Gulf War
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Template:Campaignbox Persian Gulf Wars Template:Campaignbox Gulf War
The Gulf War or Persian Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991)[6][7] was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force from 35 nations[8] authorized by the United Nations (UN) and led primarily by the United States in order to liberate Kuwait.
The conflict developed in the context of the Iran-Iraq War. The entry by Iraqi troops in Kuwait was met with immediate economic sanctions by some members of the UN Security Council against Iraq. The expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait began in January 1991 and was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, which liberated Kuwait and penetrated Iraqi territory. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and bordering areas of Saudi Arabia. Iraq also launched missiles against targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel in retaliation for their support of the invading forces in Kuwait.
Since the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88 had been called the "Gulf War" or "Persian Gulf War" by many news sources, the 1991 war has sometimes been called the Second Gulf War, but more commonly, the 1991 war is styled simply the Gulf War or the "First Gulf War", in distinction from the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.[9] Operation Desert Storm was the U.S. name of the air and land operations and is often used to refer to the conflict.
Six days after Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the United States started to deploy Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, and Coast Guard units to Saudi Arabia (Operation Desert Shield), while at the same time urging other countries to send their own forces to the scene. U.N. coalition-building efforts were so successful that by the time the fighting (Operation Desert Storm) began on January 17, 1991, twelve countries had sent naval forces, joining the local nations of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states, as well as the huge array of the U.S. Navy, which deployed six aircraft-carrier battle groups; eight countries had sent ground forces, joining the local troops of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the seventeen heavy and six light brigades of the U.S. Army and nine Marine regiments, with all their vast support and service forces; and four countries had sent combat aircraft, joining the local air forces of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, as well as the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine aviation, for a grand total of 2,430 fixed-wing aircraft.
Against them, the Iraqis deployed only a few gunboats and small missile craft to match the coalition's armada; but on the other hand, some 1.2 million ground troops with about 5,800 tanks, 5,100 other armored vehicles, and 3,850 artillery pieces made for impressive ground strength. With 750 fighters and bombers, 200 other aircraft, and elaborate missile and gun defenses, Iraqi air strength also seemed formidable. However, the quality of Iraqi troops and equipment would be revealed to be rather poor.
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[edit] Origins
To the U.S., Iran-Iraqi relations were stable, and Iraq had been chiefly an ally of the Soviet Union. The U.S. was concerned with Iraq’s belligerence toward Israel and disapproval of moves toward peace between Israel and Egypt. It also condemned Iraqi support for various Arab and Palestinian militant groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to its inclusion on the incipient U.S. list of state sponsors of international terrorism on December 29, 1979. The U.S. remained officially neutral during the outbreak of hostilities in the Iran-Iraq War, possibly due to the public out-cry over the 444-day-long Iranian hostage crisis (1979–1981); with former U.S. president Ronald Reagan taking his oath of office and ending the crisis minutes later,[citation needed] possibly holding a purposefully neutral position in order to move the political discourse in the U.S. away from the recent bureaucratic bungling in the hostage crisis. In March 1982, however, Iran began a successful counteroffensive (Operation Undeniable Victory). The U.S. made a concerted effort to prevent Israel from getting involved so as not to inflame Arab countries.[citation needed] In a bid to open the possibility of relations to Iraq, the country was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime’s record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in terrorism... The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran."[10] With Iran's newfound success in the war and its rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales to Iraq from other states (most importantly the USSR, France, Egypt, and starting that year, China) reached a record spike in 1982, but an obstacle remained to any potential U.S.-Iraqi relationship—Abu Nidal continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When the group was expelled to Syria in November 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld as a special envoy to cultivate ties.
[edit] U.S. military aid to Iraq
Because of fears that revolutionary Iran would defeat Iraq and export its Islamic Revolution to other Middle Eastern nations, the U.S. began giving aid to Iraq. From 1983 to 1990, the U.S. government approved around $200 million in arms sales to Iraq, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).[11] These sales amounted to less than 1% of the total arms sold to Iraq in the relevant period[12], including helicopters which, although designated for civilian use, were immediately deployed by Iraq in its war with Iran.[citation needed]
An investigation by the Senate Banking Committee in 1994 determined that the U.S. Department of Commerce had approved, for the purpose of research, the shipping of dual-use biological agents to Iraq during the mid-1980s, including Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), later identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program, as well as Clostridium botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella melitensis, and Clostridium perfringens. The Committee report noted that each of these had been "considered by various nations for use in war."[13] Declassified U.S. government documents indicate that the U.S. government had confirmed that Iraq was using chemical weapons (but not biological weapons that the agents being exported could have been used for) "almost daily" during the Iran-Iraq conflict as early as 1983.[14] The chairman of the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: “The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think it’s a devastating record”.[15]
The level of U.S. covert aid to Iraq during this period is difficult to quantify. Saddam Hussein is widely known to have received battlefield intelligence from the U.S.[16]
[edit] U.S. economic aid to Iraq
It was chiefly the United States government that furnished Iraq with economic aid. Iraq’s war with Iran and the consequent disruption in Iraq's oil export business had caused the country to enter a deep debt. United States government economic assistance allowed Hussein to continue using resources for the war which otherwise might have been diverted. Between 1983 and 1990, Iraq received $5 billion in export credit guarantees from the Commodity Credit Corporation program run by the United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Agriculture, beginning at $400 million per year in 1983 and increasing to over $1 billion per year in 1988 and 1989, finally coming to an end after another $500 million was granted in 1990. Besides agricultural credits, the U.S. also provided Hussein with other loans. In 1985 the U.S. extended more than $684 million in credits to Iraq to build an oil pipeline, with the construction being undertaken by a California construction firm.
