 Complete the following phrase:  When the war ended, Iraq was in the midst of an economic depression, owed millions of dollars to foreign countries, and was unable to repay its creditors. Kuwait deliberately increased its oil output during this time, greatly reducing international oil prices and further weakening the Iraqi economy while exerting pressure on the Iraqi leadership to pay back its loans. During bilateral negotiations, Iraq began exerting pressure on the Kuwaiti leadership to reduce its oil output and also accused Kuwait of cross-border slant drilling to steal Iraqi oil. The Iraqi leadership threatened military action if Kuwait did not make amends and demanded compensation for the violation of its sovereignty. Negotiations eventually broke down, and on 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The resulting international response by a United States-led coalition led to the Persian Gulf War, which Iraq lost. The United Nations UN initiated economic sanctions against Iraq in the wars aftermath to weaken the Baathist regime. The countrys economic conditions worsened during the 1990s, but by the early 2000s, the Iraqi economy started to grow again as several countries began to ignore UN sanctions. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaeda, the United States proclaimed a War on Terror and labelled Iraq as part of an Axis of Evil. In 2003, 