Gulf crisis 1990 : Saddam's asymmetric response

Monk78

WI rather than a full scale invasion of Kuwait , saddam had opted for sending special forces into Kuwait and Saudi arabia to hit their 1 oil refineries 2 military bases 3 airports 4 govt facilities and port installations

The relatively long and unprotected border will make it easier to sneak people in either by air or ground

They would be arab speaking granted though even I can usually tell a saudi apart from an Iraqi [ they can also recruit some Palestinian groups too]

Iraqis although having no real experience in this category are battle hardened veterans

International response would not be so dramatic [hopefully for them]
 

HJ Tulp

Monk78 said:
WI rather than a full scale invasion of Kuwait , saddam had opted for sending special forces into Kuwait and Saudi arabia to hit their 1 oil refineries 2 military bases 3 airports 4 govt facilities and port installations

The relatively long and unprotected border will make it easier to sneak people in either by air or ground

They would be arab speaking granted though even I can usually tell a saudi apart from an Iraqi [ they can also recruit some Palestinian groups too]

Iraqis although having no real experience in this category are battle hardened veterans

International response would not be so dramatic [hopefully for them]
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What would be in it for Saddam? Is the whole goal of this operation to make the oil prices go up?
 

Belisarius II

The international response would would be devastating. An attack, even a limited one like your describing on Saudi Arabia would require a major response. It would be even more reckless that what Saddam actually did in 1990.
 

Monk78

Crowbar Six said:
Admittedly, the Iraqi's have more trigger time but that only makes them more competent at shooting civilians.
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There are plenty of foreign workers , Saudi citizens and western technicians they can target too
But main goal is to try destabilize KSA
 

Crowbar Six

The Iraqi's staging mass casualty attack and going after Saudi military/infrastructure targets would simply trigger the same general response as in OTL, with the main difference the Coalition would have gone for Baghdad and regime change in 1991.
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Monk78 said:
Destabilize and overthrow the Saudi regime
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Uh why? Their goals for the Gulf War were to acquire Kuwait to end Kuwati slant drilling on their fields, take their oil fields and no longer have to pay back the money he owed Kuwait.

Destabilizing and overthrowing the Saudi's does nothing for this. Depending on how it shakes out he may no longer owe the Saudis money, but that is it. Unlike with invading Kuwait he is not going to mistakenly think he has US permission to f*ck up the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil infrastructure, and he knows that the US will intervene to preserve the flow of oil as they had done earlier. Saddam misinterpreted a conversation with a US diplomat to indicate he had permission to invade Kuwait, and figured as long as the oil kept flowing the US would not care where it came from, the same is not going to happen for attacks on oil infrastructure
 

Monk78

Crowbar Six said:
The Iraqi's staging mass casualty attack and going after Saudi military/infrastructure targets would simply trigger the same general response as in OTL, with the main difference the Coalition would have gone for Baghdad and regime change in 1991.
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But if they do not have bases in the gulf like OTL It’s going to be a lot harder
 

Monk78

RamscoopRaider said:
Uh why? Their goals for the Gulf War were to acquire Kuwait to end Kuwati slant drilling on their fields, take their oil fields and no longer have to pay back the money he owed Kuwait.

Destabilizing and overthrowing the Saudi's does nothing for this. Depending on how it shakes out he may no longer owe the Saudis money, but that is it. Unlike with invading Kuwait he is not going to mistakenly think he has US permission to f*ck up the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil infrastructure, and he knows that the US will intervene to preserve the flow of oil as they had done earlier. Saddam misinterpreted a conversation with a US diplomat to indicate he had permission to invade Kuwait, and figured as long as the oil kept flowing the US would not care where it came from, the same is not going to happen for attacks on oil infrastructure
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Attacks may not completely cripple ability of saudis to refine oil nor will it shut down oil production
But will jack up prices
US intervention will happen either way

but if Saudi regime falls and factionalism and regional conflicts arise then either NATO will either have no base or invade the peninsula
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Monk78 said:
But if they do not have bases in the gulf like OTL It’s going to be a lot harder
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After having their infrastructure attacked by the Iraqi's do you really think that the Saudis and Kuwaitis won't be rolling out the red carpet for the Americans? Or do you believe the Iraqis could have done sufficient damage to prevent the Americans from deploying with just special forces teams?

Oil Refineries are one thing, they are full of a lot of chemicals that burn or go boom, so a small team with man portable equipment can do a lot of damage. Airports and Port infrastructure are a lot harder. To render an airport useless you need to physically crater the runways, and that requires a lot of explosives or very specialized munitions to be something that cannot be fixed quickly. Demolishing harbor cranes is easier, relatively, but things like piers and breakwaters are just too big to meaningfully effect
Monk78 said:
Attacks may not completely cripple ability of saudis to refine oil nor will it shut down oil production
But will jack up prices
US intervention will happen either way

but if Saudi regime falls and factionalism and regional conflicts arise then either NATO will either have no base or invade the peninsula
Click to expand...
Okay so higher oil prices, which do him no good if he gets embargoed over this, and that is almost certain to happen and is predictable.

