GULF WAR (IRAN/IRAQ CRISIS during the 90s)
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Reasons of war
What happened during the war
What ended the war
Effects of the war
Period of War: 17 January 1991 – 28 February 1991
REASONS OF WAR:
In early 1991, a coalition of 39 nations launched an invasion over the Saudi Arabia border into
Kuwait and Iraq against the Kuwaiti-occupying forces of Saddam Hussein. The conflict became
known as the Gulf War, and the UK played a significant role in fighting it and the persuading of
other nations – notably the USA – to act with force.
But what were the key moments that led to all-out war initiating in January 1991? Here, BFBS
explores the historical events that led to the Gulf War.
The cause of the Gulf War is commonly considered as being a reaction to the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait. And ultimately, it was this that prompted international condemnation at the UN,
the consequential Resolutions that provided the pathway to war.
But behind the Iraqi invasion of sovereign Kuwait on August 2, 1990, lay emotive issues that
prompted Saddam Hussein to take the course of history he would ultimately come to regret. But
what were they?
1899
At the end of the 19th century, the al-Shebah family – Kuwait's ruling dynasty – signed a
protection pact with the United Kingdom which gave control of the country's foreign affairs to
the British. Twenty-three years later, in 1922, Britain established Kuwait's borders with Iraq by
effectively drawing a line on the map. Seventy-eight years later, Saddam Hussein used this as an
excuse to invade, but, it was just a small part of a more comprehensive set of reasons.
Iraq's Economy
The Iran-Iraq war was a costly eight-year affair that saw prolonged fighting and no eventual
victor.
Throughout, the USA saw the war as an opportunity to bring Iraq under Washington's influence
and so provided resources to give Saddam Hussein's forces a better chance of victory against
anti-US Iran. When, in 1982, Iran looked to be getting the upper hand, the USA brokered arms
deals with Gulf states on behalf of Iraq. It significantly increased its support of her forces, which
effectively allowed Saddam's military to remain in the fight and finally, in 1988, conclude the
war without defeat. But this racked up enormous debts for Iraq with her Gulf state neighbours …
obligations that would one day need to be settled.
At the end of the Iran-Iraq war and in the two years before the start of the Gulf War, faced with
an economy that could not make ends meet, Iraq called on her neighbours to write-off the debt.
However, those creditors would not yield to such requests, and Iraq's crippled economy
continued to suffer.
OPEC
Iraq's economy had a shortfall of $7billion in 1989. To bring down this hole in the economy,
Saddam Hussein ordered the demobilization of 200,000 Iraqi soldiers … soldiers who had, in the
most part, fought a long war with Iran throughout the 1980s. The country desperately needed to
rebuild infrastructure but was unable to do so due to those economic problems.
Meanwhile, Kuwait had broken trading rules by over-producing oil in contravention of OPEC
terms and conditions that in turn lead to a slump on the value of oil across the Gulf region. This
may have cost the Iraqi economy about the same amount of money in 1989 alone as the deficit $7billion. Kuwait viewed its actions a reasonable levy in place of any compensation for the
neighboring eight-year Iran-Iraq war that was not forthcoming.
At this point, the US still held on to the preference of having Iraq under its sphere of influence. It
agreed to support Saddam Hussein in his efforts to engage with fellow Gulf states over the oil
dispute with Kuwait and the national debt. But, the marginal cordiality between Iraq and the
West would soon come to an end.
Civil Unrest And Torture In Iraq
On the streets of Iraq's larger cities, the mass-unemployed were becoming disruptive. Among
them, feeling sudden hardship, many of the demobilisized veterans of the Iran-Iraq war. The
arrest and subsequent execution in Iraq of Iranian-born Farzad Bazoft, a British journalist
employed by the Observer, stood only to engulf the situation. On March 15, 1990, his death was
widely condemned internationally and drew significant criticism from Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher. Iraq had accused Bazoft of being an Israeli spy. It called on Israel to withdraw from its
occupied territories, stating that they were willing to attack the Israeli state with chemical
weapons if it attacked Iraq. This threat of using internationally banned chemical weapons was
the straw that broke the camel's back for the United States. At that point, it withdrew any
resources and all support. Iraq's position became increasingly isolated.
Arab League
Iraq lodged a formal protest at the Arab League over Kuwait's breaking of OPEC trading
regulations in July 1990. They also accused Kuwait of horizontal drilling into their oilfields
cross-border. In compensation, Iraq demanded $10billion, money desperately needed for the
ailing economy.
The Occupation
The invasion by Saddam Hussein's forces began with a bombing campaign on Kuwait City.
Kuwaiti forces were dramatically outnumbered. Iraq's standing army consisted of over 950,000
men compared to a thin 16,000 in Kuwait's military. Most of those were on leave. Yet, had they
not been, Saddam Hussein had at his disposal, alongside the standing army, 650,000 in
paramilitary forces, 4,500 tanks, 484 combat aircraft, 232 helicopters and 20 special forces
brigades.
The invasion took 12 hours. In that time, the Kuwaiti Royal family fled the country. The Emir's
youngest brother, Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, was killed while mounting a Kuwait City
airport defence. Within days, Saddam Hussein installed his cousin as Kuwait Governor. With it,
the small sovereign state had been utterly annexed.
USA Reluctance
A UN Resolution (Resolution 660) was passed within hours. The Resolution provided
international condemnation and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Saddam
Hussein's forces from Kuwait. Concurrently, a motion at the Arab League expressed the matter
be dealt internally among Gulf states and not by those in the West. However, the move was
opposed by both Iraq and Libya.
On August 6, 1990, the UN passed a further two motions (resolution 661 and 665) which placed
Iraq under the harshest trade sanctions (in effect a total ban on trade) and gave authority for a
naval blockade.
Famously, during the UN discussions, Margaret Thatcher told George Bush not to "go wobbly"
on her. It was in response to the indecisive American position on the Kuwaiti invasion. America
did not assume war as a necessary course of action. It was only after the Prime Minister
discussed the consequences of appeasement with the President, pointing out that Saddam
Hussein could easily capture up to 65% of the world's oil supply if left unchecked.
This diplomatic overture by Margaret Thatcher to President Bush, mounted personally, moved
the American position to that of aggression.
The next stages in the build-up to war were recalled by Margaret Thatcher herself in her memoirs
– The Downing Street Years – and are today available via the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
She discussed the hours spent inside the Oval Office debating George Bush and his White House
officials over next steps.
Margaret Thatcher continued by discussing her follow-up conversations with the King in Saudi
Arabia over deploying the RAF and units from the British Army. Upon agreement between the
pair, the Armed Forces were moved to a state of readiness.
However, Margaret Thatcher would be ousted as leader of the Conservative Party by the end of
November 1990, after a challenge to her leadership proved fatal.
This paved the way for a new leader and Prime Minister of Great Britain, John Major. The crisis
in the Gulf would be his to deal with, not the Iron Lady.
A Five-Year-Old Boy Called Stuart
Stuart Lockwood was a young boy who, alongside other foreign nationals based in Iraq, was
detained by Saddam Hussein's officials and effectively used as hostages against Western
aggression.
