COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION CENTRE FACTS ABOUT IRAQ KUWAIT

At midnight on 1st August 1990, Iraqi forces began their advance towards Kuwait. By 2nd August 1990, Iraqi forces were in full control of Kuwait City.

Under the control of Ali Hassan al-Majid, Member of the Regional Command and Sab'awi Ibrahim, head of the Intelligence Directorate in Kuwait (and later Aziz Salih al-Noman as Governor of Kuwait), the Iraqi security forces imposed a brutal security regime on Kuwait.

Around half a million Iraqi documents were captured by Coalition forces after the liberation of Kuwait and they serve to show the full extent of the repression. Among the documents can be found orders to execute owners of houses bearing anti-Iraqi slogans orders to kill on sight any civilian caught on the streets after curfew or anyone involved in any resistance activity and orders to use machine guns, grenade launchers and flame throwers against civilian demonstrators.

The documentation and eyewitness accounts arising from the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait suggest very strongly that the Iraqi regime committed massive violations of humanitarian law and that their actions constituted grave breaches of the Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War (1949) as defined in Article 147.

The Iraqis were guilty of the systematic use of torture both as a method of extracting information and as a punishment. Suspected members of the Kuwaiti Armed Forces and those suspected of resistance activity were particularly brutally treated. Individuals were subjected to beatings, electric shocks, burns, mock executions and sexual torture including rape (one source cites up to 1000 reported cases of rape and many more may have gone unrecorded).

Other methods of torture reported included cutting off ears and tongues, gouging of eyes and castration. Arbitrary extrajudicial executions were commonplace in Kuwait during the occupation and could result from even the least show of resistance or objection to the Iraqi occupation. Over 600 Kuwaiti and other nationals transferred to Iraq during the occupation have still not been accounted for.

The Iraqis systematically looted Kuwait and destroyed what they could not take with them. They stripped Kuwait of its national archives and stole the contents of museums. In addition, the Iraqis removed Kuwaiti military equipment, including eight Mirage F-1 aircraft, 245 armoured fighting vehicles and 675 surface-to-air missile batteries. Captured Iraqi documents contain orders from Saddam to loot Kuwait of medical supplies, educational supplies, cars and luxury goods and transfer them to Iraq.

Between the date of invasion and December 1991, thousands of foreign nationals were held hostage to dissuade their countries from joining the Coalition against Iraq. In the latter stages of their detention many were moved to industrial and military sites and used as human shields against attack. Coalition prisoners of war were subjected to torture and mistreatment in violation of the Geneva Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of prisoners of War (12th August 1949).

Kuwait has had to spend over $5 billion to repair the damage to its oil infrastructure caused by Saddam’s brutal invasion.

Kuwait has a population of just over two million people and an additional 1.1 million non-Kuwaiti nationals also live and work in the small country. It is a small, relatively open economy with proved crude oil reserves of about 94 billion barrels - 10% of world reserves. Petroleum accounts for nearly half of GDP, 90% of export revenues, and 75% of government income.

After Kuwait's liberation, the UN established a five-member boundary commission to demarcate the Kuwait-Iraq boundary in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 687, which reaffirmed the inviolability of the Iraq-Kuwait border. In April 1992, the commission announced its findings, which demarcated the Kuwaiti border with Iraq about 570 meters to the north near the Iraqi town of Safwan.

Sources: CIA Factbook, Kuwait on Line, Library of Congress