Gulf war
The Gulf War (August 2, 1990-February 28, 1991) was a war waged by a coalition force authorized by the United Nations, made up of 34 countries and led by United States, against the Republic of Iraq in response to the Iraqi invasion and annexation of the State of Kuwait. This war was also called by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as "the mother of all battles", and commonly known as Operation Desert Storm after the US operational name for the military response. It has also been later referred to as the second Gulf War to differentiate it from the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the Iraq War (2003-2011).
The start of the conflict began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Over the next few months, the US and the rest of the coalition sent troops and weapons to Saudi Arabia while the Iraqis They fortified their positions. The war to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on January 17, 1991, which continued for five weeks. This was followed by a ground assault on February 24. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, which liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased its advance and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the ground campaign began. Air and ground combat was limited to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on the Saudi Arabian border. Iraq launched Scud missiles at coalition military targets in Saudi Arabia and at Israeli cities.
The war introduced live news broadcasts from the front lines, mainly on the US channel CNN.
Source of the conflict
Background
It's possible that Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was originally related to oil, but there were actually more to it. In previous months, both countries had had a series of disputes; Iraq claimed that Kuwait had been stealing oil from the Rumaylak field (located under both territories) since 1980. On the other hand, Iraq, which depended on the value of the fuel to pay its foreign debt contracted in the war against Iran - of almost 40,000 million dollars, with interest of 3,000 million per year -, felt affected by the overproduction of Kuwait and other Gulf countries, which maintained a low price of the input. In addition, another possible cause was the Iraqi need to access the Persian Gulf from its port of Um Kasar, which implied occupying the Kuwaiti islands of Bubiyan and Warbah. It has also been said that it is very possible that President Saddam Hussein needed a quick conquest to improve his low prestige and establish himself as a leader of the Arab world.
The invasion of Kuwait
At dawn on August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops crossed the border into Kuwait with armored vehicles and infantry, occupying strategic posts and points throughout the country, including the Emir's Palace. This move had been carefully planned to avoid suspicion from the Western and Kuwaiti intelligence services. Before the attack, the Iraqis began to move from Basra towards Kuwait, setting up large ammunition and logistics camps, but carrying out deception measures, for this they sent important orders by land and prevented the movement of ammunition depots. This would later complicate non-IRA armored units, unlike the latter, not fully combat-ready when launching the attack. The Kuwaiti army was quickly defeated, although they managed to give the necessary time for the majority of the air forces of that country to flee to Saudi Arabia. The most difficult fighting took place at the Emir's Palace and the vicinity of the Kuwaiti Air Force headquarters, where members of the royal guard fought to give the royal family time to escape. The youngest of the Jabir family's half-brothers, Sheikh Sheikh Fadh, a career military man who commanded the guard (trained by members of the British SAS), was among those who died. Troops looted food and medical supplies, rounded up thousands of civilians and seized control of the media. Once the victory was consolidated, the feared "Mukhabarat", the Iraqi secret police, began to arrive in Kuwait City. Iraq held thousands of Western tourists hostage and later tried to use them as a shield for negotiations. After a brief puppet government headed by Saddam Hussein was installed, Iraq annexed Kuwait. Hussein then installed a new provincial governor, describing what happened as the "liberation" of the people from the hands of the Emir; this was used mainly as war propaganda. Even so, victory was not complete for Saddam. Armed resistance groups led by Kuwaiti army officers sprang up everywhere, staying to fight and train civilians with army and police weapons.
Previous diplomacy and international rejection of Iraqi aggression
As soon as the invasion of Kuwait was reported, the United Nations Security Council condemned this act through a series of resolutions, as did the Arab League. The opinions were: Resolution No. 660, which condemned the Iraqi attack and invasion; then followed several more, among which were resolutions No. 661 of August 6, 1990, which imposed economic sanctions; No. 665 of August 25, about the maritime embargo; Resolution No. 670 of September 25 regarding the air blockade, and finally, the resolution authorizing the use of force or Resolution No. 678 of November 29. The latter demanded that Iraq leave Kuwait before January 15, 1991. If the deadline was missed and there was no favorable response, all participating countries could implement resolution No. 660 and attack Iraq.
