Sanctions against Iraq Sanctions against Iraq The sanctions against Iraq were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on Ba'athist Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 (after Saddam Hussein's being forced from power), and persisted in part, including reparations to Kuwait, through the present. The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction. Initially the UN Security Council imposed stringent economic sanctions on Iraq
Palestinian exodus from Kuwait (1990–91) force. The massive exodus of Palestinians from Kuwait began with the Iraqi invasion into the country in summer 1990. The exodus included both Kuwaitis and Palestinians, who were forming a large percentage of Kuwaiti residents. Out of initial 350,000 people of Palestinian descent who resided in Kuwait in mid-1990, more than 200,000 fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, due to harassment and intimidation by Iraqi security forces, in addition to getting fired from work by Iraqi authority figures in Kuwait. The Iraqi education ministry in Kuwait fired 3,000 Palestinians in September 1990, and the dismissals of Palestinians from