The 1991 Gulf War was hailed by many people, including those who prided themselves on their liberal outlook, as the first example of the New World Order made possible by the end of the Cold War.

We were told that the international community, using the United Nattions as its founders intended, would defeat and probably overthrow a brutal dictator by means of weapons of clinical accuracy, deploying the minimum force possible, and hence pave the way for democracy and a lasting settlment of the problems of the Middle East.

It is now clear that what happened was very different from this official explanation of events.

The United Nations was actually taken over by the US to secure its strategic oil supplies at a time when the USSR was disintegrating. The bombing was on a horrific scale which inflicted untold suffering on the Iraqi civilian population both at the time and subsequently.

A fedual king in Saudi Arabi was protected and the undemocratic Al-Sabah family was re-installed in Kuwait; Saddam's harsh regime, originally built up with enthusiastic Westren help, was actually consolidated in Iraq; and the double standards of the West, with respect to the Palestinians, stands out more glaringly than ever.

When a superpower war machine gets going and the media puts itself at the disposal of the political leaders and generals who are cranking it up, all understanding is driven from the airwaves and the newspapers to ensure public support for that war. So it was during that short bloody conflict.

No-one was allowed to hear about the long history of Iraq or its glorious civilization, its relations with its neighbors or what appened when Briitian governed it. All parallels with other Westren military interventions and non-interventions were discouraged, as were comparisons with the conduct of Israel or Turkey.

There was tight censorship of the war reports and then a deadly media silence about the carnage caused by the bombing and the suffering that followed, so that we were never permitted to hear of the many thousands of civilian deaths for which we were collectively responsible.

That whole horrific story and the background which explains it has been outlined in the following sections:
Arms Build up of Iraq
Why did Iraq invade Kuwait?
Why did the US get involved?
The Gulf War
After the Gulf War
Depleted Uranium
Saddam's Survival/Reconstruction of Iraq

Bibliography:

• Simons, Geoff. Iraq From Sumer to Saddam St. Martin Press, NY 1994