n.

A war fought in 1991 in which a coalition of countries led by the United States destroyed much of the military capability of Iraq and drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Also called Persian Gulf War.

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Gulf war (1990-1), a limited war in which a US-led coalition enjoying overwhelming technological superiority defeated the armed forces of Iraq in a six-week air campaign crowned with a 100-hour land campaign, with minimal coalition casualties. However, the coalition forces failed to destroy the Republican Guard, mainstay of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who remained a threat primarily because of his continued development of nuclear and chemical and biological weapons, leading to repeated aftershocks in the form of US and Allied air strikes throughout the 1990s.

The proximate cause was the Rumaila oilfield straddling the Iraq-Kuwait border. In mid-July 1990 Saddam claimed that Kuwait had stolen oil from this field by diagonal drilling and refused to pay back loans received from Kuwait to fund the recent Iran-Iraq war, saying that he had been doing the Gulf monarchies' dirty work for them. Neither argument was completely without merit. He massed armour on the frontier and after being told by the US ambassador that the USA did not wish to become involved in the dispute, at 01.00 local time on 2 August the Iraqi columns invaded.

Minds were concentrated and Pres Bush denounced the invasion, alarmed that the Iraqis would carry on into Saudi Arabia and thus control half the world's oil reserves. The UN condemned the invasion in Resolution 660, demanding immediate and unconditional withdrawal and on 7 August the USA announced it was sending forces in a joint operation with Egypt and Saudi Arabia: DESERT SHIELD. The following day the UK announced it would send forces too, in GRANBY.

On 29 November 1990 the Security Council adopted Resolution 678, authorizing the USA-led coalition to use ‘all necessary means’ against Iraq to liberate Kuwait if it did not withdraw by 15 January 1991. Instead, the Iraqis reinforced their positions along the southern Kuwaiti border and by 8 January had an estimated 36 to 38 divisions, each nominally 15, 000 strong but actually considerably less. The coalition eventually had about 700, 000 troops in the theatre, with the main ground contributions coming from the USA and important contingents from the UK, France, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, under the operational command of US Gen Schwarzkopf. The maintenance of the coalition, in which Arab states were arrayed with infidels against another Arab state, was pivotal. It was therefore imperative to ensure that Israel—a target for Iraqi missile attacks—should stay out of the war. The Iraqis were known to have the means to deliver their chemical and biological weapons (CBW) with their al-Hussein missiles, which had a range of 373 miles (600 km), double that of the original Soviet Scud missiles on which they were based.

At 02.38 local time on 17 January DESERT STORM began when US Apache helicopters began attacking Iraqi air defence sites near the border to clear a corridor through which a massive air armada then passed, beginning a 43-day air campaign involving 100, 000 sorties. The F-117A Stealth light bomber was very successful in striking key targets in heavily defended Baghdad, as were sea-launched cruise missiles. Early targets were the Iraqi air defences, electrical power, and command and control facilities, also suspected nuclear and chemical and biological warfare facilities. Although precision-guided munitions got all the publicity thanks to the excellent TV pictures they sent back, the bulk of the ordnance delivered were conventional bombs. As the campaign continued, the Allies switched to Iraqi ground forces although the élite Republican Guard was less badly damaged than the poorer quality infantry in the forward positions. Schwarzkopf later explained that this was because of his strong concern to avoid his ground troops being held up and rained with CBW.

The Gulf war, 1991: the land campaign, 24-8 February. Top: positions of forces 24 February. Bottom: Allied envelopment of Iraqi forces
(Click to enlarge)

Early on 18 January Iraq responded to the air onslaught by attacking Israel, the coalition's most vulnerable point. A missile landed in Tel Aviv, initially reported to have a chemical warhead. The coalition later denied this but the relevant log, released after the war, recorded it carried cyclo-sarin, a particularly deadly nerve gas. Israel prepared to counter-attack, but was dissuaded when the USA promised to destroy the Scuds. As a result, a great deal of effort was diverted into the ‘Scud hunt’, although the mobile Iraqi missiles proved difficult to find. British and US special forces were also sent in to find and destroy Scuds, with mixed results. The US also used the Patriot, originally an anti-aircraft system, to shoot down incoming missiles, the first time anti-missiles were used in the history of war. Very few incoming missiles were actually hit and those that were broke up, possibly doing even more damage than they would have otherwise. On 20 January, Iraq also began firing missiles at Riyadh, one of which hit a temporary US barracks and inflicted the worst Allied casualties of the war.