As the United States and the United Kingdom prepared for the conflict, the other countries were encouraged to prepare their forces that would be sent to the Gulf as part of the coalition, keeping in mind that the defeat of Iraq would never end. It was taken as something trivial. This Arab nation was considered in 1991 as the fourth military power in the world since it had a large proportion of its population enlisted in the army, and it was also equipped with some of the most modern equipment from France and the Soviet Union, therefore that it was claimed that in some eventuality, Iraq could have dominated most of its neighbors with some ease. In this framework, Operation Desert Shield was both a preventive measure against an attack on Saudi Arabia, and an insurance that it was showing the Saudis and Kuwait that the West would not leave them alone.
The armed conflict
In response to these events, on January 16, 1991, an international coalition of 34 countries led by the United States and under the mandate of the UN, launched a military campaign in order to force the invading army to withdraw from Kuwait, in accordance with UN resolution No. 660. The member countries of the coalition were: Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, South Korea, Denmark, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Spain, United States, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, the Netherlands, Niger, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, the United Kingdom, Senegal and Syria. Afghan mujahideen also participated. For the battle, the coalition had managed to muster an army of 959,600 men, 2,000 main battle tanks and a fleet of 100 warships including six aircraft carriers, in addition to an impressive air deployment of at least 1,800 aircraft. Notably, the US contingent was by far the largest at 415,000 troops.
This was the first deployment by the United States Navy since the end of the Cold War.
The Iraqis had an army of 545,000 soldiers, 4,500 armored vehicles and 700 combat aircraft, including the MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25, MiG-29, Mirage F-1, Su-24 and some Tupolev Tu-22K bombers (of all these models, the most useful was the Su-24 Fencer, due to its multifunction capacity and to operate in all weather). They also had a good number of medium-range Scud-B missiles and some mobile platforms with which it was possible to fire them from any area in Iraq. All this without mentioning a significant arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that the Iraqis had developed during the war against Iran. Operation Desert Shield was the initial phase of the total response, which was intended to protect Saudi Arabia from a possible Iraqi offensive. To do this, forces of the United States Marine Corps were initially sent, poorly equipped in terms of armor, they only had Sheridan tanks. "Desert Storm" was the name given to the Allied offensive.
The campaign began on January 17 with a series of bombing raids using 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from ships parked in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Some of the targets hit during the first attacks were three presidential palaces, the Defense Ministry, the Military Intelligence Directorate, five telephone stations, the Ashudad Bridge, the Air Force headquarters, a Scud missile assembly factory, the headquarters of the Baath party, the police headquarters, the central television station and different ministries. During the first week of airstrikes, the coalition announced that it had achieved the destruction of at least 350 enemy aircraft, while the Iraqis claimed to have shot down 60 allied aircraft. The coalition would only admit the loss of four planes and it would later be revealed that a Khafji refinery in Saudi Arabia had been attacked by Iraqi artillery.
On January 30, 1991, the Saudi town of Khafji itself would be taken by an Iraqi mechanized column made up of tanks and armored transports; the same day, in a confrontation between Iraqi and US forces southwest of Khafji, twelve marines are killed.
Missile attacks by Iraq
Attack on Israel
In an attempt to break the coalition and force Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to withdraw from the conflict, Saddam Hussein gave the order to launch Scud-B missiles at Israel to force the Jewish state to enter the war. The tactic did not work as the Israelis refrained from retaliating, but these attacks forced the coalition to change its plans. From then on, the mobile platforms from which the Iraqis fired into Israel would be a primary target of attacks. For this, a large number of F-15 Eagles were assigned, which, thanks to their highly-improved APG-70 radar, met the requirements to track and destroy the elusive Scud launch platforms. In total some 41 conventionally loaded Scud missiles would hit several Israeli cities, mainly Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Haifa.
Because Saddam Hussein had threatened that in the event of a coalition action against Iraq he would fire chemically-charged missiles at Israel, the Israeli Civil Defense Corps distributed gas masks to all citizens of the country in the months before the conflict. country. An anti-missile siren coordinated with the radars deployed by the United States warned of each launch of a Scud against the country, allowing the Israelis sufficient preparation time, which included entering a hermetically sealed room and donning gas masks. However, as the weeks passed and with no hint of a chemical attack, many citizens stopped following the instructions despite their mandatory nature.