[edit] Cooling of relations
Following the war, however, there were moves within the Congress of the United States to isolate Iraq diplomatically and economically over concerns about human rights violations, its dramatic military build-up, and hostility to Israel. Specifically, in 1988 the Senate passed the “Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988,” which imposed sanctions on Iraq. The bill was not, however, adopted by the House.[17] These moves were disowned by some Congressmen though some U.S. officials, such as Reagan's head of Policy Planning Staff at the State Department and Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs, Paul Wolfowitz, who disagreed with giving support to the Iraqi regime.[18]
On October 2, 1989, President George H.W. Bush signed secret National Security Directive 26, which begins, “Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security.”[19] With respect to Iraq, the directive stated, "Normal relations between the United States and Iraq would serve our longer term interests and promote stability in both the Persian Gulf and the Middle East."
It has been noted that after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the United States had both direct and indirect reasons for a cooling of relations with Iraq. For example, the direct interest that the Western powers had in oil supplies from the Middle East meant that it would be undesirable for Iraq to dominate a large proportion of these supplies. Indirectly, in terms of the geopolitics, it was further undesirable that there should be an Iraqi hegemony in the Persian Gulf.[20]
[edit] Eve of the invasion
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By the time the ceasefire with Iran was signed in August 1988, Iraq was virtually bankrupt and heavily indebted to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Its vulnerability was made worse because the following year, in open defiance of OPEC quotas, Kuwait had increased its oil production by 40 percent. The collapse in oil prices had a catastrophic impact on the Iraqi economy. The Iraqi Government described it as a form of economic warfare, which it claimed was aggravated by Kuwait slant-drilling across the border into Iraq's Rumaila oil field.
Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra, and although its ruling dynasty, the al-Sabah family, had concluded a protectorate agreement in 1899 that assigned responsibility for its foreign affairs to Britain, it did not make any attempt to secede from the Ottoman Empire. For this reason, Iraqi governments had always refused to accept Kuwait's separation, and its borders were never clearly defined or mutually agreed. The British High Commissioner drew lines that deliberately constricted Iraq's access to the ocean so that any future Iraqi government would be in no position to threaten Britain's domination of the Gulf.
In late July 1990, as negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait stalled, Iraq massed troops on Kuwait’s borders and summoned American Ambassador April Glaspie to an unanticipated meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Two transcripts of that meeting have been produced, both of them controversial. In them, Hussein outlined his grievances against Kuwait, while promising that he would not invade Kuwait before one more round of negotiations. In the version published by The New York Times on September 23, 1990, Glaspie expressed concern over the troop buildup to Saddam Hussein:
"We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late ’60s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via [Chadli] Klibi [then Arab League General Secretary] or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?
"My assessment after 25 years' service in this area is that your objective must have strong backing from your Arab brothers. I now speak of oil. But you, Mr. President, have fought through a horrific and painful war. Frankly, we can see only that you have deployed massive troops in the south. Normally that would not be any of our business. But when this happens in the context of what you said on your national day, then when we read the details in the two letters of the Foreign Minister, then when we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq, then it would be reasonable for me to be concerned. And for this reason, I received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship -- not in the spirit of confrontation -- regarding your intentions.
"I simply describe the position of my Government. And I do not mean that the situation is a simple situation. But our concern is a simple one."
Some have interpreted portions of these statements, particularly the language "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait", as signaling an American "green light" for the invasion. Although the State Department did not confirm (or deny) the authenticity of these transcripts, U.S. sources say that it handled everything “by the book” (in accordance with the U.S.’s official neutrality on the Iraq-Kuwait issue) and had not signaled to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein any approval for defying the Arab League’s Jeddah crisis squad, which had conducted the negotiations. Many believe that Hussein may have been influenced by the perception that the U.S. was not interested in the issue, for which the Glaspie transcript is merely an example, and that he may have felt so in part because of U.S. support for the reunification of Germany, another act that he considered to be nothing more than the nullification of an artificial, internal border. Others, such as Kenneth Pollack, believe he had no such illusion, or that he simply underestimated the extent of American military response.
