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
CIA activities in Iraq [against Hussein's regime]. At the center was Shahwani, a Sunni from Mosul and a charismatic commander who made his reputation in 1984 with a helicopter assault on Iranian troops atop a mountain in Iraqi Kurdistan. His popularity made him dangerous to Saddam Hussein, and he was arrested and interrogated in 1989. He fled the country in May 1990, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait." In 1991, Shahwani began efforts to organize a military coup utilizing former members of the special forces, which Hussein had disbanded. After the Gulf War, CIA took steps to correct the shortcomings identified during the Gulf War