Persian Gulf War

█ JUDSON KNIGHT

The Persian Gulf War, in which a coalition led by the United States drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in early 1991, was one of the most successful campaigns in history. At a cost of less than 300 Allied lives, coalition troops, whose military actions were largely funded by Saudi Arabia, drove out Saddam Hussein's forces. Thousands of Iraqi lives were lost in the process, however. In their victory, the coalition depended in large part on advances in military technology by the United States, whose arsenal included tools ranging from the F-117A stealth fighter to the M1A1 Abrams tank, and from the Global Positioning System (GPS) to unmanned drones and Patriot missiles. Less clearly successful was U.S. intelligence, which had failed to predict the war. Equally questionable was the ultimate outcome of the war, whose scores would not fully be settled until 12 years later.

The Persian Gulf War is sometimes called simply the Gulf War or Operation Desert Storm, after the U.S.-led campaign that comprised the bulk of the fighting. It may ultimately come to be known as "Gulf War II," or "Persian Gulf War II," with the 2003 operation in Iraq becoming the third in this series. The first, also known as the Iran-Iraq War, lasted from 1980 to 1988, and pitted the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein against the Islamic theocracy in Iran.

Both regimes had taken power in 1979, but the conflict concerned long standing disputes involving lands on the borders between the two nations. In the ensuing hostilities, most nations—including much of the Arab world, the United States, western Europe, and the Soviet bloc—supported Iraq, generally regarded as the lesser of two evils. (Both the Americans and the Soviets also gave covert support to the Iranians as well.) The war, which cost some 850,000 lives, resulted in a stalemate, and both nations built monuments to their alleged victories.

In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, analysts working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prepared a report on the likelihood of Iraqi aggression in the near future. According to the now-infamous study, Saddam had so overextended his resources in the war with Iran that he would not take any major aggressive action for at least three years. In this instance, the CIA underestimated Saddam's penchant for military adventurism.

Invasion and Buildup

On August 2, 1990, without advance warning, Iraqi tanks and troops rolled into neighboring Kuwait. Both nations possessed considerable oil wealth, but Kuwait was by far the richer of the two, and Iraq—particularly under Saddam's regime—had long had designs on Kuwait. Given the importance of oil from the Persian Gulf region, which at that time fueled a great part of the world, neither the United States nor the United Nations (UN) Security Council was inclined to ignore Hussien's aggressive action.

The Security Council on August 3 called for an Iraqi withdrawal, and on August 6 it imposed a worldwide ban on trade with Iraq. On August 5, President George H. W. Bush declared that the invasion "will not stand," and a day later, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia met with U.S. Defense Secretary Richard Cheney to request military assistance. Saudi Arabia, Japan, and other wealthy allies would underwrite most of the $60 billion associated with the resulting military effort. By August 8, U.S. Air Force fighters were in Saudi Arabia.

Numerous countries were involved in the military buildup during late 1990, a program known as Operation Desert Shield. By January 1991, the United States alone had some 540,000 troops, along with another 160,000 from the United Kingdom, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, and other nations. On November 29, 1990, the Security Council authorized use of force against Iraq unless it withdrew its troops by January 15. Saddam's only response was to continue building his troop strength in Kuwait, such that by the time the Allies counterattacked, he had some 300,000 men on the ground.

On January 17, 1991, Operation Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm, which consisted largely of bombing campaigns against Iraq's command and control, infrastructure, and military assets. In retaliation, Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles on January 18. A great portion of the Allied losses occurred in this initial phase, when the Iraqis shot down several low-flying U.S. and British planes.

After thus severing the tail of the invading force, the Allies in February began concentrating on Iraqi positions in Kuwait. Having initially planned an amphibious landing, Allied commander General H. Norman Schwarzkopf instead opted for an armored assault. On February 24, in a campaign phase named Operation Desert Sabre, Allied troops moved northward from Saudi Arabia and into Kuwait. By February 27, they had taken Kuwait City.