In November 1989, CIA director William Webster met with the Kuwaiti head of security, Brigadier Fahd Ahmed Al-Fahd. Subsequent to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Iraq claimed to have found a memorandum pertaining to their conversation. The Washington Post reported that Kuwait’s foreign minister fainted when confronted with this document at an Arab summit in August.[citation needed] Later, Iraq cited this memorandum as evidence of a CIA - Kuwaiti plot to destabilize Iraq economically and politically. The CIA and Kuwait have described the meeting as routine and the memorandum as a forgery. The purported document reads in part:
"We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country's government to delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition that such activities be coordinated at a high level."
On 23 August 1990 Saddam Hussein appeared on state television with Western hostages to whom he had refused exit visas. They were seen as human shields, though Hussein denied the claim. In the video he is seen ruffling the hair of a young boy named as Stuart Lockwood and asks through the interpreter if he is "getting his milk". He went on to say "We hope your presence as guests here will not be for too long. Your presence here, and in other places, is meant to prevent the scourge of war."[21]
[edit] Diplomacy/Operation Desert Shield
[edit] UN Resolution
Within hours of the invasion, Kuwaiti and US delegations requested a meeting of the UN Security Council, which passed Resolution 660, condemning the invasion and demanding a withdrawal of Iraqi troops. On August 3, the Arab League passed its own resolution. The resolution also called for a solution to the conflict from within the League, and warned against foreign intervention. On August 6, UN Resolution 661 placed economic sanctions on Iraq.
[edit] Possibility of attack on Saudi Arabia
The decision by the West to fight the Iraqi invasion had as much to do with preventing an attack on Saudi Arabia, a nation of far more economic importance to the world than Kuwait, as it did with liberating Kuwait itself. The rapid success of the Iraqi army had brought it within easy striking distance of the Hama oil fields, Saudi Arabia’s most valuable resource. Iraqi control of these fields as well as Kuwait and Iraqi reserves would have given it a way into the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The Iraqi armored divisions would have encountered the same difficulties that Saudi forces faced defending the oil fields, namely traversing large distances across inhospitable desert. This would have been exacerbated by intense bombing by the Saudi Air Force, by far the most modern arm of the Saudi military.
Iraq had a number of grievances with Saudi Arabia. The concern over debts stemming from the Iran-Iraq war was even greater when applied to Saudi Arabia, which Iraq owed some 26 billion dollars. The long desert border was also ill-defined. Soon after his victory over Kuwait, Hussein began verbally attacking the Saudi kingdom. He argued that the American-supported country was an illegitimate guardian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Hussein combined the language of the Islamist groups that had recently fought in Afghanistan with the rhetoric Iran had long used to attack the Saudis.
[edit] Operation Desert Shield
In 1980 then-President Jimmy Carter made a declaration on U.S. policy concerning security in the Persian Gulf region. This became known as Carter Doctrine:
"...an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
President Ronald Reagan expanded this further in 1981 by declaring that the United States would use force to protect Saudi Arabia, whose security at the time was threatened after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War. Acting on this authority, and out of fear the Iraqi army could launch an invasion of Saudi Arabia, President George H. W. Bush quickly announced that the U.S. would launch a "wholly defensive" mission to prevent Iraq from invading Saudi Arabia—Operation Desert Shield—and US troops moved into Saudi Arabia on August 7 1990.[22] On August 8, Iraq declared parts of Kuwait to be extensions of the Iraqi province of Basra and the rest to be the 19th province of Iraq.[23]
The United States Navy mobilized two naval battle groups, the aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Independence and their escorts, to the area, where they were ready by August 8. A total of 48 US Air Force F-15s from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, landed in Saudi Arabia and immediately commenced round the clock air patrols of the Saudi-Kuwait-Iraq border areas to prevent further Iraqi advances. The U.S. also sent the battleships USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin to the region. Military buildup continued from there, eventually reaching 500,000 troops. Much of the material was airlifted or carried to the staging areas via fast sealift ships, allowing a quick buildup. The consensus among military analysts is nonetheless that until October, the American military forces in the area would have been insufficient to stop an invasion of Saudi Arabia had Iraq attempted one.
[edit] Building a coalition
A long series of UN Security Council resolutions and Arab League resolutions were passed regarding the conflict. One of the most important was Resolution 678, passed on November 29, giving Iraq a withdrawal deadline of January 15 1991, and authorizing “all necessary means to uphold and implement Resolution 660,” a diplomatic formulation authorizing the use of force.
The United States, especially Secretary of State James Baker, assembled a coalition of forces to join it in opposing Iraq, consisting of forces from 34 countries: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States itself. US troops represented 74% of the coalition’s 1,660,000 troops in Iraq. Many of the coalition forces were reluctant to join; some felt that the war was an internal Arab affair, or feared increasing American influence in Kuwait. In the end, many nations were persuaded by Iraq’s belligerence towards other Arab states, and offers of economic aid or debt forgiveness.
[edit] Justifying the war
The United States and the United Nations gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict. The most important reason was the Iraqi violation of Kuwaiti territorial integrity. In addition, the United States moved quickly to support its long-time ally, Saudi Arabia, whose importance in the region and as a key supplier of oil made it of considerable geopolitical importance.
