Then you missed the end of the Cold War. He was talking about 1991!
Saddam was deeply in debt after the Iran Iraq war. He was relying on rising fuel prices to be able to pay off the debts but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia began drilling more sending the price of oil down and hurting Saddam to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Kuwait was also slant drilling and stealing Iraqi oil. Then he invaded Kuwait which technically was part of Iraq anyway and the rest is history.
In any case, you will never see a bigger pile of scumbag trash than the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and U.A.E.