Transcript Middle East Wars

Middle East Wars
Who consumes the most oil?
1991-Persian Gulf War
Iraq led by
Saddam Hussein
invaded Kuwait
in 1990 in an
effort to control
Kuwait’s large
supplies of oil.
Saddam Hussein
• Saddam Hussein also claimed that when
the Ottoman Empire was broken up at the
end of WWI, the area that became the
country of Kuwait should have been part of
Iraq.
• The United Nations voted to raise a
military force to liberate Kuwait from the
Iraqi invasion. Because of the threat to the
oil supply, the United States sent troops to
be part of the United Nations military force
to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.
Kuwait Liberated
• Thirty nine countries joined in and within
three months, by February 1991, the Iraqi
government accepted a truce and agreed
to withdraw from Kuwait.
2001- Afghanistan Invasion
• On the morning of
September 11, 2001 Al
Qaeda (a group of Islamic
extremists) hijacked four
planes and crashed two of
them into the World Trade
Center, crashed one into
the Pentagon, and the
fourth one crashed in a
rural area.
Osama Bin Laden
• Al Qaeda was headed by
a man named Osama Bin
Laden.
THE TALIBAN
Afghanistan had no
real government and
a group of people
called the Taliban
had controlled much
of the country.
President Bush had
demanded that the
Taliban hand over
Osama Bin Laden
for ordering the
attacks on America.
The Taliban refused.
Women’s dress under Taliban rule
October 2001
the United
States
invaded
Afghanistan in
search of
Osama bin
Laden.
.
Results
• The U.S. to this day still
has troops in Afghanistan
to hold back the Taliban.
• May 2011 Bin Laden was
found hiding in Pakistan
and was killed by U.S.
forces.
2003-Iraq War
• When the Persian Gulf
war ended Iraq was told it
could not produce
weapons of mass
destruction.
• After the war with
Afghanistan the U.S.
believed it had
information that Saddam
Hussein was producing
WMDs (Weapons of
Mass Destruction)
• They also believed that
Saddam may have had
connections with Al
Qaeda.
• Congress then passed a
resolution allowing the
United States to lead an
attack on Iraq.
• The United States
invaded Iraq and Saddam
Hussein was captured.
Results
• Saddam Hussein was put
on trial for killing
thousands of his own
people and using
chemical weapons on the
Kurds and Iranians
• As of today no weapons
of mass destruction have
been found and the US
government is still in Iraq
but no longer in combat.
• Saddam Hussein was
found guilty and
sentenced to death in
2006.