9781422285985

Chapter 1 The Annexation of Kuwait E arly on the morning of August 2, 1990, a series of explosions rocked Kuwait City, the capital and largest city of the small kingdom of Kuwait. Military jets from the air force of Kuwait’s larger neighbor, Iraq, dropped bombs and fired machine guns into government buildings and other strategic targets. Awakened by the violence, leaders of the small Persian Gulf emirate tried to find out what was happening. They soon received a chilling report: hundreds of Iraqi tanks and more than 100,000 well-trained soldiers had crossed the bor- der and were moving toward the capital.

These members of Kuwait’s military were unable to prevent the much larger Iraqi Army from overrunning the small emirate in July 1990.