Containing Iraq

This chapter looks at Iraq's Saddam Hussein as a very useful case study of whether, when, and why containment works, and when it does not. This is particularly true for the interval between the first and second Persian Gulf wars (1991–2003). During that interval, Saddam refused repeated demands by the United States and other states that he should abandon his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and his aspirations for regional hegemony. US officials realized that the effort that the United States had expended during the run-up to the start of the first Gulf War likely would not be enough to impress a brute like Saddam, and they resolved to do better the second time around. The US effort to contain Saddam Hussein faltered in 1990–91, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait. From 1991 until the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, however, the United States was able to use the vast range of capabilities at its disposal to thwart Saddam's schemes.