At the same time, operations in Iraq itself continued. In the only major bombing run on the capital city of Baghdad, Stealth fighters struck Iraqi intelligence headquarters, while U.S. Army Special Forces teams inserted themselves deep in Iraq. In the southern part of the country, U.S. tanks pounded Iraqi armored reserve forces, while Allied ground forces neutralized Hussien's "elite"

Republican Guard south of Basra. President Bush declared a cease-fire on February 28.

The war had lasted 42 days, and the principal campaign, the mid-January bombing, took just over 100 hours. Credit for this extraordinary success goes to a number of factors, not least of which was strong leadership. On the military side, there was Schwarzkopf on the ground, and in Washington, General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who served as the principal military spokesman during the war. In this, the first major U.S. action since the end of fighting in Vietnam nearly two decades earlier, the performance of both leaders and troops showed that military capabilities had improved extraordinarily since then.

Among the civilian leaders were Cheney, Secretary of State James Baker, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and President Bush. The president, sometimes criticized for a failure to communicate his aims to his subordinates or the public as a whole, was quite clear in his objectives for the Persian Gulf War. On January 15, 1991, Bush sent his principal security advisors a memorandum which outlined four major aims: to force an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, to restore Kuwait's government, to protect American lives, and to promote stability and security in the Gulf region.

Another factor in the success—and another point of comparison with Vietnam—was the near-unanimous support for the action. Whereas American allies and foes alike questioned the value of the action in Vietnam, virtually no one other than Saddam's regime (along with a handful of antiwar protestors at home) opposed the U.S. effort to liberate an invaded nation. This support was helped rather than hurt by an unprecedented level of television coverage. While Vietnam became known as "the first televised war," TV reporting in the 1960s and 1970s was minimal compared to the round-the-clock reportage offered by cable outlets, most notably the Cable News Network (CNN), in 1990 and 1991.

The U.S. arsenal. While human factors deserve a great deal of credit for the success of Allied operations in the Persian Gulf War, the war would not have been won as efficiently without the technological superiority offered by modern weaponry. Among the tools in the U.S. arsenal were a variety of aircraft, including the AH-64 Apache helicopter, the leading anti-armor attack chopper. Introduced in 1984, the Apache could operate in conditions of darkness or low visibility, and was made to sustain heavy pounding from antiaircraft guns.

The E-3 Sentry AWACS (airborne warning and control system) was a masterpiece of modern technology. Packed with electronics, the aircraft—based on the Boeing 707 and introduced in 1977—was made to identify enemy aircraft, jam enemy radar, guide bombers to their targets, and manage the flow of friendly aircraft. Even more cutting-edge were the Pointer and Pioneer drones, or remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs).

Based on Israeli designs and first used by the United States during the war, the RPVs served as airborne spy platforms. The Pioneer, with a range of about 100 miles (161km) and a flight duration of five hours, could take high-definition pictures from 2,000 feet (610 meters) and transmit them to a processing center. In addition to its video cameras, it was equipped with infrared heat sensors, and provided a wealth of intelligence on everything from enemy troop movements to the recommended path for Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Other aircraft included the B-52 Stratofortress bomber, the F-117A Stealth fighter, and the E-8G JSTARS surveillance aircraft. Among the other notable weapons used in the Persian Gulf War were the M1A1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the MIM-104 Patriot missile defense system, and the Tomahawk cruise missile. High above the ground was the GPS, whose 24 satellites helped soldiers find their bearings in the desert, and assisted artillery in targeting.

Controversies. More controversial than the role of weapons systems was that of intelligence in the Persian Gulf War. The CIA did not inspire a great deal of confidence, either with its initial estimate of Iraqi intentions or from its August 1996 "Final Report on Intelligence Related to Gulf War Illnesses." In the wake of illnesses that broke out among returning personnel, the CIA sought to investigate the connection between these conditions and Iraqi use of chemical or biological agents. The CIA report found no evidence that Iraq had intentionally used such weapons against the United States, even though Saddam used chemical weapons against rebellious Kurds in the north.

More successful was the performance of Defense Department intelligence and related activities, both on the part of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various military intelligence and psychological warfare units. DIA began operations in Iraq long before the war, and regularly gathered intelligence reports that proved invaluable to military leadership. The same was true of military intelligence units, while psychological operations had an immeasurable impact by coercing Iraqis to provide the Allies with intelligence on their forces' activities and capabilities.

