When the US went to liberate Kuwait in 1990-91, it conducted a massive assault on Iraq to free 2.2 million people, of which only 28% are citizens. Even though justice should not be measured in numbers, one would not be callous to ask why the US went to all this trouble for the al-Sabah family? A fairly straightforward answer was offered by then Vice President George H. Bush (the father of the current president) in 1986. Bush, a Texas oil man like his son, went to Saudi Arabia as oil prices collapsed to tell the oil sheiks about US "domestic interests and thus the interest of national security." Oil is a question of US national security, not just because of its vast appetite or addiction to oil (more than fifty percent of the world's consumption), but also on behalf of the US-based multinationals. Consider that around this time Exxon, Texaco and SoCal (now Unocal) owned a third each of the shares in Saudi oil production, while Gulf and British Petroleum shared the totality of Kuwait's production. US interest in Iraq, today, is about stability of Gulf oil fields, even as the US talks about democracy, rule of law and the need to overthrow their former ally, Saddam Hussein.