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On this day in 1990, the US🇺🇸 Ambassador tells Iraq’s🇮🇶 Saddam Hussein that the US would not take sides in the Iraq-Kuwait dispute, effectively giving the green light for his invasion of Kuwait. Once Saddam invaded Kuwait, beginning the first Gulf War, the US unleashed Operation Desert Storm, going back on their neutrality signal. The US dropped 88,500 tonnes of bombs on Iraq and Kuwait, 70% missed their targets, killing thousands and obliterating infrastructure. US-led coalition bombing raids destroyed Iraqi civilian infrastructure. 11 of Iraq's 20 major power stations and 119 substations were totally destroyed, while a further six major power stations were damaged. At the end of the war, electricity production was at 4% of its pre-war levels. Bombs destroyed the utility of all major dams, most major pumping stations, and many sewage treatment plants, telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges were also destroyed. Following the war, US sanctions on Iraq would kill 500,000 Iraqi children, which US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says was ‘worth it’.