Another war anniversary to remember
This has been a busy period for anniversaries of wars, but one that remained largely unremarked upon, considering what a major event it was at the time, happened a quarter of a century ago.
After 100,000 Iraqi troops and 700 tanks drove into Kuwait on Aug 2, 1990, I was questioned by police in the Qatari capital, Doha. Just days before the invasion, the front-page headline on the British newspaper The Independent screamed "Iraqi tanks mass on Kuwait border". I went over to our translator at Gulf Times in Doha, where I then worked as the sports editor, to tease him. "See, there is going to be war," I said, though I did not really believe it.
Unknown to me, Ismail had just got his own show on Qatar TV. A day after the invasion Ismail told his viewers; how is it, how is it that an Irish sports journalist could tell there would be war and not one Arab journalist predicted it?
