In August of 1990 Iraq started its long and vicious attack on
Kuwait leaving thousands dead from their torturous reign as Kuwait's
dictator. Kuwait, as defenseless as it was, had no chance against Iraq's
small but mighty forces. It took a collection of United State's, Britain's,
and France's elite to put an end to Iraq's torment on the small country.
The torture and torment inflicted upon Kuwaitis during Iraq's occupation of
Kuwait however, has many more reasons than first appears.
"Iraq's occupation forces intended to erase the conquered nation's
identity." (Strasser 36) Iraq intended on doing this by blotting out every
sign of Kuwaiti life within Kuwait. The Iraqi forces did this in many ways.
Strasser reported that "blotting out the word 'Kuwait' on road signs was
one tactic, ripping off the fingernails of people displaying the emir's
picture was another." There is a reasoning behind erasing Kuwait's identity
that seems important to Iraq; to take from the rich and give to the poor; a
sort of Robin Hood justification.
Although trying to justify what Iraq did to the Kuwaitis is futile,
Iraq did what any starving animal in the wild would do, steal from its
neighbor. "The occupiers looted Kuwait as a matter of policy, reasoning
that the wealth of the 19th province was needed elsewhere in greater Iraq."
(Strasser 36) Iraqis showed no mercy when it came to looting. "The city
the Iraqis left behind appeared to have been worked over by a huge army of
drunken teenage vandals. They stole everything they could, from air
conditioners to cigarettes, in a citywide smash and grab." (Kelly 22) No
reasoning can make what Iraq did right the torment the Kuwaitis endured is
unnerving.
Very little escaped the Iraqis, "What the Iraqis could not steal,
they destroyed, in an astonishingly savage and thorough rampage." (Kelly
22) Not even the Kuwaitis imagined that the Iraqis could be so harsh and
brutal. "Kuwaitis were stunned by the Iraqi soldiers' habit of turning
every place they went into a sty." (Kelly 23) Iraqi soldiers left very
little standing; they burned down the emir's office buildings, residential
palaces, as well as the parliament building, and this was just the
beginning.
The palace of Prince Mubarak al Sabah, a close relative of the emir
of Kuwait, was turned upside down. His basement was turned into a war room
where Iraqi soldiers planned their defense of Kuwait against allied attack.
"But he [Prince Sabah] will need to brace himself before he ventures
upstairs into the nursery of the royal siblings. The doors are still
covered with the welcoming pictures of characters from nursery rhymes and
television cartoons, but what lies within is adult perversion of a high
order." (Coughlin 11) The nursery was turned into an Iraqi interrogation
station, where they tortured their victims with various items. "Pools of
congealed blood were still visible beneath the bed frame. These has been
caused, one imagines, not by thousands of volts coursing through the
victims bodies, ...