During this crisis within a crisis, the Iraq leader appeared on state-controlled television with fiveyear-old Stuart, asking him on camera whether he was getting his milk while being held as a
prisoner.
This propaganda and tactical stunt drew international indignation. In London, Foreign Secretary
Douglas Hurd said that "the manipulation of children in that sort of way is contemptible." The
pictures dominated news bulletins worldwide. The situation is remembered as a chilling moment
in the build-up to war. The execution of Farzad Bazoft just months before had left a lingering
shadow on the safety of Brits inside Iraq.
At the United Nations in New York, a final resolution (no. 687) was passed which provided a
deadline of January 15, 1991, for Saddam Hussein to remove his forces out of Kuwait. The same
Resolution also allowed nations to respond with force if Iraqi troops had not complied with the
order.
In response, Iraq tabled a motion calling on all Israeli forces to withdraw from occupied
territories. However, the US used its power of veto to the demand.
In the final days before the deadline, last-ditch efforts were held in Switzerland between the US
and Iraq but ended in failure. The US claimed Iraqi officials had turned up to the talks with
nothing to offer. They brought no proposals or hypothetical scenarios for a pathway to peace.
The New York Times reported that Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq, "had not come from
Baghdad with the authority to make even the smallest concession."
The deadline passed with no movement from the Iraqis. The next day, a five-week bombing
campaign by coalition forces commenced.
The Gulf War had begun.
WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE WAR
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring
Kuwait in early August 1990. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as
Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to
intervene. Hussein defied United Nations Security Council demands to withdraw from
Kuwait by mid-January 1991, and the Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S. -led
air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm. After 42 days of relentless attacks by
the allied coalition in the air and on the ground, U.S. President George H.W. Bush
declared a cease-fire on February 28; by that time, most Iraqi forces in Kuwait had
either surrendered or fled. Though the Persian Gulf War was initially considered an
unqualified success for the international coalition, simmering conflict in the troubled
region led to a second Gulf War–known as the Iraq War–that began in 2003.
Background of the Persian Gulf War
Though the long-running Iran-Iraq War had ended in a United Nations-brokered
ceasefire in August 1988, by mid-1990 the two states had yet to begin negotiating a
permanent peace treaty. When their foreign ministers met in Geneva that July, prospects
for peace suddenly seemed bright, as it appeared that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was
prepared to dissolve that conflict and return territory that his forces had long occupi ed.
Two weeks later, however, Hussein delivered a speech in which he accused neighboring
nation Kuwait of siphoning crude oil from the Ar-Rumaylah oil fields located along
their common border. He insisted that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia cancel out $30 billion
of Iraq’s foreign debt, and accused them of conspiring to keep oil prices low in an effort
to pander to Western oil-buying nations.
Did you know? In justifying his invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Saddam Hussein claimed it
was an artificial state carved out of the Iraqi coast by Western colonialists; in fact, Kuwait had
been internationally recognized as a separate entity before Iraq itself was created by Britain
under a League of Nations mandate after World War I.
In addition to Hussein’s incendiary speech, Iraq had begun amassing troops on Kuwait’s
border. Alarmed by these actions, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt initiated
negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in an effort to avoid intervention by the United
States or other powers from outside the Gulf region. Hussein broke off the negotiations
after only two hours, and on August 2, 1990 ordered the invasion of Kuwait. Hussein’s
assumption that his fellow Arab states would stand by in the face of his invasion of
Kuwait, and not call in outside help to stop it, proved to be a miscalculation. Two -thirds
of the 21 members of the Arab League condemned Iraq’s act of aggression, and Saudi
Arabia’s King Fahd, along with Kuwait’s government-in-exile, turned to the United
States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) for
support.
Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait & Allied Response
U.S. President George H.W. Bush immediately condemned the invasion, as did the
governments of Britain and the Soviet Union. On August 3, the United Nations Security
Council called for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait; three days later, King Fahd met with
U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard “Dick” Cheney to request U.S. military assistance.
On August 8, the day on which the Iraqi government formally annexed Kuwait—
Hussein called it Iraq’s “19th province”—the first U.S. Air Force fighter planes began
arriving in Saudi Arabia as part of a military buildup dubbed Operation Desert Shield.
The planes were accompanied by troops sent by NATO allies as well as Egypt and
several other Arab nations, designed to guard against a possible Iraqi attack on Saudi
Arabia.
In Kuwait, Iraq increased its occupation forces to some 300,000 troops. In an effort to
garner support from the Muslim world, Hussein declared a jihad, or holy war, against
the coalition; he also attempted to ally himself with the Palestinian cause by offering to
evacuate Kuwait in return for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. When
these efforts failed, Hussein concluded a hasty peace with Iran so as to bring his army
up to full strength.
The Gulf War Begins
On November 29, 1990, the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of “all
necessary means” of force against Iraq if it did not withdraw from Kuwait by the
following January 15. By January, the coalition forces prepared to face off
against Iraq numbered some 750,000, including 540,000 U.S. personnel and
smaller forces from Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, among other nations. Iraq, for its part, had the support of
Jordan (another vulnerable neighbor), Algeria, the Sudan, Yemen, Tunisia and
the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
Early on the morning of January 17, 1991, a massive U.S. -led air offensive hit
Iraq’s air defenses, moving swiftly on to its communications networks, weapons
plants, oil refineries and more. The coalition effort, known as Operation Desert
Storm, benefited from the latest military technology, including Stealth bombers,
Cruise missiles, so-called “Smart” bombs with laser-guidance systems and
infrared night-bombing equipment. The Iraqi air force was either destroyed early
on or opted out of combat under the relentless attack, the objective of which was
to win the war in the air and minimize combat on the grou nd as much as
possible.
War on the Ground
By mid-February, the coalition forces had shifted the focus of their air attacks toward
Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait and southern Iraq. A massive allied ground offensive,
Operation Desert Sabre, was launched on February 24, with troops heading from
northeastern Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and southern Iraq. Over the next four days,
coalition forces encircled and defeated the Iraqis and liberated Kuwait. At the same
time, U.S. forces stormed into Iraq some 120 miles west of Kuwait, attacking Iraq’s
armored reserves from the rear. The elite Iraqi Republican Guard mounted a defense
south of Al-Basrah in southeastern Iraq, but most were defeated by February 27.
Who Won The Persian Gulf War?
With Iraqi resistance nearing collapse, Bush declared a ceasefire on February 28,
ending the Persian Gulf War. According to the peace terms that Hussein subsequently
accepted, Iraq would recognize Kuwait’s sovereignty and get rid of all its weapons of
mass destruction (including nuclear, biological and chemical weapons). In all, an
estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi forces were killed, in comparison with only 300
coalition troops.
Though the Gulf War was recognized as a decisive victory for the coalition, Kuwait
and Iraq suffered enormous damage, and Saddam Hussein was not forced from
power.
Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War
Intended by coalition leaders to be a “limited” war fought at minimum cost, it would
have lingering effects for years to come, both in the Persian Gulf region and around the
world. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Hussein’s forces brutally suppressed
uprisings by Kurds in the north of Iraq and Shi’ites in the south. The United States -led
coalition failed to support the uprisings, afraid that the Iraqi state would be dissolved if
they succeeded.