However, as the rate of Scud launches increased, the Israelis, unaccustomed to inactivity in warfare, began to lose patience. To avoid any type of intervention by the Jewish state, the United States opted for a defensive strategy, deploying six batteries of Patriot anti-aircraft defense missiles throughout the country, which would prove to be quite ineffective but had a very positive impact on the morale of the army. population. The Netherlands Air Force also deployed a battalion of Patriot missiles, split between Israel and Turkey.
Even so, on January 22, 1991, a Scud missile struck the city of Ramat Gan after two Patriot missiles failed to intercept it, questioning the effectiveness of the defense system. The attack resulted in the death of three elderly people from heart attacks, 96 injured and 20 floors damaged. At this point, the Israeli prime minister warned the United States that if he did not stop the attacks, his country would act accordingly. Units of Israel's special forces were already aboard IAF helicopters prepared to fly to Iraq. However, the mission was aborted when US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney revealed in a phone call to Isaac Shamir the coalition's plans to take down the launch pads. With this, Israel found itself in the peculiar situation (and unique in the country's history) of being part of the battlefield without being an active actor in the conflict.
The lessons of the Gulf War and the low effectiveness of the Patriot missiles when intercepting missiles with the characteristics of the Scud, were the trigger that led Israel to consider the development of the current combined air defense system.
Attack on Saudi Arabia and Turkey
Other countries targeted by Scud missile attacks were Saudi Arabia (mainly against coalition units) and Turkey. In response, coalition forces deployed Patriot missile batteries to these countries as well, two to Turkey and 21 to Saudi Arabia. That did not stop 46 Scud missiles from falling on Saudi territory, most on the capital Riyadh.
War campaigns
Coalition High Command
Six months before the start of hostilities, the Allied command that would lead the war had already been established. Supposedly, being in Saudi Arabia, the forces were under the command of the kingdom's defense minister, namely Prince Khaled bin Sultan, but the real director was the US Central Command. The bases of all the headquarters of the participating countries were in Riyadh from where they contacted their governments. Command of operations was given to General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, accompanied by his chief of air forces, Lieutenant General Charles Horner. The highest command unit under which Central Command directed the troops was the US Third Army under the command of Lieutenant General John Yeosock, which in turn commanded the US VII and XVIII Army Corps., Saudi forces and the United States Marine Corps. The British commander was Lieutenant General sir Peter de la Billière; the French leader was General Michel Roquejeoffre, and finally the head of the Saudi ground forces, General Saleh Al-Muhaya, directed the Egyptian, Syrian, and other Arab contingents. The latter would work very closely with the United States Marine Corps.
Stages of war with their code names
Like most wars waged by United States (major partner) forces, this one showed a clear division into stages marked by deadlines set through specific dates. First, Operation Desert Shield was the name given by the Americans to the strengthening of the defenses of Saudi Arabia, which took place from August 2, 1990 to January 16, 1991. Some countries also participated in this phase, with their own denominations. "Desert Storm" was also the US code name given to the air and ground conflict that began on January 17, 1991 and ended on April 11, 1991. Operation Desert Saber was also the name given by the Americans to the air-ground offensive against the Iraqi forces that were in Kuwait, from February 24 to 28, 1991. Therefore it is part of the Desert Storm. Other allies gave names such as: Operation Granby (United Kingdom); Operation Daguet (France); Operation Friction (Canada).
The Air Campaign
Preparations
Since 1991, coalition air operations have been given greater prominence because Iraqi actions during the conflict are either not well documented or of no relevance to the war. Here mention is made of the events carried out by the allies.
The air campaign began almost immediately after the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Just five days after this event, President George Bush announced that the US would send armed forces to Saudi Arabia. The 1st Tactical Fighter Wing of the Tactical Air Command, based at Langley AFB, had been notified 36 hours earlier about the deployment of its three squadrons, as the first phase of Operation Desert Shield. The day after the president's speech, fighter jets began arriving in Saudi Arabia (at the Dhahran airbase), and on their second day in the Arab country, CAP (combat air patrol) missions began, along with F-Aircraft. 15C and Tornado ADV of the Royal Saudi Air Force.