Schwarzkopf formulated a classic military plan of encirclement. While the Iraqis were to have their attention fixed to the south and on the coast by the US Marines, his main effort would be to the west of the main Iraqi forward defences, swinging round behind them and straight for the Republican Guard. The aim was ‘to conduct a swift, continuous and violent air-land campaign to destroy the Republican Guard Force Corps while minimising friendly force casualties. Aim is to make Iraqi forces move so that they can be attacked throughout the depth of their formations’.

After several days of probing and artillery raids, the main ground attack began on 24 February with direct attacks into Kuwait from the south by the US Marines and two Saudi task forces. The next day, the outflanking forces swung into action, the main force being the US VII Corps including the 1st British Armoured Division, while the XVIII Airborne Corps including the French 6th Light ‘Daguet’ Division swung even wider to protect the left flank. The VII Corps hit its breach area with 60 batteries of artillery and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, delivering more explosive power than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. Although Iraq was expected to use CBW, Saddam showed a little belated discretion and refrained, as there were a number of extremely unpleasant options the coalition held in reserve, including retaliation in kind or the destruction of Iraq's extremely vulnerable water-supply system. Late on 25 February he gave the order to withdraw from Kuwait, but the bulk of Iraqi armour was trapped between the Allies closing in from the south and west, and the Gulf and the Euphrates marshes to the east and north.

TV pictures of the comprehensively incinerated Iraqi column that had been attempting to flee Kuwait City raised fears of public revulsion and Pres Bush called a halt after only 100 hours of land campaign. There were also geopolitical considerations. Until the invasion, the West had been concerned to maintain a balance of power between Iraq and Iran in the region, and the Arab members of the coalition might have bolted if the land war had been extended into Iraqi territory. At 08.00 local time the guns fell silent, and Saddam was to be left with most of the Republican Guard and the freedom to use attack helicopters to crush the rebellions among the Sunni in the south and the Kurds in the north that the coalition had encouraged. Post-war, the extent and sophistication of his weapons development programmes came as a shock, and despite UN inspections and economic sanctions that affect mainly the civilian population, there is very little doubt that he has retained some CBW and possibly also some nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, Kuwait's territorial integrity was restored and most of Saddam's larger fangs were pulled. The war could only be considered unsuccessful if the hyperbole about human rights that accompanied it had ever been taken seriously by anyone involved.

Bibliography

• Bellamy, Christopher, Expert Witness: A Defence Correspondent's Gulf War 1990-1991 (London, 1993).
• Freedman, Lawrence, and Karsh, Efraim, The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (London, 1993).
• Gulf War Air Power Survey (2 vols., US Government Printing Office, Washington, 1993).
• How the War was Won, Gen Schwarzkopf's final briefing on the conduct of the war, video (Castle, 1991)

— Christopher Bellamy

(1991) was caused by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, and had two major phases

The first phase was Operation Desert Shield—a largely defensive operation in which the United States and Saudi Arabia rushed to build up the defensive forces necessary to protect Saudi Arabia and the rest of the gulf, and the United Nations attempted to force Iraq to leave Kuwait through the use of economic sanctions. The United States then led the UN effort to create a broad international coalition with the military forces necessary to liberate Kuwait, and persuaded the United Nations to set a deadline of 15 January 1991 for Iraq to leave Kuwait or face the use of force.The second phase, known as “Desert Storm,” was the battle to liberate Kuwait when Iraq refused to respond to the UN deadline. The fighting began on 17 January 1991 and ended on 1 March 1991. The UN Coalition liberated Kuwait in a little over six weeks, and involved the intensive use of airpower and armored operations, and the use of new military technologies. The Gulf War left Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power, but it destroyed nearly all of Iraq's conventional forces and allowed the United Nations to destroy most of Iraq's long‐range missiles and chemical weapons and capabilities to develop nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein almost certainly saw the seizure and annexation of Kuwait as a means of solving Iraq's economic problems, of greatly increasing Iraq's share of world oil reserves, and as a means of demonstrating that Iraq had become the dominant power in the region. Kuwait was capable of adding at least 2 million barrels a day of oil to Iraq's exports of roughly 3.5 million, and offered the opportunity to double Iraq's total oil reserves, from 100 billion to 198 billion barrels (representing nearly 20% of the world's total reserves).

