Imagine 140-degree weather, 100 percent humidity, no water and an army of hostile invaders wreaking havoc on a tiny country. This is how W. Nathaniel Howell, former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, describes the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which he witnessed first hand.
Howell heads a conference this weekend at the University entitled "The Liberation of Kuwait," which will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Persian Gulf War.
As the invasion started, Iraqi soldiers took hundreds of Kuwaiti hostages, looted stores, business and homes and turned schools into torture chambers, said Howell, who is now director of the University's Institute for Global Policy Research.
"It was a pretty ghastly scene and a story that was never really told," he said.
On Aug. 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and overran Kuwait, a neighboring, oil-rich country in the Persian Gulf. After weeks of aerial bombing, a U.S.-led United Nations coalition began a ground war in February 1991 and liberated Kuwait in four days.
President Reagan appointed Howell, who received his B.A. and Ph.D. from the University, as ambassador to Kuwait in 1987.
"The whole tour in Kuwait was exciting," he said. "It's what [I had] aspired to ... [I had] my own embassy."
Howell described the invasion as tense. It was extremely hot and humid, and Iraqi soldiers cut off the embassy's water supply, making simple survival a struggle, he said.
Once the U.S.-led ground assault began, "it was handled very well," Howell said. "I attribute much of the success to the logisticians" who engineered delivery of supplies across the desert.
Immediately following the invasion, the U.N. placed sanctions on Iraq that have remained in place for more than 10 years.
"We have to remember why they were imposed on Iraq," Howell said. "I am concerned about the Iraqi population," but the only reason "there is not food or medicine is the regime is spending [all its money] on parades, Saddam's birthday celebrations and new palaces."
"The sanctions certainly have not been as effective as we had hoped," said William B. Quandt, vice provost for international affairs. They have hurt the society more than weakened Hussein's government, he said.
The United States should use diplomatic and political channels to keep Iraq from becoming a threat to its neighbors or the world again, Quandt said.
Howell is interested in Kuwaiti survival under the trauma of occupation, a topic for discussion at the conference.
Speakers will include former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S. Mohammad Al-Sabah. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney also have been invited to speak. Cheney declined the offer.
Students may attend the conference for free but must register in advance.
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