Iraqi troops smashed into Kuwait today after talks between the two nations broke down over oil production along their 200-mile border.
The United States swiftly condemned the invasion and called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
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Bracing for showdown; Families, under 'strain,' await word
Aug. 6, 1990
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Oilman Frank Webb is heading home today to Marble Falls, Texas, after an anxious dash by car across 250 miles of Kuwaiti desert - past hundreds of Iraqi troops.
"We drove right through the midst of them," Webb said Sunday during a stopover at London's Heathrow Airport. "We waved and just hoped they didn't shoot at us."
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Invasion 'will not stand'
Aug. 6, 1990
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President Bush, blasting the Iraqis as "international outlaws and renegades," said Sunday Iraq's aggression against Kuwait "will not stand."
Sounding angrier than at any moment since the crisis began Thursday, Bush said U.S. military options are "wide open."
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Kuwaitis flee homeland; Iraqi invaders move to 'take everything'
Sept. 17, 1990
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KHAFJI, Saudi Arabia - Hundreds of Kuwaiti refugees crossed the border this weekend, fleeing a nation that has been nearly reduced to rubble by Iraqi troops.
About 6,000 crossed the border during the weekend, 2,000 at this port city Sunday. Most arrived penniless, stripped of passports and possessions at highway checkpoints.
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'So wonderful to be home'; 'One long nightmare' finally over
Dec. 11, 1990
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ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. - The first thing Sharon Justus noticed about her husband was the smell of him - the sweet, stale aroma of the cigarettes he started smoking again while he was in hiding in Kuwait.
Tom Justus, who last saw his wife Sept. 7, when she fled Kuwait, was pale, 30 pounds lighter and sporting a scruffy gray beard. But he never looked better to his wife than when he walked into the Air Force base gymnasium 130 days after holing up in his suburban Kuwait City apartment.
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Bush asks Congress to back him up
Jan. 9, 1991
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President Bush Tuesday asked a divided Congress to support use of his military option in the Persian Gulf.
He wants a resolution allowing "use of all necessary force" to get Iraq out of Kuwait, similar to language the United Nations has approved.
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Geneva talks fail; U.N. aim: To 'avoid the worst'
Jan. 10, 1991
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GENEVA - U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar heads to Baghdad today for an 11th-hour peace effort after the failure of Wednesday's U.S.- Iraq meeting here.
"My moral duty," Perez de Cuellar said, "is to do everything to avoid the worst."
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War casts a lengthening shadow; GIs' families wait for worst
Jan. 11, 1991
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HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. - Listen for a moment to Joyce Oliver's class at Millbrooke Elementary. Today's subject comes straight from the headlines: fathers in a far-off land who may never come home.
"Hussein - he wants to take over everything, right?" asks Damekia Scott, 9.
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How Congress voted on gulf
Jan. 14, 1991
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The Senate Saturday voted 52-47 and the House 250-183 for a resolution that authorizes the president to order offensive action against Iraq.
The resolution notes that Iraq "without provocation invaded and occupied" Kuwait, that Iraq has "demonstrated (a) willingness to use weapons of mass destruction" and that the United Nations has authorized the use "of all necessary means" after Jan. 15 to "restore international peace and security in the area." The resolution also requires the president, before launching an attack, to show that the United States "has used all appropriate diplomatic and other peaceful means" to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
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Six-month countdown to conflict; 1st hint of intentions in Revolution Day speech
Jan. 17, 1991
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Events leading up to armed conflict in the Persian Gulf region.
1990
JULY:
17th: Saddam Hussein makes a Revolution Day speech, claims Kuwait stole oil from border oil fields.
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Battle over moms at war; Many seeing women's role in new light
Feb. 12, 1991
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Twenty years after the birth of the women's movement, the realities of the gulf war are causing many to rethink motherhood and the military.
Already, the United States apparently has its first female POW in Iraq. Soon it may have a woman coming home in a body bag. And what if she is a mother?
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Role in military splits minorities; Number on front lines renews debate on bearing war's burden
Feb. 18, 1991
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In a Persian Gulf ground war, one in three U.S. soldiers on the front line will be black or Hispanic.
So it stands to reason a number of flag-draped coffins will bear the body of a black or Hispanic soldier.
