402 • 20 THE GULF WAR AND THE PEACE PROCESSInstead, Iraqis looted Kuwaiti homes and despoiled schools, libraries,
and businesses. Saddam's regime detained thousands of foreign nationals
caught in Kuwait by the invasion, bused them to Baghdad, and housed
some in Iraqi factories or military bases as "human shields" against foreign
attacks. Baghdad ordered foreign embassies to leave Kuwait, proclaimed
it Iraq's nineteenth province, and tried to efface all evidence of Kuwait's
existence as a separate state. Any resistance by the local inhabitants was
suppressed. Thousands of Kuwaitis left their homes and fled to other Arab
countries.
Sadder yet was the plight of foreign workers in Kuwait and, to a lesser
degree, in Iraq itself. Stripped of all the goods and money that they had ac¬
quired, Egyptians, Yemenis, Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Filipinos
straggled across the desert to Jordan, where they filled squalid, makeshift
refugee camps until their countries could airlift them safely home. Most
were young men and women who had come from poor households to
Kuwait or Iraq to make money to send to their families. Now they had lost
everything, they and their dependents faced bleak employment prospects
back home, and their countries would miss the hard-currency income
once generated by their remittances.
Soaring oil prices, rising unemployment, and dislocations caused by the
anti-Iraq sanctions worsened the already reeling economies of the Middle
East and the West. How could governments wishing to send troops and
supplies to assist Operation Desert Shield find the funds to pay for them?
Germany and other European countries, as well as Japan, Saudi Arabia, and
Kuwait's government-in-exile, pledged billions of dollars. With so many
countries providing troops, tanks, planes, and money to the buildup, who
would make the military decisions? How long would the allied coalition re¬
main united?
Although the near unanimity of the United Nations against Iraq's inva¬
sion of Kuwait raised hopes that other international disputes might soon
be addressed and possibly resolved by the world body, diplomacy might
not settle the first issue, let alone others that might be linked with it. Sad¬
dam cleverly offered to evacuate Kuwait only if all other foreign armies
would withdraw from Middle East lands they were occupying, a direct dig
at Israel and Syria. People feared a prolonged war, marked by aerial bomb¬
ing of cities and public works, burning oil wells and refineries, missile at¬
tacks, poison gas, and even germ warfare. During the fall of 1990, tensions
rose in other conflicts, including the one between Israel and the Palestini¬
ans. Would Muslim peoples back the regimes that seemed united in con¬
demning Iraq's actions?