| Sumario: | Despite the apparently triumphant conclusion brought to the Persian Gulf War in February 1991 following Operation Desert Storm, some U.S. citizens felt that the Bush administration was in some way responsible for the assumptions that prompted Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait. By pursuing a policy of appeasement and conciliation, the administration emitted signals indicating that the U.S. would not rally to the defense of Kuwait in the event that Saddam sent his forces over its frontier. It is clear that the Bush administration was of the view that, at most, the Iraqis might seize part of the Rumaila oil field and Warba and Bubiyan Islands. However, a full invasion was a possibility—in the view of some observers and analysts, it was a probability. Had the U.S. government warned Hussein not to send forces across the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border and threatened to take military action if he did, the Persian Gulf War would nearly certainly have been avoided.
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