Quote:
Originally Posted by Flash Walken
Iraq invaded Kuwait because of kuwaiti slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields, and only after Iraq was told that the united states would not interfere in the internal conflicts of the middle east. Saddam was hardly out to form some pan-arabic/islamic empire.
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The "slant drilling" idea is ridiculous. It holds no more weight than the WMD argument. It was merely a pretext. Its debatable whether it happened or not and has never been confirmed by an independent source. It allegedly happened a field which had joint ownership between Iraq and Kuwait anyway. Furthermore, the amount of oil they would have been sucking does not justify a full invasion of another country. There is, afterall, more than one possible course of action. Also, I dont think a US declaration of neutrality is an excuse to invade Kuwait. First of all Kuwait was a former British colony, so they would have been the ones to ask. It also doesnt change the fact that the Iraqis should have been able to realize what they were doing was wrong.
I think there is some truth to the pan-arabic empire argument. Saddam's party name translates into "return of a great pan-arabic empire". So it must have been in their idelogy somewhere. More specifically, the Iraqi governmetn publicly stated many times it considered Kuwait to be a natural part of Iraq that was split by British imperialism.