"The mother of all battles": in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a U.S.-led coalition ousted Iraq from Kuwait. But the conflict didn't end there.

• Author: Price, Sean
• Position: Times past

The U.S. Marines entering Kuwait City on February 27, 1991, didn't know what to expect. Kuwait had been overrun seven months earlier by Iraqi troops. Saddam Hussein's soldiers, some of whom had a formidable reputation, had looted and destroyed the capital, one of the Middle East's richest cities.

Now an American-led coalition had arrived, determined to free Kuwait. Out of the nation's wreckage, throngs of Kuwaitis sprang up to greet U.S. soldiers as liberators. Marine Gen. Walt Boomer recalled:

They came down to the side of the road by the thousands and they had Kuwaiti flags and some had American flags.... What they were saying was "God bless you, America. God bless you."

It was a triumphant moment for the U.S. military, which had struggled for two decades with the legacy of defeat in Vietnam. It was also a vindication of President George Bush, father of President George W. Bush; working through the United Nations, he had built the international coalition that defeated Iraq.

But after the cheering ended, victory in the Persian Gulf war seemed strangely hollow. Bush had billed the war as the first step in building a more lawful world. Yet the biggest practical effect was to keep Middle Eastern oil flowing. And Saddam, a man often called the "Butcher of Baghdad," was left in control of Iraq.

BAGHDAD'S BLITZKRIEG

The ferocity of Iraq's August 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait had shocked the world. Eyewitnesses told of widespread atrocities by Iraqi soldiers. One reported what happened after soldiers rounded up six Kuwaiti boys, most of them about 15 or 16 years old:

The soldiers were beating the boys with an [antenna] across the face, head, and legs ... after a few minutes we heard the sound of gunfire and rushing to the window we saw the five bigger boys lying on the ground.

The attack also caught Bush off guard. In 1979, when a revolution turned Iran from friendly to anti-American, the U.S. began pouring billions in aid into rival Iraq. Saddam launched a war against Iran that lasted eight years and ended in a standoff.

The conflict left Saddam nearly bankrupt and owing billions to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iraq tried to raise money to rebuild by selling its oil, but prices were low. Saddam accused the Kuwaitis of flooding the market. (He also claimed Kuwait should be part of Iraq, since the territories had been joined briefly, until the early 1900s, under the Ottoman Empire.)

Saddam's invasion was intended to erase his debt to Kuwait and add to...