Hussein defied United Nations Security Council demands to withdraw from Kuwait by mid-January 1991, and the Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm.

In August 1990, Iraq invaded the country of Kuwait to its southeast in a bid to gain more control over the lucrative oil supply of the Middle East. In response, the United States and the UN Security Council demanded that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein withdraw Iraqi troops from Kuwait, but Hussein refused.

During this period, there was a deterioration of relations between the United States and Iraq. Iraq accused the United States and Israel of deliberately weakening Iraq by encouraging Kuwait to reduce oil prices.

“Kuwait,” the word for “small human settlement,” was so named by Iraqi rulers of that era. Throughout the nineteenth century and up to World War I, Kuwait was a “Qadha,” a district within the Basra Province, and it was an integral part of Iraq under the administrative rule of the Ottoman Empire.

While the stimulatory effect of military outlays is evidently associated with boosts in economic growth, adverse effects show up either immediately or soon after, through higher inflation, budget deficits, high taxes and reductions in consumption or investment.

$12 billion in U.S. currency was transported from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad in April 2003 and June 2004, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. A Vanity Fair magazine report concluded that of this sum, “at least $9 billion has gone missing”.

The same federal indictment against “BH Group” states that, in fact, the “U.S. Department of the Treasury does not hold any Iraqi dinar for investment purposes and holds only a nominal amount for use.”

One of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton. Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in “federal contracts related to the Iraq war”. Many individuals have asserted that there were profit motives for the Bush-Cheney administration to invade Iraq in 2003.

Neta Crawford, chair of the political science department at Boston University, in her Costs of War project, estimated the long term cost of the Iraq War for the United States at $1.922 trillion.

Surprising no one, the United States makes more money on war than any other country. Boeing, comparatively, only made 35% of its money on arms in 2013, but that 35% was big money: Boeing made $4.5 billion in profits in 2013 just from selling arms and weaponry.