During a speech given on September 11, 1990, George H.W. Bush made the following remarks: "Within 3 days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." Satellite photos showing a build up of Iraqi forces along the border were the source of this information. Jean Heller, an investigative reporter on the St. Petersburg Times decided to investigate. Satellite photos from a commercial Russian satellite owned by Iraq's ally—Soyuz Karta—were obtained for around US$ 3,000. On January 6, 1991 she wrote an article detailing what had been found, titled "Photos Don't Show Buildup." The photos were reviewed by several experts and did not show any evidence to support the claims of George H.W. Bush. No buildup of troops in anywhere near the numbers stated by the President were visible in the photos, although Heller acknowledged that "(a)nother possibility is that the Soviets deliberately or accidentally produced a photo taken before the Iraqi invasion."
Heller's story was not widely accepted by her media colleagues, and the war remained widely supported among the American elite. The anti-war faction and its “No Blood For Oil” slogan was ignored throughout the conflict, despite popular support.[citation needed] Later justifications for the war included Iraq’s history of human rights abuses under President Saddam Hussein. Hussein was also suspected of possessing chemical weapons (which he had previously used against his own people and against Iranian troops in the Iran-Iraq War) and biological weapons and was known to be attempting to build atomic bombs, providing further justification beyond his violation of Kuwaiti sovereignty.
Although the human rights abuses of the Iraq regime before and after the Kuwait invasion were well-documented, the government of Kuwait set out to influence American opinion with a few accounts. Shortly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the organization Citizens for a Free Kuwait was formed in the U.S. It hired the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for about $11 million, paid by the Kuwaiti government.[24] This firm went on to manufacture a campaign in which a nurse working in the Kuwait City hospital described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and letting them die on the floor. The story was an influence in tipping both the public and Congress towards a war with Iraq: six Congressmen said the testimony was enough for them to support military action against Iraq and seven Senators referenced the testimony in debate.[citation needed] The Senate supported the military actions in a 52-47 vote. One year later, however, this allegation was labeled a fabricated hoax. The woman who had testified was found to be a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family living in Paris during the war, and therefore could not have been present during the alleged crime.[citation needed]
[edit] Final peace proposals
Various peace proposals were floated, but none were agreed to. The United States insisted that the only acceptable terms for peace were Iraq's full, unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait. Iraq insisted that withdrawal from Kuwait must be “linked” to a simultaneous withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and Israeli troops from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon. Morocco and Jordan were persuaded by this proposal, but Syria, Israel, and the anti-Iraq coalition denied that there was any connection to the Kuwait issue. Syria joined the coalition to expel Hussein but Israel remained officially neutral despite rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. The Bush administration persuaded Israel to remain outside the conflict by informing them that British Special Forces were working behind enemy-lines in Iraq in search of SCUD missile launchers that were being targeted towards Israeli cities.
On January 12, 1991 the United States Congress authorized the use of military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. The votes were 52-47 in the Senate and 250-183 in the House. These were the closest margins in authorizing force by the Congress since the War of 1812. Soon after, the other states in the coalition also authorized force.
[edit] Air campaign
- See also: Operation Instant Thunder
[edit] Main air campaign starts
A day after the deadline set in Resolution, the coalition launched a massive air campaign codenamed Operation Desert Storm with more than 1,000 sorties launching per day. It all began on January 17, 1991, when eight U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters, and two Pavelow helicopters destroyed Iraqi radar sites near the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border at 2:38 A.M. Baghdad time, which could have warned Iraq of an upcoming attack. At 2:43 A.M. two EF-111 Ravens with terrain following radar led 22 F-15E Strike Eagles against H-2 and H-3 - airfields in Western Iraq. Minutes later one of the EF-111 crews -- Captain James Denton and Captain Brent Brandon -- scored a kill against an Iraqi Dassault Mirage F-1, when their low altitude maneuvering led the F-1 into the ground. 'As I lie in my tent after performing an all night radar surveillance operation, I remember being annoyed by the percussion of earth shattering bomb explosions.[attribution needed]
At 3 A.M., ten U.S. F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighters under the protection of a three-ship formation of EF-111s bombed Baghdad, the capital.
Concurrently, U.S. Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles struck targets in Baghdad, and other coalition aircraft struck targets throughout Iraq. The attack continued for hours. Government headquarters, Iraqi TV stations, Iraqi Air Force fields and Presidential Palaces were destroyed. Five hours after the first attacks, Baghdad state radio broadcast a voice identified as Saddam Hussein declaring that “The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins.”