In addition to controversies over the success of intelligence, there remained questions concerning the success of the war as a whole. This fact was symbolized by the failure of Bush—who, after the war, had the highest poll numbers of any U.S. President since scientific polling began—to gain reelection in 1992. Ironically, Saddam Hussein, who many U.S. leaders had expected to be toppled in the unrest that followed the war, remained in power despite UN sanctions and the imposition of a no-fly zone over the northern and southern portions of the country. Among the factors cited for Bush's sudden loss of popularity from mid-1991 onward (in addition to an economic slowdown and clever campaigning by challenger William J. Clinton) was his failure to remove Saddam Hussein. However, as Bush rightly noted, such action was not within his mandate from the UN.

In 1993, the CIA uncovered evidence that Saddam Hussein had attempted to assassinate Bush, in response for which U.S. warships fired 23 cruise missiles at Iraqi secret service headquarters. The years that followed saw a lengthy process of UN and U.S. attempts to find weapons of mass destruction thought to be hidden in Iraq continually thwarted by Saddam Hussein. When he evicted UN inspectors in 1998, the United States and United Kingdom launched a four-day bombing campaign, Desert Fox, against Iraq.

Although overt evidence was lacking, some in the U.S. intelligence and defense communities suspected Iraqi ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and after the 2001 destruction of those buildings, President George W. Bush indicated that the attacks had been sponsored or at least abetted by Iraq. In March, 2003, the United States launched Operation Iraqi Freedom, a land invasion of Iraq. Though many putative experts claimed that the campaign would not be as successful as the Persian Gulf War, this one—while much less popular globally—was actually shorter, and achieved something the earlier war did not: the removal of Saddam Hussein from his position of leadership. Assisting the younger Bush were several figures from the Persian Gulf War, including Cheney and Powell, now vice president and secretary of state respectively.

█ FURTHER READING:

BOOKS:

Allen, Thomas B., F. Clinton Berry, and Norman Polmar. War in the Gulf. Kansas City, MO: Andrews & McMeel, 1991.

Atkinson, Rick. Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Clancy, Tom, and Fred Franks. Into the Storm: A Study of Command. New York: Putnam, 1997.

Dunnigan, James F., and Austin Bay. From Shield to Storm: High-Tech Weapons, Military Strategy, and Coalition Warfare in the Persian Gulf. New York: W. Morrow, 1992.

Freedman, Lawrence, and Efraim Karsh. The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Gordon, Michael R., and Bernard E. Trainor. The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

Hawley, T. M. Against the Fires of Hell: The Environmental Disaster of the Gulf War. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992.

MacArthur, John R. Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992.

ELECTRONIC:

Fog of War. WashingtonPost.com. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-svr/inatl/longterm/fogofwar/fogofwar.htm> (April 13, 2003).

Frontline: The Gulf War. Public Broadcasting System. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/> (April 13, 2003).

SEE ALSO

B-52
Bush Administration (1989–1993), United States National Security Policy
Cruise Missile
F-117A Stealth Fighter
GPS
Information Warfare
Iraqi Freedom, Operation (2003 War Against Iraq)
Iraq, Intelligence and Security Agencies
Iraq War: Prelude to War (The International Debate Over the Use and Effectiveness of Weapons Inspections.)
J-Stars
Kuwait Oil Fires, Persian Gulf War
Patriot Missile System

PERSIAN GULF WAR

PERSIAN GULF WAR. The invasion of Kuwait by 140,000 Iraqi troops and 1,800 tanks on 2 August 1990, eventually led to U.S. involvement in war in the Persian Gulf region. Instead of repaying billions of dollars of loans received from Kuwait during the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq (1980–1988), Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein resurrected old territorial claims and annexed Kuwait as his country's nineteenth province.

