����ֱ��

LONDON: Disbelief. That was the reaction of Saudi general Prince Khalid bin Sultan when he answered the telephone at his home near Riyadh in the early hours of Aug. 2, 1990, and learnt that Iraq had invaded Kuwait.

The general had been entertaining friends at a barbecue, and they were still sipping coffee when the phone rang.

“War was the farthest thing from my mind,” Prince Khalid recalled in an article he wrote in 1993. “Arabs may disagree, but they don’t usually invade each other.”

The prince’s disbelief was shared by the rest of the world. 

Now, 35 years on, the avalanche of consequences triggered by Iraq’s unprovoked invasion of its tiny southern neighbor continues to reverberate — in Kuwait and the entire region.

In a surprise pre-dawn attack, hundreds of Iraqi tanks and tens of thousands of troops, backed by helicopters and fighter aircraft, began pouring over the border.

As a postwar report by the US Pentagon would later put it, “despite individual acts of bravery,” the heavily outnumbered Kuwaiti forces “were hopelessly outmatched.”

By 4 a.m., Iraqi troops were at the gates of Dasman Palace in the heart of Kuwait City. Emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and most of his family were evacuated just in time, seeking sanctuary in ����ֱ��, but his younger brother, Sheikh Fahad, was among those who died in defense of the palace.

Isolated units of the Kuwaiti army fought a series of running battles before withdrawing to regroup over the Saudi border. Hundreds were killed.

Pilots of the small Kuwaiti air force downed at least 20 helicopters ferrying Iraqi troops over the border before their bases were overrun. 

Many Kuwaitis fled the country, most seeking sanctuary in neighboring ����ֱ��. Those who were unable to escape faced an ordeal of looting, arrests and executions during an occupation that would last seven months.

A cable to Washington from US diplomats in ����ֱ�� on Nov. 22, 1990, reported that the invasion “and subsequent Iraqi brutalities in Kuwait literally drove Kuwait into ����ֱ��. 

“Thousands of refugees and the bulk of Kuwait’s government arrived on the scene in need of support and sustenance. The Saudis were and remain generous with both.”

Kuwait was liberated on Feb. 27, 1991, by the forces of a multinational US-led coalition which had been assembled in ����ֱ��. Iraq, previously an ally, had massed tanks on the border and fired Scud missiles at targets in the Kingdom. Just two days before the Iraqis were routed from Kuwait, one of these missiles killed 28 US personnel at a base in Dharan.

As they retreated, Iraqi forces set fire to hundreds of Kuwait’s oil wells. Thousands of Saddam Hussein’s soldiers died as they fled back to Iraq, their vehicles repeatedly attacked by coalition aircraft on Highway 80.

“Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, while garnering a historically united response from the international community, ironically also marked the beginning of regional disunity, distrust, and fragmentation,” said Caroline Rose, a defense and security director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington.

“The invasion incited new levels of wariness between Gulf states and their regional neighbors as Kuwait’s location and rich oil reserves had become a vulnerability, rather than a strength, that had motivated Iraq to invade.

“This promoted a ‘this could happen to us’ mentality among Gulf states, marking moves to increase defense ties with security guarantors such as the US.”

The invasion of Kuwait, and the resulting international intervention, she said, “also marked a sharp downward trend in political, economic and social stability in Iraq, later opening up the country for Iranian influence and campaigns to widen the sectarian divide in both Iraq and the Levant at large.” 

READ MORE:

•&�Բ�����;Desert Storm: 30 years on

•&�Բ�����;Analysis: How Iran reaped the rewards of Saddam’s 1990 Kuwait invasion

•&�Բ�����;Thirty years ago, Iraq invaded Kuwait

•&�Բ�����;Saddam Hussein ‘acted like Hitler’ during Kuwait invasion, former UK PM Thatcher said

Sir John Jenkins, former British ambassador to ����ֱ��, Iraq and Syria, agreed that the invasion and its aftermath “certainly encouraged Iran, and helped Tehran build on its successes in the 1980s in creating out of dissident exiled Iraqi Shiites the nucleus of a militia — the Badr Brigade — which ultimately helped to secure the victory of the Shiite Islamist bloc after 2003.”

There were other geopolitical upheavals. When Kuwait was liberated, “the expulsion of most Palestinians resident there, in retaliation for PLO chairman Yasser Arafat’s major error in supporting Saddam, resulted in an influx into Jordan, which raised Amman property prices and also made Jordanian Palestinians more radical.”