The Persian Gulf War is sometimes called the “computer war”[citation needed] because of the advanced weapons used in the air campaign which included precision-guided munitions (or “smart bombs”) and cruise missiles. Cluster munitions and BLU-82 “Daisy Cutters” were also used. Iraq responded by launching eight Scud missiles into Israel the next day. These missile attacks on Israel were to continue throughout the six weeks of the war. The first priority for Coalition forces was destruction of the Iraqi air force and anti-aircraft facilities. This was quickly achieved, and for the duration of the war, Coalition aircraft could operate largely unchallenged. Despite Iraq’s better-than-expected anti-aircraft capabilities, only one coalition aircraft, an FA-18 flown by LCDR Scott Speicher, was lost in the opening day of the war. EA-6Bs, EF-111 radar jammers and F-117A stealth planes were heavily used in this phase to elude Iraq’s extensive SAM systems and anti-aircraft weapons; once these were destroyed, other types of aircraft could more safely be used. The sorties were launched mostly from Saudi Arabia and the six Coalition aircraft carrier battle groups (CVBG) in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Persian Gulf CVBGs included USS Midway (CV 41), USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and USS Ranger (CV-61). USS America (CV-66), USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), and USS Saratoga (CV-60) operated from the Red Sea (USS America transitioned to the Persian Gulf midway through the air war).
The next coalition targets were command and communication facilities. Hussein had closely micromanaged the Iraqi forces in the Iran-Iraq War and initiative at the lower levels was discouraged. Coalition planners hoped Iraqi resistance would quickly collapse if deprived of command and control.
[edit] Iraq's air force escapes to Iran
The first week of the air war saw a few Iraqi sorties; but these did little damage, and 38 Iraqi MiGs were shot down by Coalition planes. Soon after, the Iraqi Air Force began fleeing to Iran, with 115 to 140 aircraft flown to Iran.[25] The mass exodus of Iraqi aircraft to Iran took coalition forces by surprise as the Coalition had been expecting the aircraft to flee to Jordan, a nation friendly to Iraq rather than Iran, Iraq's long-time enemy. The Coalition had placed aircraft over Western Iraq to try and stop such a retreat into Jordan. This meant they were unable to react before most of the Iraqi aircraft had made it "safely" to Iranian airbases. The coalition eventually established a virtual "wall" of F-14 Tomcat fighters on the Iraq border with Iran (called MIGCAP) thereby stopping the exodus of fleeing Iraqi fighters. Iran has never returned the aircraft to Iraq and did not release the aircrews home until years later.[citation needed]
The Iraqi Navy also attempted to escape to Iran, but only one damaged Osa class missile boat managed to get through.[citation needed]
[edit] Gulf War oil spill
On January 23, Iraq was accused of dumping 400 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf, causing the largest oil spill in history.[4] It was reported as a deliberate natural resources attack to keep U.S. Marine forces from coming ashore.[citation needed] This was denied by the Iraqi government, who claimed that the allied bombing campaign had damaged and destroyed Iraqi oil tankers that were docked at the time.
[edit] Infrastructure bombing
The third and largest phase of the air campaign targeted military targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait: Scud missile launchers, weapons of mass destruction sites, weapons research facilities and naval forces. About one-third of the Coalition airpower was devoted to attacking Scuds, which were on trucks and therefore difficult to locate. In addition, it targeted facilities useful for both the military and civilians: electricity production facilities, telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges. Electrical power facilities were destroyed across the country. At the end of the war, electricity production was at four percent of its pre-war levels. Bombs destroyed the utility of all major dams, most major pumping stations and many sewage treatment plants. Some U.S. and British special forces teams had been covertly inserted into western Iraq to aid in the search and destruction of Scuds. However, the lack of adequate terrain for concealment hindered their operations, and many of them were killed or captured.[citation needed]
The Iraqi targets were located by aerial photography and were referenced to the GPS coordinates of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were determined by a USAF officer in August 1990: he arrived at the airport carrying a briefcase with a GPS receiver in it, then an embassy car took him to the embassy. He walked to the embassy courtyard, opened the briefcase, took one GPS reading, and put the machine back in the case. Then he returned to the U.S, gave the GPS receiver to the appropriate intelligence agency in Langley, VA, where the position of the U.S. Embassy was officially determined. This position served as the origin for a coordinate system used to designate military targets in Baghdad. [26]
Jordan's neutrality in the war prompted American fighter jets to bomb highways connecting Iraq and Jordan, causing casualties and crippling infrastructure on both sides.[citation needed]
[edit] Hits on civilian facilities
In most cases, the US-led coaltion avoided hitting civilian-only facilities. However, on February 13 1991, two laser-guided "smart bombs" destroyed the Amiriyah blockhouse, which the Iraqis claimed was for the auspices of an air shelter, killing hundreds of civilians. U.S. officials claimed that the blockhouse was a military communications center, a claim validated by Iraqi military leaders after the war. The White House claims, in a report titled Apparatus of Lies: Crafting Tragedy, that U.S. intelligence sources reported the blockhouse was being used for military command purposes.[27] In his book, Saddam's Bombmaker, the former director of Iraq’s nuclear weapon program, who defected to the west, supports the theory that the facility was used for both purposes, as does Iraqi general Georges Sada, who was in charge of POWs taken during combat. Other sources dispute these claims.[citation needed]
[edit] Iraq launches missile strikes
Iraq launched missile attacks on coalition bases in Saudi Arabia and on Israel, in the hopes of drawing Israel into the war and drawing other Arab states out of it. This strategy proved ineffective. Israel did not join the coalition, and all Arab states stayed in the coalition except Jordan, which remained officially neutral throughout the war. The Scud missiles generally caused fairly light damage, although its potency was felt on February 25 when 28 Americans were killed when a Scud destroyed their barracks in Dhahran. The Scuds targeting Israel were ineffective due to the fact that increasing the range of the Scud resulted in the dramatic reduction in accuracy and payload. Nevertheless, the total of 39 missiles that landed on Israel caused extensive property damage and two direct deaths,[28] and caused the United States to deploy two Patriot missile battalions in Israel in an attempt to deflect the attacks on civilian areas. Allied air forces were also extensively exercised in "Scud hunts" in the Iraqi desert, trying to locate the camouflaged trucks before they fired their missiles at Israel or Saudi Arabia.