President George H. W. Bush feared that Saddam might next invade Saudi Arabia and thus control 40 percent of the world's oil. Bush organized an international coalition of forty-three nations, thirty of which sent military or medical units to liberate Kuwait, and he personally lobbied United Nations Security Council members. By November the UN had imposed economic sanctions and passed twelve separate resolutions demanding that the Iraqis withdraw. Bush initially sent 200,000 U.S. troops as part of a multinational peacekeeping force to defend Saudi Arabia (Operation Desert Shield), describing the mission as "defensive." On November 8, Bush expanded the U.S. expeditionary force to more than 500,000 to " ensure that the coalition has an adequate offensive military option." Contingents from other allied countries brought the troop level to 675,000. UN Security Council Resolution 678 commanded Iraq to evacuate Kuwait by 15 January 1991, or else face military attack.

What Saddam Hussein had hoped to contain as an isolated regional quarrel provoked an unprecedented alliance that included not only the United States and most members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) but also Iraq's former military patron, the Soviet Union, and several Arab states, including Egypt and Syria. The Iraqi dictator must have found Washington's outraged reaction especially puzzling in view of recent efforts by the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush to befriend Iraq. Off-the-books U.S. arms transfers to Iraq were kept from Congress from 1982 to 1987, in violation of the law. Washington had supplied intelligence data to Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war, and Bush had blocked congressional attempts to deny agricultural credits to Iraq because of human rights abuses. The Bush administration had also winked at secret and illegal bank loans that Iraq had used to purchase $5 billion in Western technology for its burgeoning nuclear and chemical weapons programs. Assistant Secretary of State John H. Kelly told Congress in early 1990 that Saddam Hussein acted as "a force of moderation" in the Middle East. Only a week before the invasion Ambassador April Glaspie informed Saddam Hussein that Washington had no "opinion on inter-Arab disputes such as your border dispute with Kuwait."

Bush and his advisers, without informing Congress or the American people, apparently decided early in August to use military force to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. "It must be done as massively and decisively as possible, " advised General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Choose your target, decide on your objective, and try to crush it." The president, however, described the initial deployments as defensive, even after General H. Norman Schwarzkopf had begun to plan offensive operations. Bush did not announce the offensive buildup until after the November midterm elections, all the while expanding U.S. goals from defending Saudi Arabia, to liberating Kuwait, to crippling Iraq's war economy, even to stopping Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons. UN sanctions cut off 90 percent of Iraq's imports and 97 percent of its exports. Secretary of State James Baker did meet with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Azziz in early January 1991, but Iraq refused to consider withdrawal from Kuwait unless the United States forced Israel to relinquish its occupied territories. Bush and Baker vetoed this linkage, as well as any Arab solution whereby Iraq would retain parts of Kuwait. Iraq's aggression, which the president likened to Adolf Hitler's, should gain no reward.

Although Bush claimed he had the constitutional authority to order U.S. troops into combat under the UN resolution, he reluctantly requested congressional authorization, which was followed by a four-day debate. Senator Joseph R. Biden of Delaware declared that "none [of Iraq's] actions justify the deaths of our sons and daughters." Senator George Mitchell of Maine cited the risks: "An unknown number of casualties and deaths, billions of dollars spent, a greatly disrupted oil supply and oil price increases, a war possibly widened to Israel, Turkey or other allies, the possible long-term American occupation of Iraq, increased instability in the Persian Gulf region,

long-lasting Arab enmity against the United States, a possible return to isolationism at home." Senator Robert Dole of Kansas scorned the critics, saying that Saddam Hussein "may think he's going to be rescued, may be by Congress." On 12 January, after Congress defeated a resolution to continue sanctions, a majority in both houses approved Bush's request to use force under UN auspices. Virtually every Republican voted for war; two-thirds of House Democrats and forty-five of fifty-six Democratic senators cast negative votes. Those few Democratic senators voting for war (among them Tennessee's Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut) provided the necessary margin.

