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Assignment
Was Desert Storm a successful military and political
operation?
Background
In August 1990 Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait,
which it had long claimed as Iraqi territory. The UN Security Council immediately
called for Iraq to withdraw and subsequently placed an embargo on most trade
with Iraq. When that failed to achieve an Iraqi withdrawal, on 17
January1991, a U.S.-led military coalition that included Britain, Egypt,
France, Saudi Arabia and other nations began a massive air war to destroy
Iraq's forces. Iraq responded with a call for terrorist attacks against
the coalition and launched missiles at Israel (in an unsuccessful attempt
to widen the war and break up the coalition) and at Saudi Arabia. On
24 February the main coalition forces invaded Kuwait and Southern Iraq after
Iraq again ignored an ultimatum to withdraw from Kuwait. The allies,
in an operation called Desert Storm, quickly encircled and defeated the Iraqi
army and liberated Kuwait.
Kuwait and Iraq suffered enormous property damage,
and the war led to unrest among Kurds and Shiites in Iraq. Eventually,
Iraq agreed to coalition peace terms but subsequently sought to frustrate
the terms, particularly weapons inspection. In 1993 the U.S., France
and Britain launched several air strikes and a cruise missile strike at Iraq
in response to a series of provocation, including an Iraqi plan to assassinate
former U.S. President Bush. An Iraqi troop buildup near Kuwait in 1994 again
led the U.S. to send forces to Kuwait and nearby
areas.
532,000 forces served in Operation Desert
Storm. The United States suffered 148 battle deaths, 145 non battle
deaths and 467 wounded.
Timeline
- 25 June 1961, Iraq lodged a claim
for Kuwait, and on 1 July British troops arrived to prevent an Iraqi
takeover.
- 2 August 1990, soon after midnight
Iraqi army invaded after talks broke down on oil production (Iraq wanted
to sell more, and Kuwait to sell less) and debt repayment. Kuwait was
taken by surprise despite warnings and put up little resistance; within an
hour the country was overrun and quickly annexed as the 19th province of
Iraq. (The UN ordered economic sanctions almost
immediately.)
- 6 August 1990, President Bush
began Operation Desert Sand to protect Saudi Arabia (soon over 230,000
troops). The UN set a deadline of 15 January 1991 for Iraq to leave
Kuwait.
- 16 January 1991, with congressional
approval, the assault (at first only an air attack) against Iraq began with
about 30 countries participating.
- 22 February 1991, ultimatum given
to Iraq to leave Kuwait by noon on 23 February or face the
consequences.
- 24 February 1991, the ground war
began but with only slight Iraqi resistance.
- 26 February 1991, allies entered
Kuwait City. The Iraqi army set fire to over 500 oil wells and also
pumped oil into the Persian Gulf causing environmental damage.
- 3 March 1991, Iraq agreed to abide
by the previous UN resolutions.
- 4 March 1991, POWs
released.
- 3 April 1991, cease-fire agreed
and signed 6 April.
- 2 August 1992, Iraq again laid
claim to Kuwait.
WWW sites
Some key figures include: George
Bush, Norman
Schwarzkopf (1934-2012) and Saddam
Hussein.
The Desert
Storm site, created by a student, provides information on all aspects
of the war, including POWs, weaponry and soldiers. Frontline: The Gulf
War is an excellent resource that includes an oral history, war stories,
voices of the war. The Gulf War Veteran
Resource Page provides a variety of services to veterans of the conflict,
including information on Gulf War Syndrome (See also, GulfLink, the official page of
the Department of Defense Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses,
which contains news, medical information and reports on continuing suspicions
about Iraqi biological weapons).
Some other sites include: the CNN.com site, The Unfinished War: A Decade since Desert Storm, has a set of excellent articles on various aspects of the war, including its legacies; the "History Guy's" website on the Persian Gulf War has links to further sources; Gulf War Photographs are official photographs; Hoskinson's Gulf War Photo Gallery is good and includes a personal diary. Finally, the wikipedia site for the Gulf
War has good references and a set of additional online links.
Still more:
Recommended Books
The Persian Gulf War has already has generated
an enormous literature: Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf War (1998); Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou, Iraq and the Second Gulf War:
State-Building and Regime Security (1998); H. Rahman, The Making of
the Gulf War: Origins of Kuwait's Long-Standing Territorial Dispute
with Iraq (1997); Andrew Bennett, Joseph Lepgold and Danny Unger, eds., Friends in Need: Burden-SHaring in the Persian Gulf War (1997);
Paul Leslie, ed., The Gulf War as Popular Entertainment: An Analysis
of the Military-Industrial Media Complex (1997); Majid Khadduri and Edmund
Ghareeb, War in the Gulf, 1990-91: The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and
Its Implications (1997); Richard Swain, Lucky War: Third Army
in Desert Storm (1997); Howard Teicher and Gayle Radley Teicher, Twin
Pillars to Desert Storm: America's Flawed Vision in the Middle East
from Nixon to Bush (1993); Michael Mazarr, Don Snider and James Blackwell,
Jr., Desert Storm: The Gulf War and What We Learned (1992);
Joseph Nye and Roger Smith, eds., After the Storm: Lessons from the Gulf
War (1992). with the valuable essay by Fouad Ajami, "Shooting an Elephant:
The Expedition and Its Aftermath"; Dilip Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert
Storm: The Second Gulf War (1992); Deborah Amos, Lines in the
Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (1992).
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