In the years that followed, U.S. and British aircraft continued to patrol skies and
mandate a no-fly zone over Iraq, while Iraqi authorities made every effort to frustrate
the carrying out of the peace terms, especially United Nations weapons inspections.
This resulted in a brief resumption of hostilities in 1998, after which Iraq steadfastly
refused to admit weapons inspectors. In addition, Iraqi force regularly exchanged fire
with U.S. and British aircraft over the no-fly zone.
In 2002, the United States (now led by President George W. Bush, son of the former
president) sponsored a new U.N. resolution calling for the return of weapons inspectors
to Iraq; U.N. inspectors reentered Iraq that November. Amid d ifferences between
Security Council member states over how well Iraq had complied with those
inspections, the United States and Britain began amassing forces on Iraq’s border. Bush
(without further U.N. approval) issued an ultimatum on March 17, 2003, dema nding
that Saddam Hussein step down from power and leave Iraq within 48 hours, under
threat of war. Hussein refused, and the second Persian Gulf War –more generally known
as the Iraq War–began three days later.
Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. forces on December 13, 2003 and executed on
December 30, 2006 for committing crimes against humanit y. The United States would
not formally withdraw from Iraq until December 2011.
WHAT ENDED THE WAR
Commencement of Use of Force against Iraq
Since Iraq did not show any sign of withdrawal despite the arrival of the deadline stipulated
by Resolution 678 of the U.N. Security Council, the multinational forces led by the United
States launched an air operation against Iraq at dawn on January 17, 1991.
Against this action, Iraq after mid-January attacked Israel and the eastern and middle part of
Saudi Arabia with Scud missiles. Iraq's attack on Israel was intended to transform the
situation into an Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel coped with this by refraining from
counterattacking Iraq while reserving the right.
From the Start of the Ground Battle to the Cease-fire
On February 15, the Iraqi Revolutionary Council issued the statement which made the first
reference by Iraq to Resolution 660 of the U.N. Security Council, which required the
immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait, and to the issue of withdrawal itself.
However, this announcement not only avoided when and how Iraq would withdraw from
Kuwait but also linked a number of conditions, such as the Israeli withdrawal from the
occupied territories, with its own withdrawal from Kuwait. It was therefore not acceptable
to the international community.
On February 18, Foreign Minister Aziz of Iraq visited the Soviet Union and met with
President Mikhail Gorbachev. Based on this meeting, the Soviet Union announced on
February 22 an eight-point proposal concerning Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait.
The Outline of the U.N. Security Council Resolution Relating to the Gulf Crisis
While highly valuing the Soviet efforts, President Bush issued on the same day a condition
that Iraq should start withdrawing from Kuwait immediately and unconditionally by noon
January 23, U.S. Eastern Standard Time, if Iraq was to avoid a ground war. Iraq did not
respond to this demand, and the multinational forces began a major ground operation against
the Iraqi forces on January 23.
The operation proceeded with an overwhelming superiority of the multinational forces. As
Iraqi soldiers surrendered or fled in droves, President Hussein announced on February 26
that Iraq would completely withdraw from Kuwait on the same day. On February 27,
President Bush announced that the American and multinational forces would cease
hostilities against Iraq at midnight February 28, U.S. Eastern Standard Time (100 hours after
the commencement of the ground operation). On February 28, Iraq finally announced its
acceptance of the 12 U.N. Security Council resolutions in a letter from Foreign Minister
Aziz to the Chairman of the U.N. Security Council, who confirmed the receipt of the letter
on the same day. With this, the use of force by the multinational forces ended and the ceasefire, in effect, took hold. On April 3, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 687,
which is on the formal cease-fire. On April 11, the Chairman of the U.N. Security Council
handed a letter declaring the cease-fire to the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations, and
the cease-fire based on Resolution 687 of the U.N. Security Council was officially
established. Thus the Gulf Crisis came to an end.
IRAQ ACCEPTS U.N. TERMS TO END GULF WAR
Iraq today accepted the U.N. Security Council's tough resolution formally ending the Persian
Gulf War in exchange for President Saddam Hussein's agreement to give up all weapons of mass
destruction and pay damages for its seven-month occupation of Kuwait.
In a 23-page letter delivered today to Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Iraq complained
bitterly that the terms of the resolution were unfair and illegal, but acknowledged that it "has
found itself facing only one choice: to accept this resolution," U.N. sources said.
The measure, adopted 12 to 1 by the council Wednesday, effectively dictates the terms of
surrender with which Iraq must comply to secure the withdrawal of U.S. forces occupying part of
its territory and the lifting of economic sanctions. Its terms would transform Iraq from a country
that had the world's fourth largest army when it invaded Kuwait last Aug. 2 into an essentially
demilitarized state.
President Bush, in Houston today, said the letter "appears to be positive" but he cautioned that
U.S. analysts are still reviewing a translation. Bush said portions of the letter objecting to the
conditions amount to "some griping . . . but that is just too bad."
"I don't care how much griping they do. I just want to know whether they accept it or not," he
said, adding that "Saddam Hussein, in my view, is in no position to barter something of this
nature."
Iraq's acceptance came as Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Kurtecebe Alptemocin, reported in
Ankara that about 1,500 Iraqi Kurdish refugees have died of starvation, illness and cold after
fleeing an Iraqi military crackdown, the Associated Press reported.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians continued to flee toward Turkey and Iran to escape
fierce military reprisals from Iraqi forces who survived the crushing defeat by allied forces in the
gulf war and then went into action to put down a Shiite revolt in the south and a Kurdish
insurrection in the north. "We are witnessing a great violence and tragedy," Alptemocin said.
U.N. sources said the Security Council will move to signal its concurrence with the Iraqi letter,
possibly as early as Monday, once an official translation is in hand. Then, the world body can
begin immediately to implement the provisions of the resolution, starting with the deployment of
a U.N. observation team along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border.
That step will pave the way for the return home of 373,000 American troops from the gulf
region, some of whom said today that they were pleased by Iraq's acceptance of the resolution
because it will speed their departure.
"We usually stay pessimistic until our plane is off the ground," Capt. Craig Hendrix, of Valdosta,
Ga., told the AP, "but it boosts our spirits to know there's a cease-fire agreement."
Bush said today that once the peace-keeping force is in place, U.S. forces could be removed in a
"matter of days." Despite his adamant position that U.S. forces not remain in the Persian Gulf
region, Bush said he might consider allowing U.S. participation in the peace-keeping force.
"If that will enhance the peace, why, I'd be open-minded about it," he said, adding: "There will
not be a lot of U.S. troops involved."
Iraqi Complaints
U.N. sources who have seen the Iraqi letter, written in Arabic said it addressed each of the
conditions spelled out in the resolution and complained that the terms were harsh and unfair. A
full, official translation of the letter will not be completed until Sunday.
But one source said: "The letter is full of complaints, but it does not express reservations about
the terms of the resolution. There is no question that it is an acceptance of the Security Council
resolution."
