‘Most people think that the 1990 war was the first time Iraq wanted to invade. But that is not the case.’ says the author Louise Burfitt-Dons who was born and brought up in the country. ‘It is clear Kuwait has always been a target for its neighbour. And it had nothing to do with one of the excuses Saddam Hussein came up with.’
Burfitt-Dons argues that the invasion by Iraq was not motivated by retaliation for slant drilling, as Hussein claimed. US Military scientist Douglas Daniel agrees, stating that the technology used for slant drilling in 1990 could not have been used to deplete Iraq’s oil reserves, as Iraq was already one of the world’s major oil producers.
‘Saddam invaded Kuwait because he thought that he could get away with it. Kuwait was and is a very oil-rich country. Saddam wanted it,’ says Daniel.
The novel, Our Man in Kuwait, written by Burfitt-Dons and described as a “brilliant marriage of fact and fiction” by chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, is set in 1960 during the run-up to Kuwait’s independence and includes the discovery of weaponised anthrax in the desert.
In 1961, Iraq’s president, Abd al-Karim Qasim, claimed that Kuwait was part of Iraq and announced plans to annex it. In response, the amir of Kuwait asked for help from Saudi Arabia and Great Britain, leading to the deployment of British troops and equipment to Kuwait. The Arab League eventually gathered enough support to take over the protection of Kuwait, and by October, the British forces had completed a withdrawal.
