# The first Gulf war **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 4, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426 "2013-12-04T02:12:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pdunderhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4bbf92/32.png) [@pdunderhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pdunderhill)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2013, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/1 "2013-12-04T02:12:56Z")
Hello good dopers, If I may re-visit an old subject I have a question about the first Gulf war, to whit: Saddam Hussein argued that some upstream oil companies based in Kuwait used ‘slant drilling’. Essentially ‘slant drilling’ means drilling for Oil in you neighbors territory, not straight down but at an angle. Pleases note I don’t intend this to be a discussion about the Iraqi regime as such but I’m curious about his reasoning, Peter Having mentioned a to whit, I should add a too woo. Think Owls ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/2 "2013-12-04T02:50:37Z")
From my own experience with directional drilling (Longyear for metals exploration,) you can’t “kick” the line by more than 45 degrees from the mother hole (assuming the latter is perfectly vertical) without risking a twist off or a stuck-up. This, however, has been exceeded often enough so much so that some holes can actually go horizontal from the mother hole. That gives you an idea how far a vertical bore hole can surreptitiously slant in any direction. The above is in the case of directional drilling starting from a vertical mother hole. Several new holes of different angles and bearing can be made but your drill rig usually requires a downhole motor. The other kind of “slant” drilling is simply to incline the angle of the hole from the surface. This is a lot easier, as long as your drill rig allows inclined holes. This activity is also easy to spot by someone within sight of the rig. I haven’t come across any article confirming the Iraqi accusation. I only know that, after Desert Storm, the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border was re-drawn and Iraq lost a number of oil wells, as well as a naval facility. Oil reservoirs that near the border would appear vulnerable to cross-border drilling. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/3 "2013-12-04T18:47:48Z")
May I revisit another question? Did Saddam really prepare to attack Saudi Arabia? You know, the whole reason we did Desert Shield. I’ve read somewhere that Russian satellites didn’t see any buildup. Now that we’ve had time to interrogate leaders and look though documents in Iraq, were they really going to hit Saudi after Kuwait? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2013, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/4 "2013-12-04T23:05:37Z")
> [@HubZilla](#): > > May I revisit another question? > > Did Saddam really prepare to attack Saudi Arabia? You know, the whole reason we did Desert Shield. > > I’ve read somewhere that Russian satellites didn’t see any buildup. Now that we’ve had time to interrogate leaders and look though documents in Iraq, were they really going to hit Saudi after Kuwait? A small contingent of Saddam’s forces actually \*\*\*did \*\*\*briefly cross the border and ‘invade’ Saudi Arabia. There’s night vision video of them doing it and American troops joking to each other that “King Saud is gonna be pissed!” Needless to say they were quickly repelled. Even so I would say no, I don’t think Saddam planned on invading Saudi Arabia from the start, just Kuwait. But he also didn’t plan on the world (i.e. the US) wanting to actually kick him out of Kuwait either, so his plans changed. Remember too that when he did invade Kuwait it was the Saudis themselves who immediately invited the US coalition onto their soil to prevent an invasion. As to the OP, saying Kuwait was slant drilling was just part of Saddam’s whole propaganda package. He also said that Kuwait was never really a country but was always the “19th province” of Iraq so he wasn’t ‘invading’ anything. Long story short Saddam’s regime was billions in debt to Kuwait from the Iran-Iraq war and he didn’t wanna pay them back… ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/5 "2013-12-05T00:35:27Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > A small contingent of Saddam’s forces actually \*\*\*did \*\*\*briefly cross the border and ‘invade’ Saudi Arabia. There’s night vision video of them doing it and American troops joking to each other that “King Saud is gonna be pissed!” Needless to say they were quickly repelled. You’re thinking of the [Battle of Khafji](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khafji) which happened on January 29, 1991, 12 days after the war began in an attempt by Iraq to jump start the ground war. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/6 "2013-12-05T01:30:24Z")
I’m more curious about the more believable allegation that Kuwait dumps oil into the market, lowering prices, and almost ruining Iraq. How so, when Iraq ranks third (I think) to KSA and Iran in terms on reserves in the ME? ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/7 "2013-12-05T01:42:14Z")
Being a big producer meant Iraq lost a lot if the price of oil went down a bit. After the war with Iran, I’d imagine Iraq was very strapped for cash, and having Kuwait keep the oil price down by producing more than the quota would hurt a lot. [Wikipedia’s explanation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Background)seems as good as any: > [@](#): > > Iraq also accused Kuwait of exceeding its OPEC quotas for oil production. In order for the cartel to maintain its desired price of $18 a barrel, discipline was required. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait were consistently overproducing; the latter at least in part to repair losses caused by Iranian attacks in the Iran–Iraq War and to pay for the losses of an economic scandal. The result was a slump in the oil price – as low as $10 a barrel – with a resulting loss of $7 billion a year to Iraq, equal to its 1989 balance of payments deficit.[32] Resulting revenues struggled to support the government’s basic costs, let alone repair Iraq’s damaged infrastructure. Jordan and Iraq both looked for more discipline, with little success.[33] The Iraqi government described it as a form of economic warfare,[33] which it claimed was aggravated by Kuwait slant-drilling across the border into Iraq’s Rumaila oil field.[34] At the same time, Saddam looked for closer ties with those Arab states that had supported Iraq in the war. This was supported by the U.S., who believed that Iraqi ties with pro-Western Gulf states would help bring and maintain Iraq inside the U.S.’ sphere of influence.[35] ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-gulf-war/675426/8 "2013-12-05T03:28:51Z")
Yeah, Iraq was deeply in debt as a result of the war with Iran, and most of this debt was owed to Persian Gulf states that had floated Iraq loans to back them in the war against Iran. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was basically Iraq deciding to repay its loan by robbing the bank. From [wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Persian_Gulf_War#Financial_support): > [@](#): > > Iraq’s main financial backers were the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, most notably Saudi Arabia ($30.9 billion), Kuwait ($8.2 billion), and the United Arab Emirates ($8 billion).[160] In all, Iraq received $35 billion in loans from the West and between $30 and $40 billion from the Persian Gulf states during the 1980s.