That was confirmed by a member of Iraq's U.N. delegation, who spoke on condition that he not
be identified. "I cannot discuss details, but I can confirm that the letter accepts the resolution and
all its provisions," he said.
According to the sources, the letter, from new Iraqi Foreign Minister Ahmad Hussein Khudday
Sammaraei, noted that acceptance of the resolution had been approved earlier today in Baghdad
by the Iraqi parliament, which reflects the thinking and policies of Saddam's government.
Approval of the Revolutionary Command Council headed by Saddam was not required, they
said.
The key provisions include destruction or removal of all Iraqi long-range ballistic missiles,
including the Scuds that were fired against Israel and Saudi Arabia during the war, and all
chemical, biological and radiological weaponry. It also imposes a near total ban on future sales
of conventional arms to Iraq.
Other stiff conditions that Iraq must meet include mortgaging for years to come much of its
earnings from its oil exports to pay for the damage caused by its seven-month occupation of
Kuwait.
According to the U.N. sources, the letter repeated past Iraqi assertions that the compensation
requirement would impose a heavy burden on future generations of Iraqis and that the
disarmament provisions would leave Iraq defenseless before such regional enemies as Israel.
It cited Israel's 1981 bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor and contended that Iraq has a right to
compensation from the Jewish state.
As Iraq's letter was received here, Saddam made a new appointment to his cabinet in an effort to
tighten the political grip of his inner circle of kinsmen from his hometown, Tikrit.
Reuter reported that Saddam appointed as defense minister his son-in-law and former bodyguard,
Hussein Kamel Hassan, who was promoted from colonel to general after playing a leading role
in crushing the Shiite and Kurdish revolts. Hassan replaced Lt. Gen. Saadi Tuma Abbas, a hero
of the 1980-88 war with Iran who served barely three months in the defense post.
Meanwhile, Reuter quoted Kurdish rebels as saying they had repulsed an army attack against
mountain strongholds overlooking the northeastern city of Sulaymaniyah. Iraq announced
Wednesday its forces had recaptured Sulaymaniyah, the last major town held by the Kurds, who
said they continue to launch hit-and-run attacks on the army from mountain areas still under their
control.
Iraqi refugees arriving in Iran reported continued fighting in the mainly Shiite southern region of
Iraq, saying there was heavy loss of life, even though Iraq has said that the revolt there has been
put down.
U.S. analysts have said that Iraq appears to have re-established control of the country after the
revolts erupted following the end of the gulf war and the establishment of a temporary cease-fire
in late February.
Before the U.N. can implement the cease-fire resolution, it will have to deploy a military team to
monitor the disputed border between Iraq and Kuwait that was the pretext for Baghdad's invasion
of its smaller neighbor.
Once the U.N. observer team is in place, the United States will be able to begin bringing home
more rapidly the American troops still in the gulf, including about 100,000 occupying an area of
southern Iraq.
With Bush's decision not to allow American troops to help Iraqi insurgents topple Saddam,
soldiers today said their job in ousting Iraqi troops from Kuwait was complete. "Our objectives
have been accomplished. It's time to go home," said Col. Richard Brackney of the 352nd Civil
Affairs Command, which has been helping restore essential services in Kuwait.
Perez de Cuellar informed the Security Council today that U.N. monitoring of the border will
require 300 international observers backed up by about 1,000 infantry and engineer troops to
provide security and perform the demilitarization chores necessary to wind down the last
vestiges of the war.
The secretary general's recommendations were made in response to the Security Council's
directive that he prepare a plan for rapid deployment of observers since the cease-fire resolution
commits the council to guarantee the border agreed to by Iraq and Kuwait in 1963. The force will
be known as the U.N. Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM).
Perez de Cuellar estimated the cost of the operation at approximately $83 million for the first six
months and $40 million for the following six months, provided a return to stability in the area
allows withdrawal of the combat troops.
He recommended that the costs be paid by U.N. members as special assessments levied on a
prorated basis. But he also noted that the United Nation's serious financial crisis is due, in
considerable part, to the failure of members to pay their assessed share of peace-keeping and
truce supervision operations.
The United States, which would be called on to pay the largest share under the U.N.'s system of
apportioning costs, is among the countries most seriously in arrears. Because of continuing
budgetary disputes with the White House, Congress consistently has refused to provide full
funding to clear up Washington's U.N. debts. However, the United Nation's cooperation with the
U.S.-led campaign to oust Iraq from Kuwait has produced a more friendly attitude toward the
world body.
While Congress continues to call for substantial sharing of the war costs by other major
industrial powers and Arab oil states, it also has indicated willingness to help out generously
with the U.N.'s war-related expenses.
Truce Supervision
U.N. sources said tentative plans call for all five of the Security Council's permanent members -the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China -- to provide observers. If Iraq
accepts that idea, it would be the first time in the United Nation's 46-year history that the five
have worked together in a truce supervision operation.
The task of the U.N. force would be to monitor the barren, desert border of Iraq and Kuwait,
slightly more than 100 miles long, and a 25-mile waterway called the Khor Abdullah. The ceasefire resolution authorizes the force to operate 10 miles inside the Iraqi border and six miles inside
Kuwait.
Perez de Cuellar said the observers' job would be "to ensure that no military personnel and
equipment were within the demilitarized zone and that no military fortifications were maintained
in it."
To accomplish that, he added, the observers would monitor withdrawal of any armed forces now
in the area to be demilitarized, operate observation posts on main roads and other selected points,
conduct land and air patrols throughout the demilitarized zone, monitor the Khor Abdullah from
shore posts and by air and investigate charges of violations.
Because of the tensions between Iraq and Kuwait and the continued presence in the area of
thousands of refugees, Perez de Cuellar said there initially might be a security threat "that
requires an infantry element to ensure UNIKOM's security at that stage."
In addition, he said, the area still is littered with mines, booby traps and volatile explosives that
must be cleared. He also said considerable work must be done to clear areas for UNIKOM posts
and to repair damaged roads.
"Unless satisfactory arrangements can be made to complete this work before UNIKOM is
deployed, the mission would have to include a field engineer unit," he said. "There also would be
a continuing need for a logistic unit."
"The maximum initial strength of UNIKOM would be approximately 1,440 all ranks, of which
the infantry temporarily attached to it would be approximately 680, and the field engineer unit, if
it is deployed, approximatly 300," he said.
Perez de Cuellar stressed that his estimate of costs dropping from $83 million to about $40
million after six months is predicated on the assumption that the infantry and engineer units can
be withdrawn by that time.
If it is necessary to keep them longer, the long-range costs will be substantially higher, he said.
Perez de Cuellar also warned that the United Nation's capacity to deploy UNIKOM "would
depend in large measure on the availability of financial resources necessary to meet the start-up
costs of the operation."
U.N. officials say the organization currently does not have the funds that would be required, and
the secretary general appealed to member states both to pay their arrearages and "to make
voluntary contributions in cash and in kind for setting up and maintaining the mission."