The combat directives for what would become the air war in 1991 were released in September 1990, at a press conference given by General Michael J. Dugan, who was then Chief of Staff of the Army. United States Air Force. According to him, the main targets of attack would be air defense systems, airfields and planes, control centers, any weapons production facility, and finally Iraq's armored units, thus reaching a balance "acceptable" number of troops. The general also said that the attacks would focus on achieving the "beheading", searching for and attacking Saddam Hussein, his family, and his senior officers. The latter was in total disobedience to presidential orders prohibiting the assassination of foreign leaders; General Dugan was removed from office for this clear lack of common sense.
For its part, the Iraqi Air Force (IAF) did not have much to do before the start of hostilities, they were facing air forces far superior in all aspects, and the only thing they did conscientiously was fine-tune their air defense system, which included a semi-centralized network that covered the entire country.
The action
Then, in 1991, and just after the start of hostilities, the Italians launched, as part of Operation Locusta, eight Tornado planes to attack targets inside Kuwait. Seven of these planes had to abort the mission due to logistical problems and only one went into Kuwait from where it never returned. The pilot and navigator were declared missing and later returned by Iraqi forces in March. The British Air Force, for its part, experienced serious problems in its attacks. The objective of the British was to drop JP-233 bombs to disable the runways, although for this the planes had to fly at a height of no more than twenty meters to avoid radars or else they would be detected in advance. Thus, in this way, the British lost five Tornado planes in the first 400 missions, which constituted a record in the history of military aviation since the average number of planes lost by the United States Air Force was, up to that moment,, of one aircraft for every 750 missions. Due to this incident, the British called off low-altitude attacks.
The Iraqi Air Force made a few sorties in an attempt to defend the country, but there wasn't much they could do since the coalition had state-of-the-art aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-14 Tomcat, Panavia Tornado, F-117 Nighthawk, and others that were supported by electronic countermeasure aircraft such as the US Army's EA-6P Prowler and the US Air Force's EF-111A (for that date, considered probably the best electronic warfare aircraft in the world), in addition to the E-3 AWACS, to which much of the success of the air campaign is due. In fact, there was never an actual air battle, except for a few sporadic encounters, and most of Iraq's planes were destroyed in their bunkers or on the runways (the longest air battle lasted almost 10 minutes). In dogfights, the Iraqis lost 39 aircraft of which 30 were shot down by F-15 Eagles. An estimated 127 Iraqi aircraft were destroyed during the conflict, including five of the six Tupolev Tu-22K bombers the Arab nation had.
Even so, an Iraqi MiG-25 managed to shoot down an F/A-18 Hornet from VFA-81 Sunliners squadron coming from the aircraft carrier Saratoga during a skirmish, but the next day two F/A- 18 Hornets from the same squadron shot down two Iraqi MiG-21s. In turn, Royal Saudi Air Force F-15s took charge of two Iraqi Mirage F-1s. Later, a squadron of MiG-25s located and intercepted a group of F-111s and F-15Cs. The performance of the Iraqi planes made it possible for the SAM missiles on the ground to shoot down one of the F-15Cs. Likewise, three American F-16s were destroyed by anti-aircraft fire during an attack mission and three more would be killed in different events. However, despite the efforts of the Iraqis, the superiority of the coalition was quickly imposed and an F-15 patrol shot down two MiG-25s. During the successive encounters over the skies of Iraq, the US F-15s managed to shoot down five MiG-29s, eight MiG-21s, two Su-25s, four Su-22s, one Su-7 and eight Mirage F-1s. Also noteworthy was the shooting down of an Iraqi Mirage F-1 by an American EF-111, which caused it to collide with the ground with maneuvers and electronic countermeasures. Still, on January 19, a MiG-29 managed to shoot down a British Tornado, but it soon became clear that there was no way to match the coalition's might and the best Iraqi pilots decided to flee in their planes to Iran. It is estimated that a total of 115 military aircraft and 33 civilian aircraft found refuge on Iranian soil. At the end of the conflict, the loss of 38 coalition aircraft was reported, most of them killed by anti-aircraft fire (this figure would later increase).
