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, but by the carpentry tool kit which lay on the small bedside table."
(Coughlin 12) The Iraqi soldiers showed no mercy on the victims, very few if any survived
the abuse given within the nursery.
After looting or destroying everything the Kuwaitis had the Iraqis tried to steal the
only thing they had left, their pride. "It is the human factor that hurt most, the Iraqi
forces treated the people as they did the property. They trashed them, leaving them with
no pride to hold on to." (Kelly 23) In doing this the Iraqis succeeded in what they were
trying to do. They stole the Kuwaitis' pride. "At one point the Iraqis brought a new
mother before captured Kuwaiti resistance fighters and stripped her naked. 'Here is the
milk of Kuwait,' they taunted. 'Drink it.' Eventually the Iraqis dumped the woman back
home, alive. It was enough to humiliate the essence of the Kuwaiti spirit." (Strasser 36)
Tormenting the Kuwaitis was only one part in Iraq's plan to destroy Kuwait's identity
although torture and rapes were by far the cruelest.
"Rape and torture not resulting in death were also common. Almost everyone I talked to
in four days had a story of some friend or relative being abused." (Kelly 24) "Poorly
trained Iraqi conscripts and volunteers of the People's Army militia often behaved
without restraint. Their treatment of women was particularly outrageous under Islamic
law. Iraqi soldiers raped at will." (Strasser 36) The more common rape victims were young
men and women in their early twenties. Rape was not the only torture inflicted upon the
Kuwaitis. Many types of torture were used to humiliate the Kuwaitis.
The most commonly used type of torture was ripping off finger and toenails. They were
often picked up at random during walks or tortured for displaying the emir's picture,
either on themselves or somewhere within their house or workplace. Other type of torture
used was, "Lifting the detainee high up in the air and then dropping them, sometimes
resulting in the fracturing of bones." (Internet 4) Another way of torturing victims was
to threaten the prisoners with weapons used to torture their friends or relatives this
included holding empty guns in their mouths and pulling the trigger. Also, "Raping or
torturing the detainee's relative in his or her presence then threating the detainee with
such acts." (Internet 8) These scare tactics often threw the prisoner into shock where he
or she would fall to the ground crying begging to be released. "A bullet through the
mouth or the back of the head was in some cases the kindest Iraqi punishment." (Strasser
36) The number of Kuwaitis that were tortured is very high and almost impossible to
calculate.
"Abdul Rahman Al-wadi, Kuwait's minister of state for cabinet affairs claims that 33,000
people disappeared since August 2. The Iraqis are reliably estimated to have taken as
many as 20,000 prisoners to Iraq to serve as slave labors, and another 3,000 to 5,000 as
hostages and sheilds in the days just before the allied ground defensive. By the
minister's reckoning, that would put the number of murdered between 8,000 and 10,000."
(Kelly 23) Although this is only a hypothesized guess, these are astonishing numbers
considering Kuwait's size and population.
The Kuwaitis suffering was long and undeserving, they are loving and peaceful people who
never expected to be the target of such atrocities. The rebirth of Kuwait, with the help
of the Allied forces, will take many drawn out years. Kuwait intends to rebuild their
small country around a technological core to be well defended and equipped before another
dictator tries to wipe away their identity.
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