In a related development, staff writer David Hoffman reported:
Secretary of State James A. Baker III, embarking on a trip to Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Syria and
Switzerland, is to meet with Jordanian Foreign Minister Taher Masri on Friday in Geneva,
according to State Department officials. The meeting will be the first high-level contact with
officials of that Middle Eastern kingdom since the gulf war, when King Hussein tilted toward
Iraq.
The meeting could mark the start of an effort to include Jordan in the Middle East peace process.
Jordan could be critical in pulling together a group of Palestinians acceptable to the Israelis for a
peace conference.
"It is a proper step," Bush said of that meeting. "Jordan will obviously have an important role to
play in whatever the final answer proves to be."
Both Bush and Baker sought to temper expectations for the secretary of state's mission to the
Middle East. "I'm not suggesting there are any new factors . . . that have occasioned this trip,"
Baker said.
But Bush said he did not want to miss any opportunity to try to bring peace to the troubled
region. "The United States has a newfound credibility in that part of the world," he said. "I want
to see us use that to be the catalyst for peace."
But Bush said he would not be proposing a comprehensive plan -- yet. "I'm not putting aside the
idea of a bold plan, but we've got to work our way up to that," he said.
"It is very important that when we propose something, that it work, that it has a chance to be
successful."
EFFECTS OF THE WAR
The aftermath of Gulf War saw drastic and profoundly significant political, cultural, and social
change across the Middle East and even in areas outside those that were directly involved.
Palestinian community in Kuwait
Significant demographic changes occurred in Kuwait as a result of the Gulf War. There were
400,000 Palestinians in Kuwait before the Gulf War. During the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait,
200,000 Palestinians left Kuwait due to various reasons (fear or persecution, food shortages,
medical care difficulties, financial shortages, fear of arrest and mistreatment at roadblocks by
Iraqis). After the Gulf War of 1991, nearly 200,000 Palestinians fled Kuwait, partly due to
economic burdens, regulations on residence and fear of abuse by Kuwaiti security forces.
Kuwait's lack of support for Palestinians after the Gulf War was a response to the alignment of
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the PLO with Saddam Hussein, who had
earlier invaded Kuwait. On March 14, 1991, 200,000 Palestinians were still residing in Kuwait,
out of initial 400,000. Palestinians began leaving Kuwait during one week in March 1991,
following Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation. During a single week in March, the
Palestinian population of Kuwait had almost entirely fled the country. Kuwaitis said that
Palestinians leaving the country could move to Jordan, since most Palestinians held Jordanian
passports. According to the New York Times, Kuwaitis said the anger against Palestinians was
such that there was little chance that those who had left during the seven-month occupation could
ever return and relatively few of those remaining will be able to stay.
The Palestinians who fled Kuwait were mostly Jordanian citizens. Only in 2004, the political
situation between Kuwaiti and Palestinian leadership improved with official apology of Mahmud
Abbas on PLO support of the Iraqi invasion in 1991. In 2012, the official Palestinian embassy in
Kuwait was re-opened. In 2012, 80,000 Palestinians lived in Kuwait.
Gulf War syndrome
Many returning Coalition soldiers reported illnesses following their action in the war, a
phenomenon known as Gulf War syndrome or Gulf War illness. Common symptoms that were
reported are chronic fatigue, Fibromyalgia, and Gastrointestinal disorder. There has been
widespread speculation and disagreement about the causes of the illness and the reported birth
defects. Researchers found that infants born to male veterans of the 1991 war had higher rates of
two types of heart valve defects. Gulf War veterans' children born after the war had a certain
kidney defect that was not found in Gulf War veterans' children born before the war. Researchers
have said that they did not have enough information to link birth defects with exposure to toxic
substances. Some factors considered as possibilities include exposure to depleted
uranium, chemical weapons, anthrax vaccines given to deploying soldiers, and/or infectious
diseases. Major Michael Donnelly, a USAF officer during the War, helped publicize the
syndrome and advocated for veterans' rights in this regard.
Effects of depleted uranium
Depleted uranium was used in the war in tank kinetic energy penetrators and 20–30 mm
cannon ordnance. Significant controversy regarding the long term safety of depleted uranium
exists, although detractors claim pyrophoric, genotoxic, and teratogenic heavy metal effects.
Many have cited its use during the war as a contributing factor to a number of instances of health
issues in the conflict's veterans and surrounding civilian populations. However, scientific opinion
on the risk is mixed.
Some say that depleted uranium is not a significant health hazard unless it is taken into the body.
External exposure to radiation from depleted uranium is generally not a major concern because
the alpha particles emitted by its isotopes travel only a few centimeters in air or can be stopped
by a sheet of paper. Also, the uranium-235 that remains in depleted uranium emits only a small
amount of low-energy gamma radiation. However, if allowed to enter the body, depleted
uranium, like natural uranium, has the potential for both chemical and radiological toxicity with
the two important target organs being the kidneys and the lungs.
Highway of Death
On the night of 26–27 February 1991, some Iraqi forces began leaving Kuwait on the main
highway north of Al Jahra in a column of some 1,400 vehicles. A patrolling E-8 Joint
STARS aircraft observed the retreating forces and relayed the information to the DDM-8 air
operations center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These vehicles and the retreating soldiers were
subsequently attacked, resulting in a 60 km stretch of highway strewn with debris—the Highway
of Death. New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd wrote, "With the Iraqi leader facing military
defeat, Mr. Bush decided that he would rather gamble on a violent and potentially unpopular
ground war than risk the alternative: an imperfect settlement hammered out by the Soviets and
Iraqis that world opinion might accept as tolerable."
Chuck Horner, Commander of U.S. and allied air operations has written:
[By February 26], the Iraqis totally lost heart and started to evacuate occupied Kuwait, but
airpower halted the caravan of Iraqi Army and plunderers fleeing toward Basra. This event was
later called by the media "The Highway of Death." There were certainly a lot of dead vehicles,
but not so many dead Iraqis. They'd already learned to scamper off into the desert when our
aircraft started to attack. Nevertheless, some people back home wrongly chose to believe we
were cruelly and unusually punishing our already whipped foes.
By February 27, talk had turned toward terminating the hostilities. Kuwait was free. We were not
interested in governing Iraq. So the question became "How do we stop the killing."
Bulldozer assault
An armored bulldozer similar to the ones used in the attack.
Another incident during the war highlighted the question of large-scale Iraqi combat deaths. This
was the "bulldozer assault", wherein two brigades from the U.S. 1st Infantry Division
(Mechanized) were faced with a large and complex trench network, as part of the heavily
fortified "Saddam Hussein Line". After some deliberation, they opted to use antimine plows mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers to simply plow over and bury alive the
defending Iraqi soldiers. Not a single American was killed during the attack. Reporters were
banned from witnessing the attack, near the neutral zone that touches the border between Saudi
Arabia and Iraq. Every American in the assault was inside an armored vehicle. One newspaper
story reported that U.S. commanders estimated thousands of Iraqi soldiers surrendered, escaping
live burial during the two-day assault 24–26 February 1991. Patrick Day of Newsday reported,
"Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Vulcan armored carriers straddled the trench lines and fired into
the Iraqi soldiers as the tanks covered them with mounds of sand. 'I came through right after the
lead company,' [Col. Anthony] Moreno said. 'What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with
peoples' arms and things sticking out of them... '" However, after the war, the Iraqi government
said that only 44 bodies were found. In his book The Wars Against Saddam, John
Simpson alleges that U.S. forces attempted to cover up the incident. After the incident, the
commander of the 1st Brigade said: "I know burying people like that sounds pretty nasty, but it
would be even nastier if we had to put our troops in the trenches and clean them out with
bayonets." Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney did not mention the First Division's tactics in an
interim report to Congress on Operation Desert Storm. In the report, Cheney acknowledged that
457 enemy soldiers were buried during the ground war.