The thing is what will happen is not what matters. what matters is what Saddam thinks will happen. Saddam thinks that if he invades Kuwait the US will not care so long as the oil keeps flowing, he is wrong but that is what he thinks. He does not think that the US will ignore him blowing up refineries in KSA

NATO can find somebody to invite them in, if nothing else Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE are gonna be scared shitless by this and will be begging Uncle Sam to show up. More reasonably something of the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments will survive long enough to call for help
 

Monk78

RamscoopRaider said:
After having their infrastructure attacked by the Iraqi's do you really think that the Saudis and Kuwaitis won't be rolling out the red carpet for the Americans? Or do you believe the Iraqis could have done sufficient damage to prevent the Americans from deploying with just special forces teams?

Oil Refineries are one thing, they are full of a lot of chemicals that burn or go boom, so a small team with man portable equipment can do a lot of damage. Airports and Port infrastructure are a lot harder. To render an airport useless you need to physically crater the runways, and that requires a lot of explosives or very specialized munitions to be something that cannot be fixed quickly. Demolishing harbor cranes is easier, relatively, but things like piers and breakwaters are just too big to meaningfully effect

Okay so higher oil prices, which do him no good if he gets embargoed over this, and that is almost certain to happen and is predictable.

The thing is what will happen is not what matters. what matters is what Saddam thinks will happen. Saddam thinks that if he invades Kuwait the US will not care so long as the oil keeps flowing, he is wrong but that is what he thinks. He does not think that the US will ignore him blowing up refineries in KSA

NATO can find somebody to invite them in, if nothing else Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE are gonna be scared shitless by this and will be begging Uncle Sam to show up. More reasonably something of the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments will survive long enough to call for help
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I’m thinking as soon as Iraqis take over Kuwait they start sending teams and infiltrators by sea into the KSA eastern provinces , create chaos in the ports possibly cut off Bahrain and Qatar from KSA
 

Deleted member 109224

RamscoopRaider said:
Uh why? Their goals for the Gulf War were to acquire Kuwait to end Kuwati slant drilling on their fields, take their oil fields and no longer have to pay back the money he owed Kuwait.

Destabilizing and overthrowing the Saudi's does nothing for this. Depending on how it shakes out he may no longer owe the Saudis money, but that is it. Unlike with invading Kuwait he is not going to mistakenly think he has US permission to f*ck up the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil infrastructure, and he knows that the US will intervene to preserve the flow of oil as they had done earlier. Saddam misinterpreted a conversation with a US diplomat to indicate he had permission to invade Kuwait, and figured as long as the oil kept flowing the US would not care where it came from, the same is not going to happen for attacks on oil infrastructure
Click to expand...

If Saddam wants to react to Kuwait without prompting a big ol' war he could just occupy Warbah, Bubiyan, and the Kuwaiti portion of the Rumaila field.

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Deleted member 109224

Monk78 said:
You don't think Kuwaitis will want this region back ?
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They would, but that's not the same as a big ol' war with a huge international coalition coming in to wreck Saddam. It'd be more of a small'ish border dispute that may or may not go to some international tribunal and get dragged out for years until it's a fait accompli.
 

ObssesedNuker

Yeah, if Saddam wants avoid meaningful international retaliation, all he has to do is limit his invasion to seizing only the disputed region. The most that he would have gotten was some strongly worded letters. Instead, he got greedy and ultimately lost everything.

Monk78 said:
You don't think Kuwaitis will want this region back ?
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And what are they going to do? As incompetent as the Iraqi army proved to be, the Kuwaiti military was just as bad and positively tiny boot. Unless the international community militarily intervenes, which is quite unlikely to happen when all that’s at stake is a small strip of desert and some uninhabited island, then there’s bugger all they can do.
 
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Monk78

ObssesedNuker said:
Yeah, if Saddam wants avoid meaningful international retaliation, all he has to do is limit his invasion to seizing only the disputed region. The most that he would have gotten was some strongly worded letters. Instead, he got greedy and ultimately lost everything.


And what are they going to do? As incompetent as the Iraqi army proved to be, the Kuwaiti military was just as bad and positively tiny boot. Unless the international community militarily intervenes, which is quite unlikely to happen when all that’s at stake is a small strip of desert and some uninhabited island, then there’s bugger all they can do.
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What about KSA and Arab gulf countries will they not try to stop saddam in their own ?
 

RamscoopRaider

Donor
Monk78 said:
I’m thinking as soon as Iraqis take over Kuwait they start sending teams and infiltrators by sea into the KSA eastern provinces , create chaos in the ports possibly cut off Bahrain and Qatar from KSA
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You vastly overestimate what special forces can do. Stopping a port from being useful requires lots of explosives and ideally heavy equipment and trained engineers, it isn't something a few guys can do with what they can carry. Any damage they can do is the sort that can be fixed fairly rapidly and/or won't actually meaningfully impact a US ability to use those ports. Same with trying to affect the roads from Qatar, Bahrain being an island anyways
Jackson Lennock said:
If Saddam wants to react to Kuwait without prompting a big ol' war he could just occupy Warbah, Bubiyan, and the Kuwaiti portion of the Rumaila field.
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Well yes
 
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