“The war with Iran left Iraq in ruins. When Saddam Hussein launched his eight year war against Iran, Iraq had $40 billion in hard currency reserves. But by the end of the war, his nation was $80 billion in debt. Iraq was pressed to repay the $80 billion to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with interest. While Iraq was distracted by its war, Kuwait had accumulated 900 square miles of Iraqi territory by advancing its border with Iraq northward. This was presented to Iraq as a fait accompli and it gave Kuwait access to the Rumaila oil field. The Kuwaiti Sheik had purchased the Santa Fe Drilling Corporation of Alhambra, California, for $2.3 billion and proceeded to use its slant drilling equipment to gain access to the Iraqi oil field.” Source: David Klein, “Mechanisms of Western Domination: A Short History of Iraq and Kuwait,” from the website of California State University, Northridge, at
csun.edu/~vcmth00m/iraqkuwait.html
The above is from a secondary source and so cannot be confidently regarded as fact. However, I first read years ago of the allegation that Kuwait was stealing Iraq’s oil in a pre-Gulf War I issue of The Petroleum Economist. The Petroleum Economist article was not simply reporting Iraq’s claim. From the perspective of expertise in the petroleum industry, it was reporting the allegation as meritorious, i.e., as probable fact. Unfortunately, I do not have access to that article at this time.
But without discussing the merits of Iraq’s 1990 case against Kuwait, which would be highly fact-intensive, involving facts that I don’t have access to, I will state that it is my belief that, had Iraq been a liberal democracy in 1990, it would have accused Kuwait of stealing its oil. In other words, regardless of whether the claim had merit or not, it was colorable, i.e., it was not outrageous. Whether this claim is right is of course debatable, but if it is right, then Iraq’s invasion could not properly be characterized as pre-emptive since the alleged wrongful acts on the part of Kuwait had already taken place.
“The Ottoman-British Agreement of 1913 recognizes Kuwait as a District under the jurisdiction of the Province of Basra. Since sovereignty over Basra has been transferred from the Ottoman state to the Iraqi state, that sovereignty has to include Kuwait under the terms of the 1913 Agreement. Iraq has not recognized any change in the status of Kuwait.” Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1938 communication to the British Ambassador in Baghdad. Quoted in Klein, ibid. [My note: admittedly the Anglo-Ottoman Agreement of 1913 was never ratified, because the two parties went to war with each other the following year.]
I read about this claim, apparently a plausible one, in a book called Shifting Lines in the Sand: Kuwait’s Elusive Frontier with Iraq, by David H. Finnie (Harvard University Press, 1992). Surprisingly, this book sought to justify the 1990 war against Iraq while grudgingly making what seemed to me a good case in favor of Iraq’s claims to Kuwait.
“A popular uprising within Kuwait to reunify with Iraq erupted on March 10, 1939. The Kuwaiti Sheik, with British military support and ‘advisers,’ crushed the uprising, and killed or imprisoned its participants. King Ghazi of Iraq publicly demanded the release of the prisoners and warned the Sheik to end the repression of the Free Kuwaiti Movement. Ghazi ignored warnings by Britain to discontinue such public statements, and on April 5, 1939, he was found dead. It was widely assumed that he was assassinated by British agents. Faisal II was an infant at that time, and Nuri es-Said, a former officer of the Ottoman Army with British loyalties, became the de facto leader of Iraq.” Klein, ibid.
Again, without addressing the merits of Iraq’s case, which would have best been settled in some kind of neutral court (neutrality is probably no longer possible), it is my belief that, had Iraq been a liberal democracy in 1990, it would have claimed that Kuwait belonged to it. And this claim, whether held to be right or not, would have been reasonable, i.e., not outrageous or frivolous.
In other words, regardless of Saddam or his regime, definite allegations of wrongdoing were made by Iraq which, if true, any Iraqi government–whether dictatorship, monarchy, or democracy–would have been within the bounds of reason in acting on. And I cannot imagine how an attempt to take territory forcibly which one claims and which is in the hands of another can be properly characterized as pre-emptive–wrong, maybe (or maybe not), but not pre-emptive.
A book with good background about relations between Kuwait, Iraq, and other countries of the area, and Britain’s relations with them, is Kuwait and Her Neighbours, by H.R.P. Dickson (Allen & Unwin, 1956). Colonel Dickson lived among the Arabs for a great part of his life and was British Political Agent in Kuwait in the 1920s. He was also, as far as I can tell, a good guy.
