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The 1991 Gulf War ended in March 1991 with Saddam Hussein's Iraq suffering military defeat and his regime accepting conditions for a cease fire - U.N. Security Council Resolution 686. Iraq agreed to "Accept in principle its liability for any loss, damage, or injury arising in regard to Kuwait and third States, and their nationals and corporations, as a result of the invasion and illegal occupation of Kuwait by Iraq." In April the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 687, demanding that Iraq destroy, remove and render harmless its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometers. This disarmament was supposed to be done "under international supervision."
Hussein at this time was concerned with the survival of regime, as seen in the repression of revolts in the Kurdish north of Iraq and the Shia in southern Iraq. Hussein was concerned also with his dignity. According to the Duelfer Report of 2004, based on extensive interviews with Iraqis, in the year 1991 Hussein announced: "We will never lower our heads as long as we live... " Protecting his image, he had emerged from the war proclaiming victory. At the same time he was concerned about Iraq's military weakness vis-à-vis his former enemy Iran and other neighbors. He did not want Iran's Shiite rulers taking Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War as an opportunity for revenge. Hussein went into the year 1991 wanting potential enemies to believe that he still had fearsome weapons. He spoke of fear of his weapons as having stopped coalition forces going all the way to Baghdad to overthrow his regime. He believed that in his war against Iran in the 1980s his chemical shells had repelled Iran's "human wave" assaults and that his missiles had broken the will of Iran's leaders. Hussein agreed to Resolution 687. Economic sanctions had been imposed on Iraq since Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and interviews with Iraqis described in the Duelfer Report suggest that Saddam Hussein wanted to comply with the U.N. resolutions in order to lift the economic sanctions but that he also did not want to leave the impression that he had been weakened by defeat.
Rather than fully comply with Resolution 687, Hussein chose to destroy his weapons of mass destruction surreptitiously. An estimate in the Duelfer Report suggests that in 1991-92 Hussein destroyed biological weapons and chemical weapons. He had a few dozen scud missiles, capable of reaching 600 miles - more than the 150 kilometers allowed by the Security Council resolution. According to interviews described in the Duelfer report he hoped some day to develop more long range ballistic missiles, but for the time being such weapons were not planned for production and his nuclear program was not progressing. His deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, wanted "concessions from the UN in return for Iraq's compliance with UN sanctions." But it was Hussein (president and prime minister) who was in charge and Hussein was not in the habit of heeding or listening to advise from subordinates.
Hussein complained to the world that the monitoring and verification plans adopted by the Security Council were unlawful. He campaigned to end the sanctions while U.N. weapons inspectors were in Iraq looking for weapons. And his conflict with the U.N. grew. The Security Council resolved that Iraq "end its repression" against all Iraqi citizens, and the Security Council created a no-fly zone to protect the Shiite population in southern Iraq and to provide a buffer between Hussein's regime and Kuwait. Hussein responded with a veiled threat about danger to coalition aircraft and pilots.
The governments of the United States and Britain remained hostile toward Hussein. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker announced on May 20, 1991, that the U.S. was not interested in supporting a relaxation of the sanctions against Iraq" as long as Hussein was in power." Britain and the U.S. remained hostile through 1992, and relations did not improve in April 1993 when it was alleged that the Hussein regime had attempted to assassinate the former U.S. president, George Herbert Walker Bush, while he was visiting Kuwait as a private citizen. The new president, Bill Clinton, ordered U.S. ships to launch Tomahawk missiles against the headquarters where it was thought the Iraqis had plotted the assassination.
In 1994 the Hussein regime drained water from southern marshlands where the Ma'dan (or marsh) Arabs had lived for centuries. The Ma'dan were Shia Muslims and unfriendly toward the Hussein regime. The Hussein regime claimed that it was merely diverting water for improved land use. International opponents of the Hussein regime accused it of using troops, mines, poison and artillery against the Ma'dan. A few people protested vehemently, among them the well-known scholar and television documentary maker, Michael Woods. But largely people in the West cared little about what some were calling another genocide.
What did concern many people outside of Iraq was the suffering in Iraq they believed was caused by the U.N.'s economic sanctions. The Hussein regime began attributing every Iraqi child's death to the sanctions. The U.N. sanctions had always exempted food and medicine, leaving the regime free to import these goods in whatever quantities it wanted. Then the U.N. took a step that would provide the Hussein regime with more opportunity to reduce the deprivations of people within Iraq. It passed Resolution 986, allowing Iraq freedom to export oil in exchange for humanitarian aid - the oil-for-food program. But months went by without Hussein accepting the idea, while smuggling was taking place. Hussein's eldest son, Uday, was collecting on average $10 million a year as payment for cigarettes being smuggled into Iraq - according to Abbas al-Janabi, who served as his private secretary between 1984 and 1998. None of this income has been reported to have been spent as a contribution to the needs of Iraq's suffering children.