Perhaps most importantly, in the aftermath of the invasion “the passing at the UN in New York of a set of punitive resolutions imposing on Iraq requirements for compensation and redress and intrusive inspections of its weapons programs led to a breakdown of consensus within the UN Security Council, the food-for-oil scandal, and ultimately the discrediting of the UN as the last resort on issues of international peace and security.”

That, said Sir John, “is one reason US President George W. Bush thought he should go it alone in 2003.”

The fact that coalition forces stopped 240 kilometers short of Baghdad in 1991, choosing to leave Saddam Hussein in power, has remained controversial.

But in 2003, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, and under the pretext of searching for weapons of mass destruction, a US-led coalition returned to Iraq to finish the job, costing 300,000 Iraqi and US lives in the course of an invasion, occupation and subsequent insurgency that would last for years.

There were other far-reaching consequences of Iraq’s attack on Kuwait. In leading ultimately to the demise of Saddam Hussein, “it destroyed the last real champion of pan-Arabism, creating more space for radical Islamists,” said Sir John.

But it is for Kuwaitis that the echoes of invasion are loudest.

“To be a formerly occupied country is to be in quite a unique position,” said Bader Mousa Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University and an associate fellow on the Middle East and North Africa program at UK policy institute Chatham House.

“It has left Kuwait trapped in a combination of denial and survival mode, preventing a return to normalcy.

“We haven’t really sat down as a people to talk through what we went through — the traumas, the losses, and how we can move on.”

This failure to find national closure “has led to a lot of displaced energy in other spaces, such as rising crime and drug taking,” while an understandable focus on security has stalled Kuwait’s momentum.

“Our geography hasn’t changed,” said Al-Saif, who served as deputy chief of staff to a former prime minister of Kuwait.

“We’re still a small country surrounded by larger neighbors and keeping that all in check has, in a way, halted our own development. 

“If your mind is focused on survival, you’re not going to be able to push forward, in the way that the other Gulf states have pushed themselves forward.”

For many Kuwaitis, the largest unhealed wound is the fate of its “martyrs,” — the 308 people who, after 35 years, remain missing, presumed dead.

“Kuwait continues to fly the flag for these people — not only Kuwaiti nationals but also those from other countries who disappeared,” said Al-Saif.

After the war, the fate of more than 600 people, mainly civilians, was unknown. Some remains, found in mass graves in Iraq and identified by their DNA, have been returned, “but we cannot claim this chapter is fully closed until we can bring some relief to those 308 families that are still seeking answers and want to honor and safeguard their loved ones by burying them properly.”

The Iraqi government, said Al-Saif, “has been working to support this, which is why we have recovered the remains of some people, but this work needs to continue. And while Kuwait does not doubt the sincerity, due diligence and hard efforts of Iraq, it is pushing for more speed and agility in this matter.”

There is also the issue of Kuwait’s national archives, stolen during the invasion, the fate of which remains even less clear.

“The archive remains missing, and we haven’t received any information about it. A few things have been returned, but much of the fabric of the country’s heritage and memories remains lost, and this also needs to be resolved,” said Al-Saif.

For the past 35 years, he added, “Kuwait has been striving for normalcy,” a quest frustrated in part by the ongoing uncertainty over its maritime borders.

“As an aspiring responsible nation which abides by the rules-based international order, having fixed borders is the least that you can demand, and we haven’t been able to settle the maritime boundary between Iraq and Kuwait for the past 20 years,” he said.

Ever since 2005, when the first government of Iraq was elected in the wake of the US occupation, Kuwait has been working to resolve this unsettling issue.

“But we’re at a standstill,” said Al-Saif. “Committees have come and gone but there hasn’t been any closure on this, which isn’t good for either country.”

The issue centers on the Khor Abdullah, the narrow waterway shared between the two countries for about 50 kilometers before it enters the Arabian Gulf.

There has been a long-running dispute over the precise location of the maritime boundary beyond the mouth of the waterway, an issue which — as highlighted by an analysis by the International Crisis Group, co-authored by Al-Saif and published last month — has been exploited by Iraqi politicians “seemingly hoping to boost their own electoral fortunes.” 

Such rabble rousing seems to be working. A meeting in Kuwait City on July 17 of the Joint Kuwaiti-Iraqi Technical and Legal Committee provoked outcry in Iraq, with politicians claiming that access to Iraq’s new Grand Faw Port was under threat, along with Iraqi sovereignty. 