Although he continued to negotiate his demands on oil revenues and debt relief from the Persian Gulf Arab nations, Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to the Kuwait border in July 1990, built up all of the support capabilities necessary to sustain an invasion, and then ordered his forces to invade on 2 August 1990. Kuwait had not kept its forces on alert, and Iraq met little resistance. It seized the entire country within less than two days; within a week, Iraq stated that it would annex Kuwait as its nineteenth province. Iraqi forces also deployed along Kuwait's border with Saudi Arabia, with more than five Iraqi divisions in position to seize Saudi Arabia's oil‐rich Eastern Province. Saudi Arabia had only two brigades and limited amounts of airpower to oppose them.

Saddam Hussein may have felt that the world would accept his invasion of Kuwait or would fail to mount any effective opposition. However, Saudi Arabia and the other gulf states immediately supported the Kuwaiti government‐in‐exile. The Council of the Arab League voted to condemn Iraq on 3 August and demanded its withdrawal from Kuwait. Key Arab states like Algeria, Egypt, and Syria supported Kuwait—although Jordan, Libya, Mauritania, the Sudan, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) supported Iraq. Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and most other European nations as well as the United States, Canada, and Japan condemned the invasion. U.S. President George Bush announced on 7 August that the United States would send land, air, and naval forces to the gulf.

Equally important, the end of the Cold War allowed the United Nations to take firm action under U.S. initiative. On the day of the invasion, the Security Council voted 14–0 (Resolution 660) to demand Iraq's immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait. The United States, Britain, and Saudi Arabia led the United Nations in forming a broad military coalition under the leadership of U.S. Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf that deployed the military forces necessary to enforce the United Nations' sanctions and to defend Saudi Arabia. This was the defensive military operation code‐named “Desert Shield.”

On 29 November 1990, the United States obtained a Security Council authorization for the nations allied with Kuwait “to use all necessary means” if Iraq did not withdraw by 15 January 1991. Key nations like the United States, Britain, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and several others began to deploy the additional forces necessary to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

In 1990–91, the United States deployed a total of 527,000 personnel, over 110 naval vessels, 2,000 tanks, 1,800 fixed‐wing aircraft, and 1,700 helicopters. Britain deployed 43,000 troops, 176 tanks, 84 combat aircraft, and a naval task force. France deployed 16,000 troops, 40 tanks, attack helicopters, a light armored division, and combat aircraft. Saudi Arabia deployed 50,000 troops, 280 tanks, and 245 aircraft. Egypt contributed 30,200 troops, 2 armored divisions, and 350 tanks. Syria contributed 14,000 troops and 2 divisions. Other allied nations, including Canada, Italy, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates deployed a significant portion of their small forces.

Iraq responded by building up its military forces in the Kuwait theater of operations to a total of 336,000 troops and a total of 43 divisions, 3,475 battle tanks, 3,080 other armored vehicles, and 2,475 major artillery weapons. This buildup on both sides made full‐scale war steadily more likely and triggered a number of political debates within the West and the Arab world over the need for war. The most important of these debates took place within the United States; largely because of President Bush's political leadership, the Congress, after Bush gained UN endorsement, requested such authorization on 8 January 1991. On 12 January the House of Representatives by 250 to 183 and the Senate by 52 to 47 voted to authorize the use of force.

Though a number of new efforts were made to persuade Iraq to leave Kuwait in late December and early January, Saddam Hussein refused to withdraw under any practical conditions. Baghdad also continued to expand its military capabilities in Kuwait and along the Iraqi border with Saudi Arabia, and continued its efforts to convert Kuwait into an Iraqi province. As a result, the UN Security Council voted to ignore yet another effort to negotiate with Iraq. On that date, 15 January 1991, President Bush ordered the military offensive to begin.

Desert Storm: The Air War

The Gulf War began early in the morning on 17 January when the United States exploited its intelligence and targeting assets, cruise missiles, and offensive airpower to launch a devastating series of air attacks on Iraqi command and control facilities, communications systems, air bases, and land‐based air defenses. During the first hour of the war, U.S. sea‐launched cruise missiles and F‐117 stealth aircraft demonstrated they could attack even heavily defended targets like Baghdad.