[edit] Vulnerability of Iraq against air power
On January 29, Iraq attacked and occupied the lightly-defended Saudi city of Khafji with tanks and infantry. However, the Battle of Khafji ended when Iraqis were driven back by Saudi forces supported by U.S. Marines with close air support over the following two days. Khafji was a strategic city immediately after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Iraqi reluctance to commit several armoured divisions to the occupation and subsequent use of Khafji as a launching pad into the initially lightly defended Eastern portion of Saudi Arabia is considered by many academics as a grave strategic error. Not only would Iraq have secured a majority of Middle Eastern oil supplies, it would have found itself better able to threaten the subsequent U.S. deployment along superior defensive lines.
The effect of the air campaign was to decimate entire Iraqi brigades deployed in the open desert in combat formation. The air campaign also prevented effective Iraqi resupply to forward deployed units engaged in combat, as well preventing a large number (450,000) of Iraqi troops from achieving the force concentration essential to victory.
The air campaign had a significant effect on the tactics employed by opposing forces in subsequent conflicts. No longer were entire divisions dug in the open facing U.S. forces, but were instead dispersed, as with Serbian forces in Kosovo. Opposing forces also reduced the length of their supply lines and the total area defended. This was seen during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan when the Taliban preemptively abandoned large swaths of land and retreated into their strongholds. This increased their force concentration and reduced long vulnerable supply lines. This tactic was also observed in the invasion of Iraq when the Iraqi forces retreated from northern Iraqi Kurdistan into the cities.
[edit] Ground campaign
The coalition forces dominated the air with their technological advantages, but the ground forces were considered to be more evenly matched up between Iraqis and coalition infantry. The coalition ground forces had the significant advantage of being able to operate under the protection of coalition Air supremacy that had been achieved by the Air Forces prior to start of the main ground offensive. Coalition forces also had two key technological advantages:
- the Coalition Main Battle Tanks such as the American M1 Abrams, British Challenger 1 and Kuwaiti M-84AB were vastly superior to the export version Soviet-built T-72 tanks used by the Iraqis, with crews better trained and armored doctrine better developed;
- the use of GPS made it possible for Coalition forces to navigate without reference to roads or other fixed landmarks. This allowed them to fight a battle of maneuver rather than a battle of encounter: they knew where they were and where the enemy was, so they could attack a specific target, rather than wandering around and firing at whatever forces they bumped into.
[edit] Initial moves into Iraq
The first units into Iraq were three patrols of B squadron of the British Special Air Service, callsigns Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero, and Bravo Three Zero in late January. These eight man patrols landed behind enemy lines to gather intelligence on the movements of Soviet Scud mobile missile launchers, which could not be detected from the air, as during the day they would hide under bridges and camouflage netting. Other objectives included the destruction of fibre optic communications arrays that lay in pipelines, relaying coordinates to the TEL operators launching attacks against Syria.
Elements of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division performed a covert recon into Iraq on 9 February 1991, followed by a recon in force on February 20 that destroyed an Iraqi battalion. On February 22, 1991, Iraq agreed to a Soviet-proposed cease-fire agreement. The agreement called for Iraq to withdraw troops to pre-invasion positions within six weeks following a total cease-fire, and called for monitoring of the cease-fire and withdrawal to be overseen by the UN Security Council. The Coalition rejected the proposal but said that retreating Iraqi forces would not be attacked,[citation needed] and gave twenty-four hours for Iraq to begin withdrawing forces.
[edit] Coalition forces enter Iraq
Shortly afterwards, the U.S. VII Corps assembled in full strength and launched an armoured attack into Iraq early Sunday, February 24, just to the west of Kuwait, taking Iraqi forces by surprise. Simultaneously, the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps launched a sweeping “left-hook” attack across the largely undefended desert of southern Iraq, led by the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (3rd ACR) and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized). The left flank of this movement was protected by the French 6th Light Armored Division (which included units of the French Foreign Legion). The fast-moving French force quickly overcame the Iraqi 45th Infantry Division, suffering only a handful of casualties, and took up blocking positions to prevent any Iraqi force from attacking the Allied flank. The right flank of the movement was protected by the British 1st Armoured Division. Once the allies had penetrated deep into Iraqi territory, they turned eastward, launching a flank attack against the Republican Guard.
