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Geography and History in the Iraq War Essay

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Geography Shapes the Course of Iraq War The course of the Iraq War has been shaped immensely by the geography of the region for nearly 40 years. The movement of Iraq forces throughout the region, for better or worse, has had many effects on the way in which the way has gone. For instance, these forces often threatened certain resources needed by many countries and regions. The result of this was often war or conflict, concluding in a devastating amount of casualties. This also left Iraq with debt as well as very low resources such as food and water. The basis of the whole entire war has been on certain aspects of the geography, which has had a result of creating many small wars throughout this whole ordeal as well as many other …show more content…

During this time the United States had supported Iraq. The Western powers also supported Iraq, helping Saddam with the creation of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Although, in 1981 Israel attacked and destroyed a nuclear reactor in which Saddam had hoped to make a bomb. In 1988, both countries eventually agreed to peace. The results of the war were catastrophic with a total of about one million Iraqi and Iranian casualties. Only two years later, Hussein started a war with Kuwait on false claims that it had stolen from Iraq's oilfields. Another one of Hussein's false claims was that he stated Kuwait was Iraq's Nineteenth province. With this said, the first Gulf War was started in 1990 (Eugene 4) Within three days, Iraq had taken over Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabian oilfields. In response to this, the United States initiated Operation Desert Shield to protect Saudi Arabia. Operation Desert Storm began only 4 months after Iraq's initial intent on invading Kuwait. Within almost 4 days, US forces drove out Iraq all the way from Kuwait to the southern border of Iraq. Due to this invasion, Iraq was ordered to destroy all weapons and factories that held and created non-conventional weapons. For many years, Iraq did not cooperate with UN sanctions. Iraq did not destroy its weapons either. On contrary, it used the UN's oil for food program to acquire even more weapons. Following September 11, 2001, the United States began to make it

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