Cool USA Facts!

In 1990, The U.S. liberates Kuwait from Iraq in the Gulf War. Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, was formerly backed by the US when his regime invaded Iran in 1980, and before that was hired by the CIA in a botched assassination attempt on the then Iraqi president. During this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing, cementing Hussein’s power at home, and allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. 20,000–35,000 Iraqis were killed in the Gulf War, along with 75,000+ wounded. A vindictive U.N. embargo followed that several years later still denied Iraq the technological resources to recover its food production, medical services, and sanitation facilities. As late as 1993, CNN reported that nearly 300,000 Iraqi children were suffering from malnutrition. Deaths exceeded the normal rate by 125,000 yearly, mostly affecting ‘the poor, their infants, children, chronically ill, and elderly’. Iraqi citizens, who previously had enjoyed a decent living standard, were reduced to destitution.1