Operation Desert Storm began with a spectacular aerial bombardment of Iraq and Kuwait on 16 January 1991. For five weeks satellite television coverage via Cable News Network enabled Americans to watch "smart" bombs hitting Iraqi targets and U.S. Patriot missiles intercepting Iraqi Scud missiles. President Bush and Secretary Baker kept the coalition intact, persuading Israel not to retaliate after Iraqi Scud missile attacks on its territory and keeping Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev advised as allied bombs devastated Russia's erstwhile client. On 24 February General Schwarzkopf sent hundreds of thousands of allied troops into Kuwait and eastern Iraq. Notwithstanding Saddam's warning that Americans would sustain thousands of casualties in the "mother of all battles, " Iraq's largely conscript army put up little resistance. By 26 February Iraqi forces had retreated from Kuwait, blowing up as many as 800 oil wells as they did so. Allied aircraft flew hundreds of sorties against what became known as the "highway of death, " from Kuwait City to Basra. After only 100 hours of fighting on the ground, Iraq accepted a UN-imposed cease-fire. Iraq's military casualties numbered more than 25,000 dead and 300,000 wounded; U.S. forces suffered only 148 battle deaths (35 from friendly fire), 145 nonbattle deaths, and 467 wounded (out of a coalition total of 240 dead and 776 wounded). An exultant President Bush proclaimed, "By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome."

The war itself initially cost $1 million per day for the first three months, not including the ongoing expense of keeping an encampment of 300,000 allied troops in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. The overall cost of the war was estimated to be $54 billion; $7.3 billion paid by the United States, with another $11 billion from Germany and $13 billion from Japan, and the remainder ($23 billion) from Arab nations. For the first time in the twentieth century, the United States could not afford to finance its own participation in a war.

Bush chose not to send U.S. forces to Baghdad to capture Saddam Hussein, despite his earlier designation of the Iraqi leader as public enemy number one. Attempts during the fighting to target Saddam had failed, and Bush undoubtedly hoped that the Iraqi military or disgruntled associates in the Ba'ath party would oust the Iraqi leader. When Kurds in northern Iraq and Shi'ites in the south rebelled, Bush did little to help. As General Powell stated: "If you want to go in and stop the killing of Shi'ites, that's a mission I understand. But to what purpose? If the Shi'ites continue to rise up, do we then support them for the over-throw of Baghdad and the partition of the country?" Powell opposed "trying to sort out two thousand years of Mesopotamian history." Bush, ever wary of a Mideast quagmire, backed away: "We are not going to permit this to drag on in terms of significant U.S. presence à la Korea." Saddam used his remaining tanks and helicopters to crush these domestic rebellions, sending streams of Kurdish refugees fleeing toward the Turkish border. Public pressure persuaded President Bush to send thousands of U.S. troops to northern Iraq, where the UN designated a security zone and set up makeshift tent cities. Saddam's survival left a sour taste in Washington, and created a situation that Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh have compared to "an exasperating endgame in chess, when the winning player never seems to trap the other's king even though the final result is inevitable."

Under Security Council Resolution 687, Iraq had to accept the inviolability of the boundary with Kuwait (to be demarcated by an international commission), accept the presence of UN peacekeepers on its borders, disclose all chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons including missiles, and cooperate in their destruction. What allied bombs had missed, UN inspectors did not. Saddam Hussein's scientists and engineers had built more than twenty nuclear facilities linked to a large-scale Iraqi Manhattan Project. Air attacks had only inconvenienced efforts to build a bomb. Inspectors also found and destroyed more than a hundred Scud missiles, seventy tons of nerve gas, and 400 tons of mustard gas. By the fall of 1992 the head of the UN inspection team rated Iraq's capacity for mass destruction "at zero."

Results from the war included the restoration of Kuwait, lower oil prices, resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Arabs, and at least a temporary revival of faith in the United Nations. Improved relations with Iran and Syria brought an end to Western hostage-taking in Beirut. Firefighters extinguished the last of the blazing oil wells ignited by the retreating Iraqis in November 1991, but only after the suffocating smoke had spread across an area twice the size of Alaska and caused long-term environmental damage. An estimated 200,000 civilians died, largely from disease and malnutrition. Millions of barrels of oil befouled the Persian Gulf, killing more than 30,000 sea birds. Finally, an undetermined but large and growing number of U.S. veterans of the Persian Gulf War found themselves plagued with various medical conditions, referred to as "Gulf War Syndrome" and thought to be the result of exposure to various toxic gases and radioactive exposure from ammunition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DeCosse, David E., ed. But Was It Just?: Reflections on the Morality of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Ederton, L. Benjamin and Michael J. Mazarr, eds. Turning Point: the Gulf War and U.S. Military Strategy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994.

