day, surging primarily toward Baghdad, the southern oil fields, and port facilities; a northern front was opened by Kurdish and airborne Anglo-American forces late in March.

By mid-April, 2003, Hussein's army and government had collapsed, he himself had disappeared, and the allies were largely in control of the major Iraqi cities. The allies gradually turned their attention to the rebuilding of Iraq and the establishment of a new Iraqi government, but progress toward that end was hampered by lawlessness, especially in Baghdad, where widespread looting initially had been tolerated by U.S. forces.

On May 1, President Bush declared victory in the war against Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction, however, were found, leading to charges that U.S. and British leaders had exaggerated the Iraqi biological and chemical threat in order to justify the war. Much of the intelligence used to justify the war subsequently was criticized as faulty by U.S. and British investigative bodies. Hussein was captured in Dec., 2003. In 2004, he was transferred to Iraqi legal custody; tried and convicted of crimes against humanity, he was executed in 2006. U.S.-led occupation forces and, later, Iraqi security forces, struggled into 2007 with Iraqi and Islamic insurgencies and sectarian violence that military and civilian planners had failed to foresee.

Persian Gulf, arm of the Arabian Sea, 90,000 sq mi (233,100 sq km), between the Arabian peninsula and Iran, extending c.600 mi (970 km) from the Shatt al Arab delta to the Strait of Hormuz, which links it with the Gulf of Oman.

Physical Geography

The Persian Gulf, called the Arabian Gulf by the Arabs, is mostly shallow and has many islands, of which Bahrain is the largest. The gulf is bordered by Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south, to the west by Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to the north by Kuwait and Iraq, and along the entire east coast by Iran. It was generally thought that the gulf had previously extended farther north and that sediment dropped by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Karkheh rivers filled the northern part of the gulf to create a great delta. But geologic investigations now indicate that the coastline has not moved and that the marshlands of the delta represent a sinking of the earth's crust as the Arabian land block pushes under Iran. The gulf waters have very slow currents and limited tidal range.

History

The Persian Gulf was an important transportation route in antiquity but declined with the fall of Mesopotamia. In succeeding centuries control of the region was contested by Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Western Europeans. In 1853, Britain and the Arab sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf signed the Perpetual Maritime Truce, formalizing the temporary truces of 1820 and 1835. The sheikhs agreed to stop harassing British shipping in the Arabian Sea and to recognize Britain as the dominant power in the gulf. These sheikhdoms thus became known as the Trucial States. An international agreement among the major powers in 1907 placed the gulf in the British sphere of influence.

Although oil was discovered in the gulf in 1908, it was not until the 1930s, when major finds were made, that keen international interest in the region revived. Since World War II the gulf oil fields, among the most productive in the world, have been extensively developed, and modern port facilities have been constructed. Nearly 50% of the world's total oil reserves are estimated to be found in the Persian Gulf. It is also a large fishing source and was once the chief center of the pearling industry. In the late 1960s, following British military withdrawal from the area, the United States and the USSR sought to fill the vacuum. In 1971 the first U.S. military installation in the gulf was established at Bahrain.

The long-standing Arab-Persian conflict in the gulf, combined with the desire of neighboring states for control of large oil reserves, has led to international boundary disputes. Iraq and Iran argued over navigation rights on the Shatt al Arab, through which Iran's main ports and most productive oil fields are reached. Iran and the sheikhdom of Ras al-Khaima contested ownership of the oil-rich islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunb at the entrance to the gulf. Iranian forces occupied these islands in Dec., 1971, infuriating Iraq. The much-contested rights over the Shatt al Arab led Iran and Iraq into an 8-year war in the 1980s (see Iran-Iraq War). In 1984 American and other foreign oil tankers in the gulf were attacked by both Iran and Iraq. The security of Persian Gulf countries was threatened throughout this war.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in Aug., 1990, the Persian Gulf was once again a background for conflict. International coalition ground forces were stationed in Saudi Arabia and neighboring gulf countries in the Persian Gulf War (1991). Before Iraq was expelled from Kuwait in Feb., 1991, Iraqi soldiers set fire to over 500 Kuwaiti oil wells and dumped millions of barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf, causing an environmental crisis and threatening desalination plants throughout the area. The area again was the scene of warfare in 2003 when U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq. The Persian Gulf's vast oil reserves make the area a continuing source of international tension.

or Gulf War

(1990–91) International conflict triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Though justified by Iraqi leader Ssubdotaddām Hsubdotussein on grounds that Kuwait was historically part of Iraq, the invasion was presumed to be motivated by Iraq's desire to acquire Kuwait's rich oil fields and expand its power in the region. The United States, fearing Iraq's broader strategic intentions and acting under UN auspices, eventually formed a broad coalition, which included a number of Arab countries, and began massing troops in northern Saudi Arabia. When Iraq ignored a UN Security Council deadline for it to withdraw from Kuwait, the coalition began a large-scale air offensive (Jan. 16–17, 1991). Ssubdotaddām responded by launching ballistic missiles against neighbouring coalition states as well as Israel. A ground offensive by the coalition (February 24–28) quickly achieved victory. Estimates of Iraqi military deaths range up to 100,000; coalition forces lost about 300 troops. The war also caused extensive damage to the region's environment. The Iraqi regime subsequently faced widespread popular uprisings, which it brutally suppressed. A UN trade embargo remained in effect after the end of the conflict, pending Iraq's compliance with the terms of the armistice. The foremost term was that Iraq destroy its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. The embargo continued into the 21st century and ceased only after the Iraq War started in 2003.

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Arm of the Arabian Sea. It is about 615 mi (990 km) long and rarely exceeds a depth of 300 ft (90 m). It is connected with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea through the Strait of Hormuz. It contains the island kingdom of Bahrain and is bordered by Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq. It has long been a maritime trade route between the Middle East and South Asia; its modern economy is dominated by petroleum production.

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