Deprived of air power and beset by heavy bombardment, Iraq's ground forces chose to shelter their troops and armored equipment underground and lost all mobility. In this phase, a large number of F-16Cs were assigned to destroy armored vehicles whose chassis were buried in firing position. The objective was, once air supremacy was achieved, to obtain an acceptable balance of forces for the future ground attack. With control of the air, the coalition increased its attacks so that Saddam Hussein gave the order to withdraw from Kuwait and agreed to surrender. All cities in Iraq were bombed and severely damaged; Tens of thousands died, as what the Allies dropped their arsenal on all of Iraq, which had an immense destructive capacity comparable to about eight times the Hiroshima bomb. In history, and compared to the event of Guernica in Spain, the cities of Amiriya and Fallouja will remain, which were the scene of continuous errors in the location of objectives by the coalition and failures in weapons, and therefore of many collateral losses. One of the most high-profile incidents occurred on February 13 when two missiles struck a Baghdad bomb shelter called Al-Ameria, killing 1,200 civilians.
The results of the air campaign were overwhelming for the Iraqi forces, terribly depleting their combat capability not to mention their morale. It is estimated that at the end of the war some 2,435 tanks, 1,443 armored vehicles and 1,649 artillery pieces were destroyed or disabled as a direct result of the devastating air attacks. It should be noted that the American A-10A Thunderbolt II gave good results in its actions against the Iraqi armored vehicles.
According to 1991 reports, the coalition air forces lost about 110,000 sorties, a total of 68 aircraft, in combat missions, not counting the 22 aircraft lost in accidents. The reported losses are:
United States of America:
- 1 F-14;
- 7 F-16;
- 6 AV-8B;
- 5 UH-60;
- 4 A-6E, AH-64, AH-1J;
- 3 UH-1;
- 2 F/A-18, OV-10D, OH-58;
- 1 AC-130H, B-52G, EF-111A, F-4G, OV-1D, CH-46E, H-46, SH-60B.
In total, 49 US aircraft.
Other allied air forces:
- 7 British GR.1 Tornado;
- 2 Saudi F-5;
- 1 Saudi IDS Tornado;
- 1 Italian IDS Tornado;
- 1 Kuwaiti A-4KU;
In total, 12 non-US aircraft.
After the conflict
The air campaign in terms of days was short, but one of the most intense ever conducted. From the statistical reports of the war, many of which appeared almost immediately, the enormous effort of the coalition air forces was made clear. Most of the missions were planned by the Templar, a tactical supercomputer belonging to Air Force Central Command and located at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida [citation needed]. It provided highly detailed planning for a coordinated mass offensive that would involve up to 3,000 Allied aircraft sorties per day.
The effectiveness was demonstrated and the enormous investment [citation needed] made in devices such as the F-117A and the E-3 Sentry was justified. Although the stealth fighter had already been put to the test in Panama, this was its graduation test, in which it suffered no damage, and yet wreaked havoc at vital Iraqi communication and intelligence points where no anti-aircraft system could detect it.
Other aircraft such as the C-5 Galaxy and C-130 Hercules have proven invaluable to the Air Force by carrying a significant percentage of the warfare needed in the theater of operations. It should be noted that the C-5 was the one that carried the majority of the Patriot missiles in its initial deployment.
On the other hand, according to reports, the Russian military paid special attention to this conflict and began a self-critical evaluation of its own air defense systems, seeing the complete failure of the Iraqis whose defense was based on the Russian model. To do this, Iraq relied on systems from both the former Soviet Union and the French. However, they could not face aircraft such as the F-16 and the F-4G Phantom, which were armed with missiles such as the AGM-88 HARM, for the suppression of anti-aircraft defenses, and the British Aerospace ALARM, with the same function, which was mounted on the Tornado of the European air forces. It has been said that only the outdated Soviet ZSU-23-4 Shilka anti-aircraft tank came out of the war with any honor. [citation required]
Other aspects of the air campaign also came to light. Issues such as evaluating older aircraft, such as the A-10A, as to whether they survived reasonably well in their operations over Iraq and occupied Kuwait, considering the poor response of the Iraqi air force.