Coalition bombing of Iraq's civilian infrastructure
In the 23 June 1991 edition of The Washington Post, reporter Bart Gellman wrote: "Many of the
targets were chosen only secondarily to contribute to the military defeat of [Iraq] ... Military
planners hoped the bombing would amplify the economic and psychological impact of
international sanctions on Iraqi society ... They deliberately did great harm to Iraq's ability to
support itself as an industrial society ..." In the Jan/Feb 1995 edition of Foreign Affairs, French
diplomat Eric Rouleau wrote: "The Iraqi people, who were not consulted about the invasion,
have paid the price for their government's madness ... Iraqis understood the legitimacy of a
military action to drive their army from Kuwait, but they have had difficulty comprehending the
Allied rationale for using air power to systematically destroy or cripple Iraqi infrastructure and
industry: electric power stations (92 percent of installed capacity destroyed), refineries (80
percent of production capacity), petrochemical complexes, telecommunications centers
(including 135 telephone networks), bridges (more than 100), roads, highways, railroads,
hundreds of locomotives and boxcars full of goods, radio and television broadcasting stations,
cement plants, and factories producing aluminum, textiles, electric cables, and medical
supplies." However, the U.N. subsequently spent billions rebuilding hospitals, schools, and water
purification facilities throughout the country.
Abuse of Coalition POWs
During the conflict, Coalition aircrew shot down over Iraq were displayed as prisoners of war on
TV, most with visible signs of abuse. Amongst several testimonies to poor treatment, Air Force
Captain, Richard Storr was allegededly tortured by Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War. Iraqi
secret police broke his nose, dislocated his shoulder and punctured his eardrum. Royal Air
Force Tornado crew John Nichol and John Peters have both alleged that they were tortured
during this time. Nichol and Peters were forced to make statements against the war in front of
television cameras. Members of British Special Air Service Bravo Two Zero were captured
while providing information about an Iraqi supply line of Scud missiles to Coalition forces. Only
one, Chris Ryan, evaded capture while the group's other surviving members were violently
tortured. Flight surgeon (later General) Rhonda Cornum was raped by one of her captors after the
Black Hawk she was riding in was shot down while searching for a downed F-16 pilot.
Operation Southern Watch
Since the war, the U.S. has had a continued presence of 5,000 troops stationed in Saudi Arabia –
a figure that rose to 10,000 during the 2003 conflict in Iraq. Operation Southern Watch enforced
the no-fly zones over southern Iraq set up after 1991; oil exports through the Persian Gulf's
shipping lanes were protected by the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet.
Since Saudi Arabia houses Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest sites, many Muslims were upset at
the permanent military presence. The continued presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the
war was one of the stated motivations behind the 11 September terrorist attacks, the Khobar
Towers bombing, and the date chosen for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings (7 August), which
was eight years to the day that U.S. troops were sent to Saudi Arabia.Osama bin
Laden interpreted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as banning the "permanent presence of
infidels in Arabia". In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa, calling for U.S. troops to leave Saudi
Arabia. In a December 1999 interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden said he felt that
Americans were "too near to Mecca" and considered this a provocation to the entire Islamic
world.
Sanctions
On 6 August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution
661 which imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, providing for a full trade embargo, excluding
medical supplies, food and other items of humanitarian necessity, these to be determined by the
Council's sanctions committee. From 1991 until 2003, the effects of government policy and
sanctions regime led to hyperinflation, widespread poverty and malnutrition.
During the late 1990s, the U.N. considered relaxing the sanctions imposed because of the
hardships suffered by ordinary Iraqis. Studies dispute the number of people who died in south
and central Iraq during the years of the sanctions.
Draining of the Qurna Marshes
The draining of the Qurna Marshes was an irrigation project in Iraq during and immediately after
the war, to drain a large area of marshes in the Tigris–Euphrates river system. Formerly covering
an area of around 3,000 square kilometers, the large complex of wetlands were almost
completely emptied of water, and the local Shi'ite population relocated, following the war
and 1991 uprisings. By 2000, United Nations Environment Programme estimated that 90% of the
marshlands had disappeared, causing desertification of over 7,500 square miles (19,000 km2).
The draining of the Qurna Marshes also called The Draining of the Mesopotamian
Marshes occurred in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear
large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. Formerly covering an area of
around 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi), the large complex ofwetlands was 90% drained prior to the
2003 Invasion of Iraq. The marshes are typically divided into three main sub-marshes, the
Hawizeh, Central, and Hammar Marshes and all three were drained at different times for
different reasons. Initial draining of the Central Marshes was intended to reclaim land for
agriculture but later all three marshes would become a tool of war and revenge.
Many international organizations such as the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the Islamic
Supreme Council of Iraq, the Wetlands International, and Middle East Watch have described the
project as a political attempt to force the Marsh Arabs out of the area through water diversion
tactics.
Oil spill
On 23 January, Iraq dumped 400 million US gallons (1,500,000 m3) of crude oil into the Persian
Gulf, causing the largest offshore oil spill in history at that time. It was reported as a deliberate
natural resources attack to keep U.S. Marines from coming ashore (Missouri and Wisconsin had
shelled Failaka Island during the war to reinforce the idea that there would be an amphibious
assault attempt). About 30–40% of this came from allied raids on Iraqi coastal targets.
Kuwaiti oil fires
Oil well fires rage outside Kuwait City in 1991
The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by the Iraqi military setting fire to 700 oil wells as part of
a scorched earth policy while retreating from Kuwait in 1991 after conquering the country but
being driven out by Coalition forces. The fires started in January and February 1991 and the last
one was extinguished by November 1991.
The resulting fires burned out of control because of the dangers of sending in firefighting
crews. Land mines had been placed in areas around the oil wells, and a military cleaning of the
areas was necessary before the fires could be put out. Somewhere around 6 million barrels
(950,000 m3) of oil were lost each day. Eventually, privately contracted crews extinguished the
fires, at a total cost of US$1.5 billion to Kuwait. By that time, however, the fires had burned for
approximately ten months, causing widespread pollution.
Environmental impact
An oilfield on fire
Immediately following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, predictions were made of an environmental
disaster stemming from Iraqi threats to blow up captured Kuwaiti oil wells. Speculation ranging
from a nuclear winter type scenario, to heavy acid rain and even short term immediate global
warming were presented at the World Climate Conference in Geneva that November.
