CRISIS IN THE GULF: HOW IT ALL STARTED

Late July: George Steinbrenner is still running the Yankees, the governor of Louisiana is deciding whether to veto an abortion bill and the American press seems bent on finding out just what David Souter, nominee for the Supreme Court, thinks about abortion.

Few Americans pay much attention to the quarrel between Iraq and its little neighbor, Kuwait. It seemed like just another of those wrangles over oil pricing that occur before the meetings of OPEC sheiks and statesmen.

But the rumblings were to suddenly put the United States on war footing in the searing Saudi desert. Here’s how it happened:

July 17: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, facing an oil glut and declining revenues, takes aim at Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, which had been exceeding OPEC oil production quotas by more than a million barrels a day. Hussein demands that the two nations pay $14 billion to compensate for what he says Iraq lost due to low oil prices. And he tells Kuwait that it must forgive $15 billion in loans extended during the Iran-Iraq War.

July 18: Hussein’s foreign minister accuses Kuwait of having stolen $2.4 billion worth of Iraqi petroleum over the past decade. Kuwait puts its 20,000-man army on alert.

July 19: Kuwait cancels its state of alert. “It was all a summer cloud that has been blown away,” says an unidentified Kuwaiti source who turns out to be monumentally wrong.

July 23: Reports say that Iraq has massed 30,000 troops at its border and that U.S. warships in the gulf have been put on alert.

July 24: Kuwait reinstates its alert. The Pentagon announces naval exercises in the Persian Gulf.

July 27: At a tense meeting in Geneva, OPEC agrees to limit oil production and raise its target price by $3 to $21 a barrel. Kuwait and the Emirates promise to abide by the new production quotas.

In Washington, the House and Senate defy Bush Administration opposition and vote for economic sanctions against Iraq. These reflect an accumulation of complaints over Iraq’s attempt to intimidate neighbors, its human rights record, its use of poison gas and its drive to build nuclear weapons.

Aug. 1: Delegations from Iraq and Kuwait meet in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to discuss their differences. The Iraqis walk out, saying they did not sense “any seriousness” from the Kuwaitis.

Aug. 2: A massive Iraqi invasion force crosses into Kuwait, expelling the government and taking control of the oil-rich state. The action ultimately leads to the largest U.S. military dispatch since the Vietnam War.