Finally, what was possibly the most controversial issue after the war was clarified, given the enormous number of civilian casualties that occurred; that is, the bombardment operations of CBRN (nuclear, biological and chemical) weapons production establishments. It was confirmed at the end of the conflict that the allied air forces had bombed mostly blindly, with sources of dubious credibility, which claimed that chemical or biological weapons were kept or produced in such places. The inspectors sent to the supposed production centers confirmed that in many of the places that had been bombed, NBC weapons had never been kept.
Civilian casualties
Within the air campaign there were notorious cases of bombardments that caused various civilian victims:
- 4 February: Reactors, possibly British, destroy a bridge full of passersby in Nasiriya causing 47 civilian deaths and 102 injured.
- 13 February: Two American laser-guided missiles destroy the civilian anti-aircraft shelter Amariya in Baghdad, causing more than 400 victims.
- 14 February: British bombers attack a highway bridge in Faluya, but they fail the target and reach a block of apartments and a market full of civilians, causing dozens of deaths.
The coalition fired between 320 and 800 tons of depleted uranium. Between 1994 and 2003, the number of birth defects per 1,000 live births in the Basra maternity hospital increased 17-fold, from 1.37 to 23 in the same hospital. In 2004, Iraq had the highest rates of leukemia and lymphoma in the world.
The destruction of hydroelectric and other power plants caused epidemics of gastroenteritis, cholera, and typhus by preventing the operation of drinking water and wastewater treatment plants. As a result, 100,000 civilians were indirectly affected, while the infant mortality rate doubled. The World Health Organization (WHO) recorded a sharp increase in cholera and typhoid cases in the 1990s. The report of a UN mission, headed by Undersecretary Martti Ahtisaari, sent in March 1991 to assess Iraq's humanitarian needs, described the state of the country as "almost apocalyptic".
Another UN report, from 1999, underlines the long-term effects of this bombing campaign, which destroyed most of the infrastructure necessary for the survival of society (water, electricity, hospitals, etc.). According to the report, the mortality rate in childbirth increased from 50 per 100,000 in 1989 to 117 in 1997, while the infant mortality rate (understood as children under 5 years of age) increased during the same period from 30 per 1,000 to more than 97 per 1,000; between 1990 and 1994 it multiplied by 62. Before the war, in 1990, Iraq produced about 8.9 billion watts; by 1999, this number had dropped to 3,500. This drastic reduction is due both to the aerial bombardments and to the economic sanctions applied later. The main difficulty lies in distinguishing between the indirect deaths caused by the bombings and those caused by the sanctions, which prevented the reconstruction of the country.
The Land Campaign
Iraqi Preparations
Unlike the Iraqi Air Force, which could not conscientiously do much before the start of hostilities, the Iraqi army knew how to prepare for a war that until then, everyone thought would cost Westerners a huge amount of life.. As already stated, once control of Kuwait was achieved, and the "Mukhabarat" to help consolidate political power in the invaded country, the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia and Iraq-Saudi Arabia borders were fortified. This they did during the six months following the invasion.
About 350,000 men with 4,200 main battle tanks, 3,000 heavy artillery pieces, and another 3,000 armored vehicles moved into Kuwait or southern Iraq to support the forward units. The 10 divisions that had been freed on the Iranian front thanks to the 1990 peace agreement also headed for Kuwait. The regular army divisions fanned out along the borders with the heavy armored divisions behind them. The Iraqis built berms to conceal the tanks, and immediately after the outer line of defense were infantry and bunkers arranged often in a triangular shape, which were further supported by tanks with their chassis buried in firing positions. In total there were about 20 divisions that deployed as the first echelon from the Kuwaiti coast to the west about 50 miles, which came from the II, III and VII army corps.