Both sides exchanged fire, but the Republican guard divisions, worn down by weeks of aerial bombardment, proved unable to withstand the Allied advance. Tank battles, including the Battle of Medina Ridge and the Battle of 73 Easting, flared as the Republican Guard attempted to retreat. The Allies won with minimal losses.
It soon became obvious the Iraqi strategy was inherently flawed. Once Iraq had decided it was not going to advance into the eastern oil fields of Saudi Arabia, there was no reason for Iraqi forces to deploy further south from Kuwait City in great numbers. The decision to deploy significant quantities of troops along the desert border of Kuwait unnecessarily increased the length of Iraqi supply lines. Secondly, once the decision had been made to deploy along the border, the decision to extend it only slightly along the Iraqi border invited a massive flanking. Indeed the Iraqis did not possess enough forces to maintain a long enough front along the border of Kuwait and southwestern Iraq. Therefore it was imperative that the deployment and the front should have been shortened to just south of Kuwait City and extending to the outskirts of Basra. Iraq possessed only one absolute military advantage over the allies, that being the quality and quantity of its artillery pieces, especially the South African made G5 howitzer. However, most of Iraq’s artillery pieces were towed and hence not well suited to large expansive maneuvers. This also meant that it was in Iraq’s interest to slow down the movement of opposition forces and engage along lines that could not be easily broken or flanked.
The Coalition advance was much swifter than U.S. generals had expected. On February 26, Iraqi troops began retreating out of Kuwait, setting fire to Kuwaiti oil fields as they left. A long convoy of retreating Iraqi troops formed along the main Iraq-Kuwait highway. This convoy was bombed so extensively by the Allies that it came to be known as the Highway of Death. Critics of the action contend that the column also contained prisoners and other fleeing Iraqi civilians, such as families of Iraqi military units.[attribution needed] Forces from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France continued to pursue retreating Iraqi forces over the border and back into Iraq, moving to within 150 miles (240 km) of Baghdad before withdrawing.
One hundred hours after the ground campaign started, President Bush declared a cease-fire and on February 27 declared that Kuwait had been liberated.
[edit] Post-war military analysis
Although it was said at the time that Iraqi troops numbered approximately 545,000 (even 600,000) today most experts think that both the qualitative and quantitative descriptions of the Iraqi Army at the time were exaggerated, as they included both temporary and auxiliary support elements. Many of the Iraqi troops were also young, under-resourced and poorly trained conscripts. The Coalition committed approximately 540,000 troops. In addition to these, a further 100,000 Turkish troops were deployed along the common border of Turkey and Iraq. This caused significant force dilution of the Iraqi military by forcing it to deploy its forces along all its borders. This allowed the main thrust by the Americans to not only possess a significant technological advantage but also a superiority in force numbers.
Saddam Hussein bought military equipment from almost every major dealer of the World's weapons market. This resulted in a lack of standardization in this large heterogeneous force, which additionally suffered from poor training and poor motivation. The majority of Iraqi armoured forces still used old Chinese Type-59s and Type-69s, Soviet-made T-55s from the 1950s and 1960s, and some T-72s from the 1970s in 1991. These machines were not equipped with up-to-date equipment, like thermal sight or laser rangefinder, and their effectiveness in modern combat was very limited. The Iraqis failed to find an effective countermeasure to the thermal sights and the sabot rounds used by the M1 Abrams, Challenger 1 and the other Coalition tanks. This equipment enabled Coalition tanks to effectively engage and destroy Iraqi tanks from more than three times the distance that Iraqi tanks could engage.[citation needed] The Iraqi tank crews used old, cheap steel penetrators against the advanced Chobham Armour of these American and British tanks, with disastrous results. The Iraqi forces also failed to utilize the advantage that could be gained from using urban warfare — fighting within Kuwait City — which could have inflicted significant casualties on the attacking forces.[citation needed] Urban combat reduces the range at which fighting occurs and can negate some of the technological advantage that well equipped forces enjoy.[citation needed] Iraqis also tried to copy the Soviet doctrine from the 1950s of mass attacks, but the implementation failed due to the lack of skill of their commanders and the preventive air strikes of the U.S. Air Force on communication centres and bunkers.
