20th-century history of Iraq interest in border disputes between Iraq and Kuwait, as was the U.S. government's official tone on the subject at the time. Subsequent events would prove otherwise, however this was said to Saddam in hopes that it would prevent him from attacking. Arab mediators convinced Iraq and Kuwait to negotiate their differences in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on 1 August 1990, but that session resulted only in charges and counter-charges. A second session was scheduled to take place in Baghdad, but Iraq invaded Kuwait the following day. Iraqi troops overran the country shortly after midnight on 2 August 1990. The United Nations
United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War a series of "catastrophic" Iraqi defeats. They had been driven out of Iran, and the Iraqi army looked like it was falling apart." "The Reagan administration feared that Iran's army might slice through Iraq to the oilfields of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia"; Veliotes, then "Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs," "outlined a nightmare scenario in which the Iranians invade Iraq, they defeat Iraq, and then head straight for Israel, which is distracted and debilitated by its ongoing adventure in Lebanon." As a result, the U.S. gradually abandoned its policy of neutrality. In February 1982, Iraq