Regarding the extra support given to these forces, Silkworm anti-ship missiles from China were deployed to defend the coast from possible landings, in addition to the Scud, whose objective was to have the allied bases of Dhahran and Riyadh within firing range in Saudi Arabia, and at least five independent artillery groups. Ultimately, the elite Iraqi Republican Guard troops, far better equipped, were held as a strategic reserve south of Basra.
Coalition Preparations
From the beginning, the high Western commands that would be in charge of planning and carrying out the land actions in the theater of operations, knew that the biggest Iraqi threat was its large number of tanks and armored vehicles, regardless of whether they were advanced or not Two global stages are distinguished in the deployments made by the allies in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Thus, almost half a million men were initially deployed in the Middle East to protect Saudi Arabia, and then in November 1990, another 200,000 more received the order to mobilize to give already this year the possibility of launching an attack against Iraq.. The second phase was simply an increase in the number of soldiers to give the coalition superiority. All of this awesome movement of troops to a continent so far away was made possible by decades of planning by the US military, which had long been on the lookout for a possible conflict with the Soviet Union in the Middle East, and for what which they had formed a Central Command with headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.
The whole deployment began to come true on August 3, 1990, when Defense Secretary Dick Cheney traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Fadh, where they agreed that it was necessary to send US forces to repel the Iraqi threat. The first troops to deploy were the XVIII Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division. This was followed by contingents from the United States Army, some of which were covered by their own air support in the form of AH-64 Apaches, MLRS systems, heavy main battle tanks, and anti-aircraft defense—provided by Patriot anti-aircraft missiles from the 11th Brigade., and Hawk—, US Army Special Forces, and Special Operations Task Force Delta. All of these troops followed a similar protocol under a procedure known as Operations Plan 90-1002.
However, units of the Marine Corps, specifically the 1st and 7th Marine Expeditionary Corps Brigades, and those of the 82nd Airborne Division, initially feared they would not be able to stop a possible Iraqi incursion, not having heavy tanks, this changed when they received their M60 Pattons. In addition, the Marines provided their own air support with CH-53, CH-46, UH-1, and AH-1W helicopters, as well as F-18 and AV-8B aircraft.
Parallel to the US troop movements, the other countries made their own. The British, through Operation Granby 1, deployed the first ground troops to initially support the RAF and the allies. The 7th Armored Brigade was sent, units specialized in NBC warfare, medical support provided by some Royal Engineer Regiments, communications, etc.
The French, for their part, cooperated by deploying in September 1990, following a diplomatic scuffle at one of their embassies in Kuwait. Its elements were the 6th Light Armored Division of the French Rapid Action Force, supported by Gazelle helicopters.
On the part of the Arabs, there was a very different display of power. The Saudis showed their large, mostly Western arsenal, with their Republican Guard as the best exponents in terms of military training. Egypt contributed some 35,000 men, with highly experienced officers, constituting the largest contingent provided by an Arab country to the cause; the rest of the contributions were a mix of combat units of various states of war readiness. Ultimately, by far, the most motivated troops were the Kuwaitis themselves who had managed to escape and rearm with funds from the royal family in exile; they formed two Liberation Brigades: one was called Shid ("of the martyrs"), and the other Fahad ("The beginning").
The action
Before the start of Operation "Saber of the Desert" - the name by which the massive Allied ground offensive on Kuwait was known - secret missions had already been carried out behind enemy lines, with the aim of destroying certain vital elements of the iraqis. Famous became the B Squadron units of the British SAS forces codenamed Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero and Bravo Three Zero. These groups of eight men each crossed the border in late January with orders to provide information about hidden Scud missile sites, destroy the missiles, land lines of communication for the Iraqi Army and Air Force. Their main objective was the TELs of the Scuds, given the danger of Israel entering the conflict. Some of these men were killed or captured by the Iraqis.
