Saddam Hussein had the power before he became president in 1979. He and the Baath party dominated Iraq until Saddam was removed by the US invasion in 2003.The reasons that made Saddam invade Kuwait are Kuwait refused to forgive debt Iraq had run up during Iran-Iraq war. Second, 1897 map shows Kuwait is a part of Iraq and separated by the British. In fact, all the Iraqi leaders had claimed that Kuwait had been wrongfully split off from Iraq. Also, the UN imposed hard economic sanctions on Iraq, which the impact would be devastating to the Iraqi people. In August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait. Saddam declared Kuwait to be Iraq’s 19th province. The operation called “Desert Shield”. The US and other forces went to Saudi Arabia