[edit] The end of active hostilities
A peace conference was held in Iraqi territory occupied by the coalition. At the conference, Iraq won the approval of the use of armed helicopters on their side of the temporary border, ostensibly for government transit due to the damage done to civilian transportation. Soon after, these helicopters, and much of the Iraqi armed forces, were refocused toward fighting against a Shiite uprising in the south. The rebellions were encouraged on 2 February 1991 by a broadcast on CIA run radio station The Voice of Free Iraq broadcasting out of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic service of the Voice of America supported the uprising by stating that the rebellion was large and that they soon would be liberated from Hussein.[29]
In the North, Kurdish leaders took heart in American statements that they would support an uprising and began fighting, in the hopes of triggering a coup. However, when no American support was forthcoming, Iraqi generals remained loyal and brutally crushed the Kurdish troops. Millions of Kurds fled across the mountains to Kurdish areas of Turkey and Iran. These incidents would later result in no-fly zones being established in both the North and the South of Iraq. In Kuwait, the Emir was restored and suspected Iraqi collaborators were repressed. Eventually, over 400,000 people were expelled from the country, including a large number of Palestinians (due to their support of and collaboration with Hussein).
There was some criticism of the Bush administration for its decision to allow Hussein to remain in power, rather than pushing on to capture Baghdad and overthrowing his government. In their co-written 1998 book, A World Transformed, Bush and Brent Scowcroft argued that such a course would have fractured the alliance and would have had many unnecessary political and human costs associated with it.
In 1992, the United States Secretary of Defense during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.
And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."[30]
Instead of greater involvement of its own military, the United States hoped that Hussein would be overthrown in an internal coup. The Central Intelligence Agency used its assets in Iraq to organize a revolt, but the Iraqi government defeated the effort.[citation needed]
On March 10, 1991, Operation Desert Storm began to move 540,000 American troops out of the Persian Gulf.
[edit] Coalition involvement
Members of the Coalition included Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey[citation needed], United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States of America. Germany and Japan provided financial assistance and donated military hardware instead of direct military assistance, which was later to be known as a "checkbook diplomacy". United States asked Israel not to participate in the war despite missile strikes on Israeli citizens. India extended military support to the United States in the form of refueling facilities situated in the Arabian Sea.
[edit] United Kingdom
The United Kingdom was numerically the largest European nation to partake in combat operations during the war. Operation Granby was the name for the operations in the Persian Gulf. British Army regiments (mainly with the British 1st Armoured Division), Royal Navy vessels, and Royal Air Force squadrons were mobilized to the Gulf. The Royal Air Force, using various aircraft, operated from airbases in Saudi Arabia. Almost 2,500 armoured vehicles and 43,000 troops were shipped for action.
Chief Royal Navy vessels deployed to the gulf included a number of Broadsword-class frigates, and Sheffield-class destroyers, other RN and RFA ships were also deployed. The light aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was not deployed to the Gulf area, but was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea.
[edit] France
The second largest European contingent was from France. Operating on the left flank of the US XVIII Airborne Corps, the main French army force was the 6th Light Armoured Division, including troops from the French Foreign Legion. Initially, the French operated independently under national command and control, but coordinated closely with the Americans, Saudis and CENTCOM. In January, the Division was placed under the tactical control of the US XVIII Airborne Corps. France also deployed combat aircraft and naval units. The French called their contribution Opération Daguet
[edit] Canada
Canada was one of the first nations to agree to condemn Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and it quickly agreed to join the U.S.-led coalition. In August 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney sent the destroyers HMCS Terra Nova and HMCS Athabaskan to join the maritime interdiction force. The supply ship HMCS Protecteur was also sent to aid the gathering coalition forces. The Canadian flotilla lead the coalition logistics force at sea. A fourth ship, HMCS Huron arrived in theatre after hostilies ceased. The ship was the first to visit Kuwait at the end of the war.
After the UN authorized full use of force in the operation Canada sent a CF-18 squadron with support personnel. Canada also sent a field hospital to deal with casualties from the ground war. When the air war began, Canada's planes were integrated into the coalition force and provided air cover and attacked ground targets. This was the first time since the Korean War that Canadian forces had participated in offensive combat operations.
[edit] Norway
In recent years, the work of Norwegian intelligence personnel of during the Gulf War has become public.
Norwegian intelligence personnel, at a listening post in the North of Norway, were in secrecy presented with high ranking awards for their work in saving shot down American pilots during the Gulf War.
During the Gulf War, many American pilots were shot down. Rescuing these downed pilots was a very high priority and the United States devoted a large amount of resources to doing so. The pilots were fitted with emergency beepers, so that the Americans, via satellite could locate them.
However, the USA satellite coverage wasn't always present and desperate American officials started looking around for other methods of locating their pilots. It was then that a listening post located in Norway, above the Arctic Circle came to the rescue. The Norwegian listening post continually listened to Soviet spy satellites, which received the signals from the American pilots without a problem. The Norwegian intelligence personnel "stole" the information they got by spying on the Soviet satellites and forwarded it to American personnel which could then get into the war theater at the correct location and save the pilots.
Several American pilots were saved because of this listening post in Norway. The personnel received diplomas signed by US President George Bush himself.[31]
[edit] Troop deployment
| List of Coalition forces by number of troops | ||
|---|---|---|
| Country | Number of Troops</ | |