On February 13, 1991, some units of the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions deployed on the border with Saudi Arabia carried out some probing raids inside Kuwait in order to gauge the danger with a view to initiating a ground attack. One of these US units was the special forces (FAST) which entered Kuwait to destroy the enemy forces and the tank and artillery depots located in the center of the city and under the command of First Lieutenant Martín A. Villanueva, subjected the enemy forces causing more than 176 casualties and the capture of all the depots equipped there, being one of the bloodiest battles and with high resistance by the enemy force, it was a great victory for the Marines and their special forces. The truth is that the Iraqis had begun to withdraw since the beginning of February and the morale of the troops was low. Of the 42 divisions deployed in Kuwait, at least 14 had been disbanded and only 19 retained 60-70% combat capabilities. The rest of the Iraqi forces were in a precarious situation and mass defections began.
General Norman Schwarzkopf's plan hinged on maintaining a significant force of Marines off the coast of the Kuwaiti capital, leading the Iraqis to believe that US forces would make a landing and forcing them to concentrate their troops there. zone. The coalition's next step was to move the bulk of its forces to the west, toward the Wadin al Batin line where Iraqi defenses consisted of mere mounds of sand, scattered and ungarrisoned plus ditches and minefields. The American forces were accompanied by the French 6th Armored Division, Daguet, and the British 1st, with the famous Desert Rats. The French occupied the westernmost position all the time, functioning as a protective shield for the rest of the allied forces. The plan received the name Hail Mary and consisted of encircling the enemy forces through a flank to envelop them, surprise them and at the same time cut off their retreat.
Within two days of the ground assault, some 100,000 Iraqi soldiers surrendered en masse to the advancing coalition forces without any problem. One of the American officers even mentioned that they cut through the few Iraqi lines they found like "knife in butter." The only land battle of any importance was dubbed "73 Easting" in which tanks of the seventh corps ran into the Tawakalna division of the Republican Guard, with more than 3,000 armored vehicles, which withdrew and began a confrontation that lasted six hours and became the largest armored battle in history recent, behind the battle of Kursk. Notable in this battle is the fact that nine M1 Abrams and two M2/M3 Bradleys in disarray shot down more than 300 T-72 and T-55 tanks from the Tawakalna division while searching for the main group.
On February 25, a Scud missile struck a US headquarters in Saudi Arabia, killing 25 soldiers immediately and seriously wounding 50 more. On February 28, 1991 Iraq surrendered and on March 3 it accepted the conditions imposed by the United Nations, including the restitution of Kuwait's sovereignty. At that time the French forces of the 6th Armored Division were only 150 kilometers from Baghdad. By the end of the conflict, the international coalition reported the loss of 378 soldiers and some 1,000 wounded. The Iraqis took the brunt of it as their casualties ranged from 25,000 to 30,000 dead. As the Iraqis withdrew they set fire to Kuwait's oil wells.
The postwar period
After the conflict, the United Nations Organization imposed a severe embargo on Iraq that produced very serious social and economic disruptions in the country.
In July 1992, British and American planes took off from Turkey and burned crops in Iraq.
On June 30, 1993, the United States bombed Iraq in retaliation for an alleged plot to assassinate George Bush.
Between December 16 and 19, 1998, while the "Clinton-Lewinsky scandal" was raging in the US, the US and the UK carried out a series of bombing raids on Iraq which they called Operation Zorro of the desert.
In 2002, George W. Bush accused Iraq of constituting an "axis of evil" along with North Korea and Iran, launching the 2003 invasion of Iraq under the pretext of having large numbers of weapons of mass destruction and having links to al Qaeda.
On November 5, 2006, after two years on trial, Hussein was sentenced, along with two other defendants, "to death by hanging" by the Iraqi High Criminal Court, which found him guilty of committing crimes against humanity, for the execution of 148 Shiites from the village of Duyail in 1982. Also attributed to his responsibility are the chemical attack on Halabja (1988), the crushing of the Shiite rebellion (1991), the mass graves (1991), the war against Iran (1980-1988) and the invasion of Kuwait (1990). The execution of Saddam Hussein took place on December 30, 2006, at approximately 06:05 local time (03:05 GMT), as a judgment of the trial, the former dictator was sentenced to hang. He was executed in the presence of a clergyman, a doctor and a judge. His body was handed over to his relatives to be buried in his hometown of Tikrit.
Consequences on the environment
Sabotage of oil wells also affected the desert environment.
The oil formed about three hundred crude lakes, which contaminated about forty million tons of sand and soil.
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