El-Baz, Farouk, and R. M. Makharita, eds. The Gulf War and the Environment. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1994.

Greenberg, Bradley S., and Walter Gantz, eds. Desert Storm and the Mass Media. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press, 1993.

Head, William Head, and Earl H. Tilford, Jr., eds . The Eagle in the Desert: Looking Back on U.S. Involvement in the Persian Gulf War. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996.

Ursano, Robert J., and Ann E. Norwood, eds. Emotional Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War: Veterans, Families, Communities, and Nations. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1996.

J. GarryClifford/d. b.

See alsoAir Pollution ; Arab Nations, Relations with ; Iraq-gate ; Oil Crises ; Persian Gulf Syndrome ; United Nations ; War Casualties ; War Costs ; andvol. 9:Address to the Nation: Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf ; Gulf War Letter ; Gulf War Story .

Persian Gulf War (1991).On 1 August 1990, Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait and proclaimed it a province of Iraq. This action led to the Persian Gulf War, which had two major phases. The first, “Desert Shield,” was a largely defensive operation aimed at protecting Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf, and employing United Nations (UN) economic sanctions to force Iraq out of Kuwait. In the second phase, known as “Desert Storm,” a UN coalition commanded by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf of the U.S. Army expelled the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played a key role in planning the war's strategy.

Saddam Hussein almost certainly saw the annexation of oil‐rich Kuwait as a means of solving Iraq's economic problems and counted on the world's unwillingness to mount any effective opposition. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States supported Kuwait's government in exile, however, and President George Bush ordered U.S. military forces to the Gulf on 7 August. Japan, Britain, France, most other European nations, and the Soviet Union condemned the invasion, as did key Arab states like Algeria, Egypt, and Syria. Jordan, Libya, Mauritania, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), however, supported Iraq. On 29 November, the United States obtained a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of “all necessary means” if Iraq did not withdraw by 15 January 1991.

In “Desert Shield,” the United States deployed some 527,000 personnel, 100 naval vessels, 2,000 tanks, 1,800 fixed‐wing aircraft, and 1,700 helicopters. Britain deployed 43,000 troops, and France, 16,000, each with supporting tanks, combat aircraft, and other military hardware. Of the Arab states, Saudi Arabia deployed 50,000 troops; Egypt, 30,200; and Syria, 14,000. Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) each deployed a significant portion of their small forces.

Iraq responded by building up its military forces in Kuwait to 336,000 men and some 9,000 battle tanks, other armored vehicles, and major artillery weapons. Despite UN economic sanctions and diplomatic efforts, Iraq further expanded its military capabilities in Kuwait and along its border with Saudi Arabia.

The air‐war phase of “Desert Storm” began on 17 January 1991 when the United States and its coalition allies launched devastating attacks on Iraqi command‐and‐control facilities, communications systems, air bases, and land‐based air defenses. U.S. sea‐launched cruise missiles and F‐117 stealth aircraft quickly demonstrated that they could attack even heavily defended targets like Baghdad, Iraq's capital. Within three days, U.S., British, and Saudi fighters had established near air superiority. Over the next month, UN coalition aircraft went after Iraqi armor and artillery in Kuwait and attacked Iraq's forward defenses; elite Republican Guard units; air bases and sheltered aircraft; hardened command‐and‐control facilities; military supply depots; and biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare installations.

Iraq retaliated by launching modified Scud missiles against targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel, but these strikes did not alter the course of the war. Iraqi ground forces were struck by more than 40,000 air sorties, causing 84,000 Iraqis to desert and destroying 1,385 tanks, 930 other armored vehicles, and 1,155 artillery pieces. The air attacks also severely reduced the flow of supplies to Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait and heavily damaged Iraq's military command and communications centers, ammunition storage sites, naval vessels, and electric‐power‐generating capability.