Within three days, a mix of U.S., British, and Saudi fighter aircraft had established near air superiority. In spite of Iraq's air strength, UN air units shot down a total of thirty‐five Iraqi aircraft without a single loss in air‐to‐air combat. Although Iraq had a land‐based air defense system with some 3,000 surface‐to‐air missiles, the combined U.S. and British air units were able to use electronic warfare systems, antiradiation missiles, and precision air‐to‐surface weapons to suppress Iraq's longer‐range surface‐to‐air missiles. As a result, Coalition air forces were able rapidly to broaden their targets from attacks on Iraq's air forces and air defenses to assaults on key headquarters, civil and army communications, electronic power plants, and Iraq's facilities for the production of weapons of mass destruction.

Victory in the air was achieved by 24 January, when Iraq ceased to attempt active air combat. A total of 112 Iraqi aircraft fled to Iran, and Iraq virtually ceased to use its ground‐based radar to target UN aircraft. This created a safe zone at medium and high altitudes that allowed U.S. and British air units to launch long‐range air‐to‐surface weapons with impunity. The UN air forces were also able to shift most of their assets to attacks on Iraqi ground forces. For the following thirty days, UN Coalition aircraft attacked Iraqi armor and artillery in the Kuwaiti theater of operations, as well as flying into Iraq itself to bomb Iraq's forward defenses, elite Republican Guard units, air bases and sheltered aircraft, and Iraq's biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare facilities.

Iraq's only ability to retaliate consisted of launching modified surface‐to‐surface Scud missiles against targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel, which had remained outside the war: forty Scud variants against Israel and forty‐six against Saudi Arabia. U.S.‐made Patriot missiles in Israel shot down some Scuds, but although the United Nations carried out massive “Scud hunts” that involved thousands of sorties, it never found and destroyed any Scud missiles on the ground, which demonstrated the risks posed by the proliferation of mobile, long‐range missiles.

Iraq's Scud strikes could not, however, alter the course of the war. Iraqi ground forces were struck by more than 40,000 air attack sorties; U.S. authorities estimated that airpower helped bring about the desertion or capture of 84,000 Iraqi soldiers and destroyed 1,385 Iraqi tanks, 930 other armored vehicles, and 1,155 artillery pieces before the United Nations launched its land offensive. They also estimated that air attacks severely reduced the flow of supplies to Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait and damaged 60 percent of Iraq's major command centers, 70 percent of its military communications, 125 ammunition storage revetments, 48 Iraqi naval vessels, and 75 percent of Iraq's electric power–generating capability.

Desert Storm: The Land War

By 24 February 1991, airpower had weakened Iraq's land forces in Kuwait to the point where the UN commander, General Schwarzkopf, felt ready to launch a land offensive. Early that morning, UN land forces attacked along a broad front from the Persian Gulf to Rafha on the Iraqi‐Saudi border. This attack had two principal thrusts: a massive, highly mobile “left hook” around and through Iraqi positions to the west of Kuwait to envelop the elite Republican Guard; and a thrust straight through Iraq's defenses along the Kuwaiti border designed to fix the forward Iraqi divisions.

The “left hook” was carried out by a mix of U.S., British, and French armored and airborne forces. The armored VII Corps deployed four armored divisions, one of them British, for the main thrust. Its western flank was protected by the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, composed of three U.S. divisions—the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Air Mobile, and the 24th Infantry (Mechanized)—and the French 6th Light Armored Division. They advanced toward the Iraqi cities of Salman, west of Kuwait, and Nasiriya on the Euphrates River, and attacked in an arc to the northeast toward the main routes of communication leading north from Kuwait toward Basra in Iraq. French forces led the attack toward the Iraqi lines of communication along the Euphrates. U.S. armored, mechanized, and attack helicopter forces advanced rapidly toward Basra in the leading edge of the “left hook.” British forces guarded the U.S. flank and attacked to the northeast across the gorge of al‐Batin along the Iraqi‐Kuwaiti border.

The other thrust—directly north through the Iraqi positions along the Kuwaiti border—was carried out by the I Marine Expeditionary Force, and an all‐Arab corps composed primarily of the Saudi Army and Egyptian units. These forces rapidly penetrated Iraq's forward defenses and advanced so swiftly that Iraq's shattered ground forces in Kuwait could only launch scattered counterattacks. As a result, the allies rushed toward Kuwait City, Wafrah, and Jahrah.

