IRAQ - The 2nd Gulf War.

Iraq celebrated its victory in impressive ceremonies. But, suddenly, Saddam Hussein began a series of moves which frightened Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. He emerged with a million-man army, the biggest in the Middle East and described as the fourth strongest in the world. The most frightening aspect

Saddam Hussein began acting as a combination of a megalomaniac and a bankrupt ruler asking Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to continue to fund him for reconstruction. But Saudi Arabia and Kuwait stopped sending him funds after the ceasefire and, despite repeated Iraqi requests, refused to finance him. To pressure them, Saddam did the following:

1.He revived Iraq's claim over the islands of Warba and Bubyan, which Kuwait insisted were part of its territory. Through the rest of 1988 and 1989 negotiations between the two sides produced no results.

2.In February 1989, he announced the Arab Co-operation Council (ACC) as a union between Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and North Yemen. He made the announcement in Baghdad at the end of a summit with Presidents Mubarak of Egypt and Saleh of North Yemen and King Hussein of Jordan. Saudi Arabia saw in the ACC a direct threat to its security, and King Fahd visited Baghdad in March 1989 to seek Saddam's assurances. Saddam offered Fahd a non-aggression pact, which the two leaders signed. Fahd later visited Egypt but failed to persuade Mubarak to break out of the ACC. Syrian President Assad sent emissaries to Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states warning them that the ACC was a direct threat to their regimes. The US was worried but preferred to watch from the sidelines. Israel warned that Saddam's regime had become very dangerous.

3.In the subsequent months, Saddam ordered sophisticated weapons system from the Soviet Union, France and other powers. He also ordered about 2,000 tank carriers from a Japanese company, which subsequently wondered whether Iraq intended to invade another country, and the US intelligence became aware of this but did nothing. He ordered vital parts for his super-gun from Britain and Canada, while Israel's Mossad was tracking Saddam's every move.

4.In early 1990 Saddam began to accuse Kuwait and Saudi Arabia of trying to bankrupt Iraq through their over-production of oil which was suppressing prices and causing Iraq's revenues to fall. Oil prices continued to fall through the following months. In late May 1990, at an Arab summit in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein openly warned Saudi Arabia and Kuwait they should reduce their oil output. He said they were waging an economic/oil war against Iraq. At the final session, Saddam looked straight into the eyes of Kuwait's Emir Shaikh Jabir and said: "What you are doing by keeping your oil production high is an aggression against Iraq's economy and people. Do you know this? I am telling you for the last time, this war against Iraq must stop".

5.Saddam was still "the darling of the US". In April 1990, US Republican Majority Leader Bob Dole and other senators were asked by President Bush to divert their Middle East tour and visit Baghdad. Dole and his delegation went to Baghdad and had a meeting with Saddam. Saddam spoke about his problems with Kuwait and said it was Iraq's right to become a regional super-power. Dole's response was encouraging to the extent that he said President Bush did not want to interfere with territorial problems. Dole also said it was up to Iraq to solve its territorial problem with Kuwait, a point repeated by then US Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie, which Saddam took to mean he had a green light to attack Kuwait - as the US indicated it did not want to intervene.

6.Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. Suddenly "the darling of the US" became a "new Hitler" and the enemy of the West. The second Gulf war by end- February 1991 virtually destroyed Saddam's war machine.

The way his armed forces were humiliated and the way he took his decisions from Aug. 1990 until now, together with the quick turn of events across the globe - including the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991 - showed that Saddam fell victim to his own miscalculations. Saddam miscalculated Washington's position and the real strength of the US.

The defection to Jordan of his cousins and sons-in-law, Hussein Kamel Al Majid and Saddam Kamel Al Majid in August 1995 had split Saddam's extended family beyond repair. When the two Al Majid brothers returned to Iraq in 1996, they were slain immediately. But their wives, Raghad (born in 1968 & married to Hussein Kamel) and Rina (born in 1970 & married to Saddam Kamel), were spared.

Saddam's first son, Uday, a cruel young man who terrorised the Al Majids as well as Saddam's half-brothers Barzan, Wathban and Sibawei, was wounded severely in an assassination attempt on Dec. 12, 1996. Now aged 35, Uday is both partly crippled and impotent. In mid-1997 he was reported to have killed a young woman he failed to seduce in the presidential palace.

Saddam's second son Qusay, a somewhat shy person, has been stripped of his positions as commander of the presidential guard and chief of one of the intelligence services. Uday and Qusay are now said to have a power struggle.

Saddam's estranged wife, Sajida, is believed to be the wealthiest woman in Iraq in terms of property she inherited from her late father, Khairallah Tulfah who was Saddam's maternal uncle. She is now said to be in house arrest for having plotted in favour of her two sons. Saddam is said to be living with a mistress.