Middle East Wars

Who consumes the most oil?

1991-Persian Gulf War Iraq led by Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 in an effort to control Kuwait’s large supplies of oil.

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein also claimed that when the Ottoman Empire was broken up at the end of WWI, the area that became the country of Kuwait should have been part of Iraq.

The United Nations voted to raise a military force to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion. Because of the threat to the oil supply, the United States sent troops to be part of the United Nations military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

Kuwait Liberated Thirty nine countries joined in and within three months, by February 1991, the Iraqi government accepted a truce and agreed to withdraw from Kuwait.

2001- Afghanistan Invasion On the morning of September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda (a group of Islamic extremists) hijacked four planes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center, crashed one into the Pentagon, and the fourth one crashed in a rural area.

Osama Bin Laden Al Qaeda was headed by a man named Osama Bin Laden.

THE TALIBAN Afghanistan had no real government and a group of people called the Taliban had controlled much of the country. President Bush had demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama Bin Laden for ordering the attacks on America. The Taliban refused.

Women’s dress under Taliban rule

October 2001 the United States invaded Afghanistan in search of Osama bin Laden..

Results The U.S. to this day still has troops in Afghanistan to hold back the Taliban. May 2011 Bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan and was killed by U.S. forces.

2003-Iraq War When the Persian Gulf war ended Iraq was told it could not produce weapons of mass destruction. After the war with Afghanistan the U.S. believed it had information that Saddam Hussein was producing WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) They also believed that Saddam may have had connections with Al Qaeda.

Congress then passed a resolution allowing the United States to lead an attack on Iraq. The United States invaded Iraq and Saddam Hussein was captured.

Results Saddam Hussein was put on trial for killing thousands of his own people and using chemical weapons on the Kurds and Iranians As of today no weapons of mass destruction have been found and the US government is still in Iraq but no longer in combat. Saddam Hussein was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2006.