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. Many Iraqi troops fled after putting up only brief resistance and others were taken prisoner. As a result, UN forces reached their major objectives in Kuwait in half the time originally planned. At the same time, the Coalition continued its air attacks, dropping a total of 88,500 tons of ordnance. U.S. and British air units used 6,520 tons of precision‐guided weapons and destroyed or damaged 54 bridges. These attacks helped to end the war by cutting off Iraqi land forces from the roads along the Tigris River north of Basra, although UN forces did not have time to encircle fully or cut off all Iraqi forces, or to use airpower to destroy the retreating Iraqi forces around Basra.

By 26 February, Coalition land forces were in Kuwait City, and U.S. forces had advanced to positions in Iraq to the south of Nasiriya. Many of these advances had taken place at night and all occurred in spite of major rainfalls, substantial amounts of mud, and weather problems hampering the ability to provide air support. These advances effectively ended the war.

Baghdad radio announced on 26 February that all Iraqi forces would withdraw from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. A day later, President Bush declared that the United States would halt military operations early in the morning of 28 February, a week after the land offensive had begun. A cease‐fire was negotiated on 3 March and formally signed on 6 April. Iraq agreed to abide by all the UN resolutions.

The Aftermath of the War

The Gulf War achieved the United Nation's original objectives of liberating Kuwait while producing remarkably one‐sided losses. Iraqi military casualties totaled an estimated 25,000 to 65,000, and the United Nations destroyed some 3,200 Iraqi tanks, over 900 other armored vehicles, and over 2,000 artillery weapons. Some 86,000 Iraqi soldiers surrendered. In contrast, UN forces suffered combat losses of some 200 personnel from hostile fire, plus losses of 4 tanks, 9 other armored vehicles, and 1 artillery weapon. U.S. battle deaths among the 532,000 Americans included 122 from the army and Marines (35 to friendly fire) and 131 noncombat fatalities. The navy losses were 6 and 8; in the air force 20 were killed in action and 6 in other deaths. The allied forces of 254,000 suffered 92 combat deaths. Although Coalition aircraft flew a total of 109,876 sorties, the allies lost only 38 aircraft versus over 300 for Iraq. This was not only the lowest loss rate in the history of air warfare but a lower loss than the normal accident rate in combat training. The terms of cease‐fire were designed to enable UN inspectors to destroy most of Iraq's remaining missiles, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons facilities.

The Gulf War reshaped the face of modern warfare. It demonstrated a dramatic increase in the importance of joint operations, high‐paced air and armored operations, precision strike systems, night and all‐weather warfare capabilities, sophisticated electronic warfare and command and control capabilities, and the ability to target and strike deep behind the front line, marking what might be the beginning of a revolution in military affairs. It also demonstrated the growing importance of the mass media in shaping the conduct of operations, and the need to carefully consider collateral damage, casualties, and the impact of instant TV coverage of military operations.

The Gulf War 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. In 1998, Iraq still had the largest army in the gulf region. It seemed to retain some long‐range missiles, some ability to deliver chemical weapons, and most of its prewar biological weapons capability. Though it had lost most of its nuclear weapons production facilities, it retained much of its nuclear weapons technology. Baghdad was also able to launch terrorist activities against Kuwait and drive most of the UN mission in Iraq out of the country. Iraqi agents plotted to assassinate President Bush when he visited Kuwait on 14–16 April 1993, and Iraq conducted a major military buildup near the Kuwaiti border in October 1994.

The failure to drive Saddam Hussein from power, and Iraq's actions since the war, have led many to argue that the United Nations should have expanded its war‐fighting objectives and invaded Iraq to force Saddam Hussein from power. Some military analysts have argued that even a few days of additional fighting would have proved decisive in overthrowing Saddam Hussein. There is no way to resolve such debates, but it seems unlikely that a few days of additional fighting would have done more than kill more Iraqis, since many of the Republican Guards had already escaped to the north of Basra and half the Iraqi Army and most of Saddam Hussein's security forces remained intact. Expanding the goals of the war might have driven Saddam Hussein from power, but it might also have caused an Iraqi civil war and divided the country, led to bloody urban warfare, and forced a lengthy UN occupation of a sovereign and hostile state. Instead, the United Nations maintained economic sanctions and an embargo on military supplies against Iraq for years after the Persian Gulf War.