On 10 January 1991, a paper appearing in the Journal Nature, stated Paul Crutzen's calculations
that the setting alight of the Kuwait oil wells would produce a "nuclear winter", with a cloud of
smoke covering half of the Northern Hemisphere after 100 days had passed and beneath the
cloud, temperatures would be reduced by 5-10 Celsius.[47] This was followed by articles printed
in the Wilmington morning star and the Baltimore Sun newspapers in mid to late January 1991,
with the popular TV scientist personality of the time, Carl Sagan, who was also the co-author of
the first few nuclear winter papers along with Richard P. Turco, John W. Birks, Alan
Robock and Paul Crutzen together collectively stated that they expected catastrophic nuclear
winter like effects with continental sized impacts of "sub-freezing" temperatures as a result of if
the Iraqis went through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells and they
burned for a few months.
Later when Operation Desert Storm had begun, Dr. S. Fred Singer and Carl Sagan discussed the
possible environmental impacts of the Kuwaiti petroleum fires on the ABC
News program Nightline. Sagan again argued that some of the effects of the smoke could be
similar to the effects of a nuclear winter, with smoke lofting into the stratosphere, a region of
the atmosphere beginning around 43,000 feet (13,000 m) above sea level at Kuwait, resulting in
global effects and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the
Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the Year
Without a Summer.
He reported on initial modeling estimates that forecast impacts extending to south Asia, and
perhaps to the northern hemisphere as well. Singer, on the other hand, said that calculations
showed that the smoke would go to an altitude of about 3,000 feet (910 m) and then be rained out
after about three to five days and thus the lifetime of the smoke would be limited. Both height
estimates made by Singer and Sagan turned out to be wrong, albeit with Singer's narrative being
closer to what transpired, with the comparatively minimal atmospheric effects remaining limited
to the Persian Gulf region, with smoke plumes, in general, lofting to about 10,000 feet (3,000 m)
and a few times as high as 20,000 feet (6,100 m).
Along with Singer's televised critique, Richard D. Small criticized the initial Nature paper in a
reply on 7 March 1991 arguing along similar lines as Singer.
Sagan later conceded in his book The Demon-Haunted World that his prediction did not turn out
to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4–6 °C over the Persian Gulf,
but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared."
At the peak of the fires, the smoke absorbed 75 to 80% of the sun's radiation. The particles rose
to a maximum of 20,000 feet (6,100 m), but were scavenged by cloud condensation nuclei from
the atmosphere relatively quickly.
Sagan and his colleagues expected that a "self-lofting" of the sooty smoke would occur when it
absorbed the sun's heat radiation, with little to no scavenging occurring, whereby the black
particles of soot would be heated by the sun and lifted/lofted higher and higher into the air,
thereby injecting the soot into the stratosphere where it would take years for the sun blocking
effect of this aerosol of soot to fall out of the air, and with that, catastrophic ground level cooling
and agricultural impacts in Asia and possibly the Northern Hemisphere as a whole.
In retrospect, it is now known that smoke from the Kuwait oil fires only affected the weather
pattern throughout the Persian Gulf and surrounding region during the periods that the fires were
burning in 1991, with lower atmospheric winds blowing the smoke along the eastern half of the
Arabian Peninsula, and cities such as Dhahran and Riyadh, and countries such
as Bahrain experienced days with smoke filled skies and carbon soot rainout/fallout.
Thus the immediate consequence of the arson sabotage was a dramatic regional decrease in air
quality, causing respiratory problems for many Kuwaitis and those in neighboring countries.
According to the 1992 study from Peter Hobbs and Lawrence Radke daily emissions of sulfur
dioxide (which can generate acid rain) were 57% of that from electric utilities in the United
States, emissions of carbon dioxide were 2% of global emissions and emissions of soot were
3400 metric tons per day.
In a paper in the DTIC archive, published in 2000, it states that "Calculations based on smoke
from Kuwaiti oil fires in May and June of 1991 indicate that combustion efficiency was about
96% in producing carbon dioxide. While, with respect to the incomplete combustion fraction,
Smoke particulate matter accounted for 2% of the fuel burned, of which 0.4% was soot."[With
the remaining 2%, being oil that did not undergo any initial combustion].
Peter V. Hobbs also narrated a short amateur documentary titled Kuwait Oil Fires that followed
the University of Washington/UW's "Cloud and Aerosol Research Group" as they flew through,
around and above the smoke clouds and took samples, measurements, and video of the smoke
clouds in their Convair C-131(N327UW) Aerial laboratory.
THE GULF WAR 30 YEARS LATER: SUCCESSES, FAILURES, AND BLIND SPOTS
Was the Gulf War (1990 to 1991) a success for the United States? To many, the answer is
unequivocally “yes.” After all, the United States rallied the international community to punish
aggression and liberate a small country (Kuwait) that had been invaded by its larger,
authoritarian neighbor (Iraq). The country marshaled its formidable instruments of diplomatic,
informational, military, and economic power to garner international support and achieved its
objectives quickly at a relatively limited cost; adeptly executed joint and multinational military
operations; and displayed astonishing military capabilities heralded as the beginning of a
“revolution in military affairs.” These elements of the U.S. campaign should be celebrated and,
where possible, emulated in the future.
But the United States should be careful not to mythologize its performance in the Gulf War. For
example, war termination was handled haphazardly in a manner that hurt policy goals for
regional stability. Following the war, great-power and non-state competitors sought to identify
and exploit U.S. vulnerabilities with asymmetric responses while excessive military deference
from allies often placed a greater burden on the United States. Lastly, U.S. military prowess in
the war led to hubris, and reinforced a neglect for diplomacy, irregular warfare, stability
operations, and governance. The country should continue to study the record of the Gulf War to
identify and attend to demonstrated deficiencies, and to analyze subsequent responses of
adversaries and allies.
American Deficiencies in the Gulf War: Making the Results Durable
America’s intervention in the Gulf War was not a complete success. The United States failed to
construct a durable regional security order after the war. What appeared to be an exceptionally
daunting undertaking to simply defeat Iraqi forces in the theater of operations led to
an overcautious approach to warfighting. The cautious approach included several weeks of
airstrikes before launching the ground attack; insufficient recognition of Iraqi shortcomings
(especially after the major Iraqi attack at Khafji in late January); a relatively slow-moving,
deliberate main attack that was difficult to accelerate; and a mismatched approach to war
termination that came up short on key military objectives both geographically (failure to close
off the Iraqi retreat route) and operationally (in not destroying the Republican Guard).
According to National Security Directive 54, dated Jan. 15, 1991, there were four major war
aims: complete Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, restore Kuwait’s government, protect American
lives (in particular, free hostages), and “promote the security and the stability of the Persian
Gulf.” The United States accomplished the first three objectives but not the last. Iraq freed
American hostages seized in the conquest of Kuwait before the conflict and then released U.S.
prisoners of war whom it had captured soon after combat operations. Combat operations were
effective in evicting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and restoring Kuwaiti sovereignty. But regional
stability in the Persian Gulf? What would sufficiently represent achievement of that objective?
Before combat operations, key supporting goals included elimination of chemical, biological,
and nuclear weapons and destruction of the Republican Guard Forces Command. The execution
of a cautious operational plan allowed a large proportion of the Republican Guard in Kuwait to
escape, and aerial bombing of suspected weapons of mass destruction sites was a highly
uncertain remedy for eliminating Iraq’s possible stockpiles. Combat alone was not enough to
attain key policy aims.
