IRAQ - The 2nd Gulf War.

Iraq celebrated its victory in impressive ceremonies. But, suddenly, Saddam 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 largest in the world. The most frightening aspect was

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 Feb. 1989, he announced the Arab Co-operation Council (ACC) as a union between Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and North Yemen. He made this in Baghdad at the end of a summit with Presidents Mubarak of Egypt and Saleh of North Yemen and King Hussein of Jordan. Riyadh 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 Riyadh and the other GCC states warning them that the ACC was a direct threat to them. The US was worried but preferred to watch from the sidelines. Israel warned that Saddam had become very dangerous.

3. In the subsequent months, Saddam ordered advanced weapons system from the USSR, France and other powers. He ordered about 2,000 tank carriers from a Japanese firm, 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. Oil prices continued to fall through the following months. In late May 1990, at an Arab summit in Baghdad, Saddam openly warned Saudi Arabia and Kuwait they should reduce their oil output. He said they were waging an economic 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 team went to Baghdad and met 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 Bush did not want to interfere with territorial problems. Dole said it was up to Iraq to solve its problem with Kuwait, a point repeated by then US Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie, which Saddam took to mean he had a US green light to attack Kuwait.

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.