US Involvement in SW Asia

This conflict started when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in an attempt to gain control over Kuwait's large supplies of oil.

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Afghanistan

The United Nations gave Iraq an ultimatum: withdraw its army from Kuwait or the UN would send armed forces to Kuwait.

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Afghanistan

US intelligence sources identified a terrorist group called al-Qaeda, or “the Force,” as the people who had planned and carried out the attack

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

In October 2001, the United States launched a series of attacks on the mountain areas of Afghanistan where they believed al-Qaeda was hiding

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

The main goal of the invasion was to capture Osama bin Laden and destroy al-Qaeda. The Taliban-controlled government crumbled. It took ten years of fighting and searching, but Osama bin Laden was finally found in 2011.

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

The United Nations voted to send a military force to liberate, or free, Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

In February 1991, the Iraqi government accepted a truce and agreed to withdraw from Kuwait. Iraq also had to agree to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs, (chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons) and to allow United Nations inspectors in to ensure that they were actually dismantling these dangerous weapons.

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

Saddam Hussein refused to allow the inspection, and the United States worried that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and offering help to groups like al-Qaeda

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan

Saddam Hussein’s government quickly collapsed because so many Iraqi people felt he was a cruel and unfair leader

• Operation Desert Storm

• Operation Iraqi Freedom

• War in Aghanistan