The survival of Saddam’s regime, still well-armed, was in part secured through effective use of
force against a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq. The intervention of the U.S. and other allied
forces in Operation Provide Comfort and Operation Northern Watch thwarted a more bellicose
Iraqi effort to subdue rebellious Kurds.
The problem was not so much with combat operations at the tactical and operational level but
with the lack of foresight about what might be required to attain durable policy outcomes even
with the continued existence of Saddam’s Baathist regime. Eventually, the United States
declared northern and southern no-fly zones and stationed U.S. forces in the region to help
support military operations to deter and contain Iraq. The United States also worked through the
United Nations to establish an intrusive inspection regime to ferret out and monitor weapons of
mass destruction programs and to promulgate the continuation of economic sanctions on Iraq to
force compliance with U.N. resolutions.
Blowback and Blind Spots After the Gulf War
There were important second-order effects to military operations that continue to play out. The
U.S. armed forces demonstrated an array of abilities, subsumed under the rubric of a revolution
in military affairs, that showed how the United States was far more advanced militarily than its
rivals and most of its allies. The conventional armed forces built primarily to fight numerically
superior Soviet forces proved extremely effective against Iraq.
For Americans, the realization that U.S. capabilities appeared to be even more advanced than
hoped help to build a confidence that arguably led to hubris or “victory disease.” In the Cold
War, there was a sense of the U.S. armed forces as underdogs who would be hard-pressed to
defend against a Soviet onslaught without having to resort to nuclear weapons. After the Gulf
War, many Americans reveled in the military’s apparently unmatched superiority.
Other states and their armed forces quickly distilled their own lessons from the Gulf War.
Several developed asymmetric conventional strategies to counter the United States. High among
these efforts are Russian concepts of hybrid warfare and Chinese concepts of unrestricted
warfare that include major components of competition and conflict below the threshold of war as
well as heightened emphasis on new technologies (e.g., information warfare, cyber attacks,
economic disruptions, artificial intelligence, and other non-military endeavors). This is the area
that poses the greatest contemporary challenge for the United States. Russia and China have had
time to close the gap with the United States in major areas of modern warfare. In particular, they
have developed long-range precision strike systems such as anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft
systems, and other capabilities to thwart U.S. global deployment options.
Another lesson some learned from the Gulf War was to “never fight the U.S. without nuclear
weapons.” This insight reflects an implicit acceptance among America’s adversaries that they
might be unable to match the United States (or other rivals) in conventional terms for the
foreseeable future. As a result, developing nuclear weapons could offset this
disadvantage. India, Pakistan, and North Korea all joined the nuclear weapons club after the Gulf
War, while Iran accelerated its nuclear activities.
America’s military intervention in the Middle East had long-term repercussions. Osama bin
Laden and his followers cited the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia as one reason for their
war against the United States. Bin Laden was motivated by grievances to include, “occupying the
lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula” and continuing to punish the Iraqi
people. During his experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s, bin Laden saw how Soviet forces had
ultimately succumbed to much less technically sophisticated opponents. Might such techniques
of irregular warfare used against one superpower be fruitfully applied against the other?
Military success in a war of limited aims left open the question of whether America’s military
prowess in precision airpower, naval supremacy, and large-scale ground combat operations in
open terrain would translate to other locations. Though not a failure, the Gulf War did not
demonstrate U.S. military capabilities for irregular warfare, stability operations, or
the stewardship of social and political affairs for a defeated and/or occupied population — all
elements of counter-insurgency and state-building operations that had proved so difficult in
Vietnam. The vulnerabilities of U.S. armed forces to such challenges were evident in subsequent
operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq (after 2003).
The demonstration of military prowess in the Gulf War included a problematic second-order
effect for the relationship between the United States and some of its military allies. Even the
most developed nations were (and are) extremely hard-pressed to match the complex and often
exquisite U.S. military capabilities. Few bothered to try. Instead, U.S. allies opted for armed
forces that relied even more heavily on the United States for critical capabilities and enablers,
such as high-tech air, space, and maritime platforms. Furthermore, the absence of such
capabilities also obviated the need for allies to develop the organizations to create and
orchestrate the use of such exquisite capabilities. American success in the Gulf War created, in
part, a new expectation that the U.S. military could easily intervene around the globe in ways
that most allied military forces could not.
Conclusion
From a U.S. perspective, the Gulf War appeared to be a resounding success. Personally, as an
artillery captain with the U.S. 1st Armored “Old Ironsides” Division, I deployed from Germany
to the Gulf in December 1990, participated in the VII Corps main attack during the ground war,
and was back in Germany by the end of April 1991. I was satisfied that our unit had performed
brilliantly and that we had helped successfully accomplish our mission. After the Gulf War, I
rose in rank (retiring in 2013 as colonel) and spent much of my military life as a strategist (back
in Iraq a couple of times, as well as tours in Korea, Afghanistan, and the Pentagon) and as a
faculty member (at the U.S. Naval War College and U.S. Army War College). During that time,
I’ve regularly revisited the impact of the Gulf War.
The United States has much to be proud of in its performance in the Gulf War. American
officials aligned policy and strategy well in the run-up to the war; successfully integrated
diplomatic, informational, military, and economic instruments of power; and triumphantly
conducted joint military operations that exhibited mastery of new and even revolutionary
military-technical capabilities. This record becomes all the more impressive in light of the
country’s tumultuous experience in the Iraq War and in Afghanistan.
In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, President George H.W. Bush enthused “by God,
we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.” To an extent, Bush was right. Indeed, the
U.S. military proved that it could project power with success thousands of miles from American
shores. At the same time, that’s not the whole story. The Gulf War demonstrated shortcomings in
war termination that helped thwart the creation of a durable security architecture in the Persian
Gulf; provided an inflection point affecting the subsequent development of difficult policies and
strategies by both adversaries and allies; and left open questions of American readiness
for counter-insurgency and governance operations that were not tested during the Gulf War.
As successful as the U.S. performance in the Gulf War may have been, 30 years on it remains a
source of justifiable pride and an instructive case for continued study.
Sources:
https://www.forces.net/heritage/history/what-caused-gulfwar?fbclid=IwAR0_4ipQ8RdwMdcfqvMlUne4V46gIFrJcn5PdK3jpAt7NU8POzV6wH0Uha0#:
~:text=The%20cause%20of%20the%20Gulf,provided%20the%20pathway%20to%20war
https://www.history.com/topics/middle-east/persian-gulfwar?fbclid=IwAR0azvJD6llX4vwVu0poIaVUzgtUrKvO-u09b-gPjq2TLhmLcQyqxtWsnTU
https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/1991/1991-21.htm?fbclid=IwAR1y0x9NSLrus8lM1IcMmxzLHih3JNgeU9CqUm6l6KMmGISgBaxeScGPh2
U
https://warontherocks.com/2020/09/the-gulf-war-30-years-later-successes-failures-and-blindspots/