Meanwhile, said Al-Saif, the uncertainty would undermine the confidence of investors and industry over the viability of both the Grand Faw Port in Iraq and Kuwait’s Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port, both currently under construction barely miles apart on opposite banks near the mouth of the Khor Abdullah.

He concluded: “This needs to be sorted out for the sake of all concerned. Unfortunately, the Kuwait card is being played in Iraq to draw attention away from domestic issues there.”
 

GAZA CITY: In some tents and shelters in northern Gaza, emaciated children are held in their parents’ arms. Their tiny arms and legs dangle limp. Their shoulder blades and ribs stick out from skeletal bodies, slowly consuming themselves for lack of food.
Starvation always stalks the most vulnerable first. Kids with preexisting conditions, like cerebral palsy, waste away quickly because the high-calorie foods they need have run out, along with nutritional supplements.
But after months of Israeli blockade and turmoil in the distribution of supplies, children in Gaza with no previous conditions are also starting to die from malnutrition, aid workers and doctors say.
Over the past month, 28 children have died of malnutrition-related causes, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, though it’s not known how many had other conditions. 
Medical professionals staff the ministry, and the UN and other experts see its figures on war deaths as the most reliable estimate of casualties.
Salem Awad was born in January with no medical problems. He is the youngest of six children, his mother, Hiyam Awad, said. But she was too weak from lack of food to breastfeed him.
For the first two months of Salem’s life, a ceasefire was in place in Gaza, and more aid was available, but even then, it was still hard to find milk for him, his mother said. In March, Israel cut off all food from entering the territory for more than 2 ½ months.
Since then, Salem has been wasting away. Now he weighs 4 kg, his mother said. 
“He just keeps losing weight. At the hospital, they say if he doesn’t get milk, he could die,” she said, speaking in the family’s tent in Gaza City.
Israel has been allowing a trickle of aid into Gaza since late May. 
Following an international outcry over increasing starvation, it has introduced new measures, which it claims are intended to increase the amount of food reaching the population, including airdrops and pauses in military operations in some areas. 
But so far, they have not had a significant effect, aid groups say.
Food experts warned this week that the “worst-case scenario of famine is playing out in Gaza.” 
The UN says the impact of hunger building for months is quickly worsening, especially in Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza, where it estimates nearly one in five children is now acutely malnourished.
Across Gaza, more than 5,000 children were diagnosed with malnutrition this month, though that is likely an undercount, the UN says. Malnutrition was virtually nonexistent before the war. 
Doctors struggle to treat the children because many supplies have run out, the UN says.
Israel denies that a famine is taking place or that children are starving. It says it has supplied enough food throughout the war and accuses Hamas of causing shortages by stealing aid and trying to control food distribution.
Humanitarian groups deny that a significant diversion of food takes place. 
Throughout nearly 22 months of war, the number of aid trucks has been far short of the roughly 500 a day the UN says is needed.
The impact is seen most strongly in children with special needs — and those who have been grievously wounded in Israeli bombardment.
Mosab Al-Dibs, 14, suffered a heavy head wound on May 7 when an airstrike hit next to his family’s tent. For about two months, he has been at Shifa Hospital, largely paralyzed, only partly conscious, and severely malnourished because the facility no longer has the supplies to feed him, said Dr. Jamal Salha.
Mosab’s mother, Shahinaz Al-Dibs, said the boy was healthy before the war, but that since he was wounded, his weight has fallen from 40 kilograms to less than 10 (88 to 22 pounds)
At his bedside, she moves his spindly arms to exercise them. The networks of tiny blue veins are visible through the nearly transparent skin over his protruding ribs. The boy’s eyes dart around, but he doesn’t respond.
His mother puts some bread soaked in water — the only food she can afford — into a large syringe and squirts it into his mouth in a vain attempt to feed him. Most of it dribbles out from his lips. What he needs is a nutrient formula suitable for tube feeding that the hospital doesn’t have, Salha said.
At a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in Gaza City, Samah Matar cradles her son Yousef as his little brother Amir lies on a cushion beside her — both of them emaciated. The two boys have cerebral palsy and also need a special diet.
“Before the war, their health situation was good,” said Matar. They could get the foods they needed, but now “all those things have disappeared, and their health has declined continually.”
Yousef, 6 years old, has lost 5 kg since the war, dropping from 14 kg to 9 kg. His 4-year-old brother, Amir, has lost weight, shrinking from 9kg to under 6, she said.