This entry is being updated.

[See also Chemical and Biological Weapons and Warfare; Middle East, U.S. Military Involvement in the; News Media, War, and the Military.]

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.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

(1991) A major war in the Middle East between Iraq and a range of Western and Arab powers led by the United States. On 2 August 1990 Iraq invaded its Arab neighbour Kuwait, following an escalating campaign of allegations and threats from the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein directed against the Emir of Kuwait. The invasion met with widespread international condemnation and a deployment of forces to Saudi Arabia by the United States and other Western powers (‘Operation Desert Shield’), which culminated in massive air strikes from 17 January 1991 (‘Operation Desert Storm’) and a final ground attack from 24 February 1991 that culminated in an Iraqi retreat and the liberation of Kuwait city and its surrounds.

The complex roots of the conflict lay in the personality of Iraq's leader, the damage which Iraq had experienced as a result of its lengthy war with Iran (1980-8), and Iraq's perception that Gulf states such as Kuwait were insufficiently grateful to it for what it perceived as its role in opposing Iran. A crisis in Iraq-Kuwait relations flared suddenly in July 1990 when the Iraqi Government accused Kuwait of ‘stealing’ Iraqi oil; the Iraqi invasion followed barely two weeks later. With the US Administration of President George Bush taking a leading role, the United Nations Security Council through Resolution 660 condemned the Iraqi invasion and demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces. On 8 August Iraq announced the ‘comprehensive and eternal merger’ of Kuwait with Iraq. Iraq also responded to proposals for a military response to its invasion by seizing Western hostages, who were held from 16 August to 6 December 1990. The US responded by building a coalition of Arab and Western powers committed to achieving the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, through the application of force if necessary.

On 29 November 1990, as US deployments of military forces in Saudi Arabia under US General H. Norman Schwarzkopf gathered pace, the Security Council adopted Resolution 678, which authorized member states to use ‘all necessary means’ to give effect to UN Security Council resolutions, unless Iraq had fully complied with them on or before 15 January 1991. Iraq's failure to do so triggered US air strikes. These caused extensive damage to Iraqi military assets and infrastructure. Iraq, hoping to catalyse a break-up of the coalition arrayed against it, launched SCUD missile attacks on Israel from 18 January, but under US pressure, Israel did not respond. Iraq also embarked on a campaign of pillage and destruction in Kuwait; more than 500 Kuwaiti oil wells were set ablaze on the night of 21-2 February. Allied ground forces then smashed through Iraqi front lines, prompting a chaotic Iraqi flight from Kuwait on 27 February 1991, and capitulation in a letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz dated 28 February in which he stated that ‘Iraq agrees to comply fully with Security Council resolution 660 (1990) and all the other Security Council resolutions’. This brought the war to an end. See also Iraq war.

— William Maley

For more information on Persian Gulf War, visit Britannica.com.

Gulf War, 1990-1. On 2 August 1990 Iraq invaded the tiny neighbouring state of Kuwait, giving the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein control of about 15 per cent of the world's oil. The almost defunct Soviet Union did not block a strong American response, which employed the United Nations Security Council to denounce Iraq's action. President George Bush assembled a coalition of 29 countries against Iraq. Britain's policy was to support the USA completely, to demonstrate both her reliability as an ally and her importance as a second-ranking power.

The coalition forces took several months to assemble in Saudi Arabia. Iraqi strategy was to prevent a coalition forming by playing on pan-Arab sentiment, in particular over past American support for Israel. On 29 November the United Nations Security Council set a deadline of 15 January 1991 for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. Early on 17 January 1991, the coalition began with a massive air bombing attack against Iraq, which responded by attacking Israel (which had taken no military action) with long-range missiles. Critically for coalition solidarity, Israel refused to retaliate. The coalition launched its ground offensive to clear Kuwait on 24 February. This revealed that the Americans had greatly overestimated the Iraqi army, which offered only token resistance.

With the liberation of Kuwait dissident groups within Iraq, notably the Kurds of the north, rose in rebellion. Over the next year Saddam gradually reasserted his rule, and survived in power.

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.