Hussein had often made a show of concern and interest in all aspects of Iraqi life, from children's poetry to public hygiene, and the amount of credence that the international community was willing to give to Hussein's concern for Iraqi's suffering children benefited Hussein in his effort to be rid of the economic sanctions against him. Meanwhile what Hussein appeared most concerned about was not the well being of others but the security of his rule. In 1995 his son-in-law, General Hussein Kamil Hasan al-Majid and his brother and their families fled from Iraq to Jordan. Hussein invited them back to Iraq, promising them forgiveness and a pardon. They returned on February 20 and were killed on February 23. Four months later, Hussein's regime arrested military officers that it suspected of plotting a coup. Approximately 400 were executed, supervised by Uday Hussein. In August, Saddam Hussein launched an offensive into the northern no-fly zone, to the city of Ibril, where they rounded up and executed 96 members of a group opposed to Hussein. The U.S. retaliated by attacking southern Iraq with cruise missiles and by expanding the no-fly zone one degree southward, from the 32nd to the 33rd parallel.
In December 1995, Uday Hussein was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt. Saddam Hussein became more cautious and reclusive. Afraid of assassination he had not been using a telephone since 1990, and now he was moving from palace to palace. Sometimes it took senior officials a few days to reach him, the officials frustrated because it was Hussein who made the strategic decisions.
In 1996, Hussein's regime had begun hostile standoffs with the UN arms inspectors - while the United States had been enjoying cooperation with former Soviet Republics that were destroying weapons of mass destruction in full view of inspectors.
In 1996 the World Health Organization published a report claiming that between the years 1990 and 1994 the number of deaths of children under the age of five in the provinces governed by the Hussein regime had jumped nearly 500 percent - from 8,903 in 1990 to 52,905. Protests against the sanctions increased, and on May 20, 1996, Hussein accepted the U.N.'s oil-for-food offer. The Hussein regime began exporting oil under the oil-for-food program in December 1996. According to the Duelfer Report, the regime saw the program as an opportunity to rescue "Baghdad's economy from a terminal decline created by the sanctions." The regime gave various people interested in profit vouchers that allowed them to buy oil at a low price and sell it to others. In return for this favor he received cash payments - kickbacks - which, according to the BBC amounted to billions of dollars.
Washington D.C., meanwhile, had not softened toward Hussein. The Clinton administration's continuing hostility was expressed by Madelein Albright in her first major address as Secretary of State in early 1997. She announced that even if Iraq complied with its "obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction," sanctions would not be lifted. For this to happen, she said, Iraq must prove [emphasis added] its peaceful intentions, and "It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council resolutions to which it is subjected."
The Hussein regime chose confrontation to protect what it called its sovereignty. In November 1997, Iraq expelled UN weapons inspectors who were from the United States. In February, Iraq refused to allow weapons inspectors into any of Hussein's many presidential palaces.
In May 1998, Albright was asked about the sanctions. She responded:
... the fact that Iraqi children are dying is not the fault of the United States, but of Saddam Hussein. And I think it is ridiculous for the United States to be blamed for the dictatorial and cruel, barbaric ways that Saddam Hussein treats his people.
She complained of Saddam Hussein not "accepting the procedure that the U.N. has designed" to double the amount of he received in food for his oil. And, regarding blame for Iraqi suffering, she said: "So you can't lay that guilt trip on me."
Neither had the U.S. Congress softened regarding Iraq. On October 5, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives passed what was called the Iraq Liberation Act, with the stated purpose of removing Saddam Hussein from power and replacing his regime with a democratic government. The vote was 360 to 38. President Clinton signed it into law on October 31, the same day that Hussein expelled all U.N. weapons inspectors. If Clinton wanted to retaliate he could not use the method traditionally preferred by people who abhorred violence - the economic boycott. Instead he planned to retaliate by more bombing. On November 14, he set aside this plan in response to an Iraqi pledge to allow resumption of inspections. The inspections resumed on November 18. President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair of Britain decided that the Hussein regime was not really cooperating with the weapons inspectors, and on December 17 the U.S. and British forces began a four-day bombing campaign against Iraqi command centers, airfields, weapons storage facilities and radar and missile sites. In January, 1999, the Clinton and Blair administrations began bombing within the northern no-fly zone, with more than 100 air strikes were made through the year 1999.
The air strikes accomplished nothing. Hussein did not change course and look weak by giving in to demands associated with the bombing campaign. What the bombings did produce were more protest demonstrations. President Clinton's motives were questioned. A few joined a former U.S. Attorney General, Ramsey Clarke and spoke of genocide against the Iraqi people. People from Britain and the U.S. were flying to Iraq to witness and make pronouncements on the hurt being caused the Iraqi people.
Saddam Hussein had begun writing novels. The Duelfer report describes him as a "former workaholic and micromanager, and now he was attending an occasional ministers' meetings without having read summary notes his staff had prepared for him.
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