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Saddam’s Security Apparatus
During the Invasion of Kuwait and the Kuwaiti Resistance
by IBRAHIM AL-MARASHI

Abstract

The Iraqi security apparatus was used as a tool by the Saddam Hussein regime to penetrate every layer of Iraqi society. When the intent was made in August 1990 to ‘return’ Kuwait to its Iraqi ‘branch,’ security services were similarly assigned to infiltrate every layer of Kuwaiti society. Hussein tasked these agencies with protecting the regime and state from internal threats posed by the Kuwaiti resistance. The existence of a local resistance posed a tactical military threat as well as a symbolic one in that it demonstrated to the Iraqis and the outside world that the annexation would not to be tolerated by the inhabitants of what was now officially ‘southern Iraq’. The Iraqi security services were wary of armed attacks conducted by these ‘saboteurs’ as they not only caused physical damage but also lent credence to the regime’s belief that external conspirators such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Israel and the US were arming the resistance to undermine the Iraqi position in Kuwait.