The Persian Gulf War of 1990 and 1991 began as the high point of Soviet-American cooperation in the postwar period. However, by late December 1990, a chilling of Soviet-American relations had set in as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sought to play both sides of the conflict, only to have the USSR suffer a major political defeat once the war came to an end.

Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze joined U.S. secretary of state James Baker in severely condemning the Iraqi action, and the United States and USSR jointly supported numerous U.N. Security Council Resolutions demanding an Iraqi withdrawal and imposing sanctions on Iraq for its behavior.

Nonetheless, while supporting the United States (although not committing Soviet forces to battle), Gorbachev also sought to play a mediating role between Iraq and the United States, in part to salvage Moscow's important economic interests in that country (oil drilling, oil exploration, hydroelectric projects, and grain elevator construction, as well as lucrative arms sales), and in part to bolster his political flank against those on the right of the Soviet political spectrum (many of whom were later to stage an abortive coup against him in August 1991), who were complaining that Moscow had "sold out" Iraq, a traditional ally of the USSR and one with which Moscow had been linked by a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation since 1972.

Responding to these pressures, Gorbachev twice sent a senior Soviet Middle East Expert, Yevgeny Primakov, to Iraq to try to mediate on Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, albeit to no avail. Instead, the Soviet specialists working in Iraq were swiftly taken hostage in advance of the January 15, 1991, United Nations deadline for an Iraqi withdrawal.

In late December 1990, as it became more and more apparent that the U.S.-led coalition would begin its attack against Iraq on January 15, Shevardnadze suddenly resigned as Soviet foreign minister in the face of mounting pressure from Soviet right-wing forces. His replacement, Alexander Bessmertnykh, was far less pro-U.S., and his remarks utilized the old Soviet jargon of "balance of power" rather than Gorbachev's "balance of interests" terminology. Nonetheless, this did not inhibit the coalition attack on Iraq that took place on January 15 and that thoroughly defeated Saddam Hussein's forces and drove them out of Kuwait by the end of February 1991. Gorbachev's behavior during the fighting, as he sought the best possible deal for Hussein from the United States, resembled that of a trial lawyer seeking to plea bargain for his client under increasingly negative conditions. This was particularly evident in his peace plan of February 21, which provided for a lifting of sanctions against Iraq before it had fully withdrawn its troops from Kuwait. The United States, however, neither accepted Gorbachev's entreaties nor paid much attention to the increasingly hostile warnings of Soviet generals as U.S. troops advanced.

By the time the war ended, Washington had emerged as the dominant power in the Middle East, while the USSR lost much of its influence both in the Middle East and in the world. After the war, the United States consolidated its military position in the Persian Gulf and reinforced its relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, while Moscow sat on the diplomatic sidelines.

Given Moscow's diminished position in the region and in the world as a whole after the Gulf War, Gorbachev tried to salvage the USSR's prestige to the greatest degree possible. Thus, besides trying to reinforce relations with Iran, he sought to retain a modicum of influence in Iraq by opposing U.N. intervention following the postwar massacres of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by Hussein's forces. Primakov, whose influence in the Russian government was rising, stated that he believed Hussein "has sufficient potential to give us hope for a positive development of relations with him."

Nonetheless, Gorbachev's attempts to protect Hussein availed him little. Less than a year after the end of the Gulf War, the USSR collapsed, and Gorbachev fell from power.

Bibliography

Beschloss, Michael R., and Talbott, Strobe. (1993). At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War. Boston: Little, Brown.

Freedman, Robert O. (2001). Russian Policy Toward the Middle East Since the Collapse of the Soviet Union: The Yeltsin Legacy and the Challenge for Putin (Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, no. 33). Seattle: University of Washington: Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

Nizamedden, Talal. (1999). Russia and the Middle East. New York: St. Martins.

Rumer, Eugene. (2000). Dangerous Drift: Russia's Middle East Policy. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Shaffer, Brenda. (2001). Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Vassiliev, Alexei. (1993). Russian Policy in the Middle East: From Messianism to Pragmatism. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press.

—ROBERT O. FREEDMAN

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The military expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait after the August 1990 invasion.