The land offensive to liberate Kuwait began on 24 February. UN land forces attacked along a broad front from the Persian Gulf to the Iraqi‐Saudi border. This attack had two principal thrusts: a highly mobile “left hook” around and through Iraqi positions in western Kuwait and a move straight through Iraq's defenses along the Kuwaiti border. While some Republican Guard units fought well, many Iraqi troops, poorly trained conscripts with low morale and little motivation, fled after putting up brief resistance; others surrendered. As a result, UN forces reached their objectives in Kuwait in half the time originally planned.

By 26 February, coalition land forces were in Kuwait City, and U.S. forces had advanced to positions in southern Iraq. These nighttime advances had taken place despite heavy rain, mud, and weather problems that hampered air support. Baghdad announced on 26 February that all Iraqi forces would withdraw from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Military operations ended on 28 February.

The Persian Gulf War achieved all of the United Nations' original objectives, principally the restoration of Kuwait. Iraqi casualties totaled 25,000 to 65,000. In contrast, UN forces lost fewer than 200 personnel, excluding losses to friendly fire, plus four tanks and nine other armored vehicles. The conflict demonstrated the importance of joint operations, high‐tempo air and armored operations, precision‐strike systems, night and all‐weather warfare capabilities, and sophisticated electronic warfare and command‐and‐control capabilities.

President Bush's mobilization of a broad anti‐Iraq coalition and his rallying of public opinion behind the war represented the high point of his presidency, producing a spike of popularity. Gulf War veterans returned to heroes' welcomes. The Pentagon, having learned in the Vietnam War the power of the media to shape home‐front perceptions, strictly controlled journalistic coverage of the Gulf War. Most Americans experienced the conflict through fleeting television images of bombing raids and streaking missiles.

The Gulf War did not, however, bring stability to the region or drive Saddam Hussein from power. These failures led many observers to argue that the United Nations should have expanded its objectives and invaded Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime. Others point out, however, that this might have caused an Iraqi civil war, led to bloody urban combat, or forced a long UN occupation of a sovereign state.

After the war, U.S. and British aircraft enforced UN no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq to protect the Kurdish and Shiite communities from Saddam Hussein's brutal repression; the UN enforced sanctions on Iraq's oil exports; and UN inspectors monitored the dismantling of Saddam's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. Tensions remained high amid suspicions that the regime was concealing its weapons programs and as U.S. and British planes bombed Iraqi anti-aircraft installations that fired on planes enforcing the no-fly restrictions.

Beginning in 2001, key figures in the George W. Bush administration pushed for a more aggressive policy to complete the “unfinished business” of the Persian Gulf War. These pressures intensified after the attacks of September 11, 2001, despite the lack of evidence linking Saddam to the attacks. The Iraq War of 2003 did, indeed, result in Saddam's overthrow, but many of the potential after-effects that had restrained the first Bush administration from pursuing the Persian Gulf War into Iraq did, in fact, occur.
See also Foreign Relations: U.S. Relations with the Middle East; Military, The; Post–Cold War Era.

Bibliography

H. Norman Schwarzkopf , It Doesn't Take a Hero, 1992.
U.S. Department of Defense , Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, 1992.
Anthony H. Cordesman , After the Storm: The Changing Military Balance in the Middle East, 1993.
U.S. AirForce , Gulf War Power Survey, ed. Eliot Cohen, 1993.
U.S. Army , Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, directed by Robert H. Scales, 1993.

Anthony H. Cordesman

Paul S. Boyer

Persian Gulf War this war in 1991 caused by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, had two major phases: Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The former was a defensive operation in which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia rushed to bolster defensive forces in case of further Iraqi aggression. At the same time, the U.N. tried to force Iraq out of Kuwait by employing economic sanctions and organizing an international military coalition that could force Iraq to leave Kuwait if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein refused to do so voluntarily before the U.N. January 15, 1991 deadline. The second phase of the war, Operation Desert Storm, was the battle to liberate Kuwait that took place after Iraq refused to abide by the U.N. deadline. Ultimately, the Persian Gulf War left Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power, though it destroyed almost all of Iraq's conventional forces and allowed the U.N. to destroy most of Iraq's long-range missiles, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapon capabilities.

Hussein's reasons for invading Kuwait were both political and economic. At once, he could greatly increase Iraq's share of world oil reserves (adding at least 2 million barrels a day to Iraq's exports) and demonstrate the military capacity of his army. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait met very little resistance from the unprepared Kuwaitis. Hussein's troops gained control of the country in two days and announced that it would annex Kuwait as its nineteenth province within a week. Shortly thereafter, Hussein placed five Iraqi divisions on the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border, threatening Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province.

Middle East states were divided over the invasion; while Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia supported Kuwait, Jordan, Libya, the Sudan, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) backed Iraq. Most European nations as well as the U.S., Canada, and Japan condemned the invasion, and on the day of the invasion the U.N. Security Council voted 14–0 to demand Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf led the U.N. coalition in Operation Desert Shield which was to enforce U.N. sanctions and defend Saudi Arabia.

After obtaining U.N. authorization “to use all necessary means” if Iraq did not withdraw by January 15, the U.S. deployed a total of 527,000 personnel, 2,000 tanks, 1,800 fixed-wing aircraft, and 1,700 helicopters. Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria too deployed significant forces. Iraq responded by building up its military forces in the Kuwait theater of operation to a total of 336,000 troops, 3,475 battle tanks, 3,080 other armored vehicles, and 2,475 major artillery weapons. This build-up, in turn, sparked many political debates about the need for war, culminating in close votes in the House of Representatives (250 to 183) and in the Senate (52–47) in favor of authorizing the use of force. The second phase of the war began early Jan. 17, 1991 when the U.S. launched a devastating series of air attacks on Iraqi command and control facilities, communication systems, air bases, and land-based air defenses. Within three days, U.N. Coalition fighter aircraft had established near air superiority. Victory in the air was achieved by Jan. 24, when Iraq ceased to attempt active air combat. This created a safe zone for U.N. aircraft and allowed them to shift most of their assets to attack on Iraqi ground forces. For the following thirty days, U.N. Coalition aircraft attacked Iraqi armor and artillery in the Kuwait theater of operations, as well as bombing Iraq's forward defenses, elite Republican Guard units, air bases, and biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare facilities in Iraq itself. Iraq's only ability to retaliate consisted of launching modified surface-to-surface Scud missiles against targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel. The Scud attacks, however, did not alter the course of the war. The U.N.'s airpower attacks, according to U.S. estimates, led to the desertion or capture of 84,000 Iraqi soldiers and destroyed 1,385 Iraqi tanks, 930 other armored vehicles, and 1,155 artillery pieces.

On February 24, U.S. land forces attacked along a broad front from the Persian Gulf to Rafha on the Iraqi-Saudi border. This attack had two principle thrusts: an enormous yet mobile “left hook” around and through Iraqi positions to the west of Kuwait; and a thrust straight through Iraq's defenses along the Kuwaiti border. Though some Iraqi Republican Guard units fought well, the bulk of Iraq's army consisted of poorly trained conscripts with low morale and little motivation. As a result, U.N. forces reached their major objective in Kuwait in half the time originally planned. By February 26, Coalition land forces were in Kuwait City, and U.S. forces had advanced to positions in Iraq to the south of Nasiriya. These advances, and concurrent air attacks that cut off Iraqi land forces from the roads along the Tigris River north of Basra, effectively ended the war.

Baghdad radio announced on February 26 that all Iraqi forces would withdraw from Kuwait. A day later, President George H. Bush declared that the U.S. would cease military operations on February 28. Iraq agreed to abide by all U.N. resolutions in the cease-fire that was signed on April 6. Iraqi military casualties totaled 25,000 to 65,000; U.N. forces suffered just 200 combat losses. The war reshaped the face of modern warfare by demonstrating the importance of joint operations, high-paced air and armored operations, precision strike systems, night and all-weather warfare capabilities, and the ability to target and strike deep behind the front line. It did not, however, bring stability to the gulf or drive Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party elite from power. Indeed, he suppressed Kurdish and Shi'ite rebellions in 1991, retained biological and nuclear weapons technology, and by 1998 had the largest army in the gulf region.