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 evoked a quick response from the United States. Within hours, two U.S. Navy carrier groups were steaming towards the Persian Gulf. Military planners began reviewing U.S. Central Command plans for operations in the Persian Gulf, while other officials consulted with Saudi Arabia about defense of that nation. Thus began a two-phase operation to counter the Iraqi moves. The first phase was Operation Desert Shield, designed to shield Gulf states. The second was Operation Desert Storm, the United Nations - sanctioned action to drive Iraq from Kuwait.

Military actions for Desert Shield proceeded rapidly. By 7 August, elements of the Eighty-second Airborne Division and U.S. Air Force fighter planes were en route to the Gulf. Britain, France, Egypt, and Syria launched parallel actions, while other nations sent small forces to the area.

Original plans envisioned a force of 200,000 to defend Saudi Arabia. Within less than ninety days the U.S. had 184,000 troops in the Gulf, backed by thousands of armored vehicles, helicopters, heavy artillery, and aircraft, as well as a substantial naval force. The scope of the effort was demonstrated by the fact that it took a year to reach such numbers in the Vietnam War.

Although sufficient for the defense of Saudi Arabia, U.S. and allied forces were not sufficient to expel Iraq from Kuwait, which soon became the objective of the United Nations. The U.S. response was to order additional forces to the Gulf. In effect, the U.S. commitment was doubled in just over two months. The result was a U.S. force of over 500,000 in the theater, plus substantial allied forces, by the time Desert Shield gave way to Desert Storm. The U.S. commitment was two Army corps, two Marine divisions, six Navy carrier groups, two battleships (the last time World War II Iowa Class battleships were deployed), and over a thousand airplanes. Included were substantial numbers of National Guard and Reserve personnel.

The transition from Desert Shield to Desert Storm began with a spectacular air offensive on 17 January 1991, viewed worldwide on television. Air operations continued until 24 February, when a massive ground offensive succeeded in driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait in one hundred hours. The temporary cease-fire on 28 February led to Iraqi acceptance of UN resolutions on April 7.

At the time, Iraq had one of the world's largest military forces - over one million, half of whom were in Kuwait - plus 4,300 tanks. Iraq, however, did not have much of a navy. Its air arm was 660 aircraft. Allied strength was 800,000, 1,800 combat aircraft, and 3,000-plus tanks, in addition to a formidable naval force. Moreover, Iraq had to defend the entire nation. The allies could focus on evicting Iraq from Kuwait.

The five-week air offensive destroyed the Iraqi ability to use its air forces, neutralized air defense and command and control capabilities, struck at transportation systems, and attacked war production facilities, especially those suspected of being related to weapons of mass destruction. The allies attacked Scud missile sites and effectively isolated Iraqi forces in Kuwait. The air offensive weakened Iraqi ground forces for a successful ground offensive.

The plan for the ground attack envisioned fixing Iraqi attention on an amphibious attack on the coast of Kuwait coupled with a direct assault across the Saudi-Kuwait border. The real attack, however, would be from the west, across the Saudi-Iraqi border. That attack would aim toward the Euphrates River to cut off the Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

The hundred-hour ground campaign was a total success. Iraqi forces retreated in disarray from Kuwait. The allies also gained control of 30,000 square miles of Iraq. Allied losses were about 240 killed and 775 wounded. Original estimates of Iraqi losses were as high as 100,000, but later estimates varied from 10,000 to 50,000. They were probably closer to the lower end. The media images of Iraqi soldiers surrendering to helicopters in the air and to reporters suggests the totality of the defeat.

It was the subject of considerable concern that Iraq might use chemical weapons, as it had in the war with Iran. The allies also feared that Iraq might have biological weapons as well. Neither fear was realized.

Bibliography

Finlan, Alistair. The Gulf War 1991. New York: Routledge, 2003.

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

Friedman, Norman. Desert Victory: The U.S. Army in the GulfWar. Annapolis, MD: 1991.

Grossman, Mark. Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf War. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1995.

Scales, Robert H. Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War. Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, 1993.

Schubert, Frank N., and Kraus, Theresa L., eds. TheWhirlwind War: The United States Army in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1995.

Watson, Bruce W., ed. Military Lessons of the Gulf War. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1991.

— DANIEL E. SPECTOR

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).

A war between the forces of the United Nations, led by the United States, and those of Iraq that followed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The United Nations forces, called the Coalition, expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait in March 1991.

His rallying of the U.N. against the invasion of Kuwait is considered the high point of George H. W. Bush's presidency.