Activity 13, The Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm
Iraq intended to contest every bit of Kuwaiti territory. Saddam had constructed massive defensive lines that began close to the Saudi border. His goal was to make the Coalition pay heavily for an attack. He believed that high casualties would encourage the Coalition to seek a peace on terms favorable to Iraq.
The Coalition plan consisted of four phases: air attacks to achieve air supremacy and destroy Iraqi command and control facilities; massive bombardment of Iraqi supply and munitions bases, transportation facilities and roads leading into southern Iraq and Kuwait; a brief air attack on entrenched Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait and southern Iraq; and ground assault.
During the early morning of January 17, 1991, the U.S. began the first phase of the air war. At 3:00 a.m. on January 17, the Coalition air force launched Operation Desert Storm by attacking targets in Iraq. Targets included the radar sites, air defense centers, the Presidential Palace, and government offices, and Scud missile sites in western Iraq. Later, targets included chemical weapons factories, airfields, electrical power plants.
As the Iraqi air force was systematically destroyed, some planes fled to Iran rather than await destruction on the ground. Some Coalition planes were shot down. Iraq paraded the airmen on television, and threatened to deploy them as "human shields" at Iraq's strategic sites.
Iraq responded to the initial attacks by launching Scud ballistic missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia. Scud missiles were originally developed by the Soviet Union. The Iraqis had modified and used them during the Iranian-Iraqi War. As these missiles could have had nuclear, chemical or biological warheads, they caused deep concern in both nations. The United States used the Patriot as an anti-missile. Despite appearances of success in hitting incoming Scud warheads, studies after the war indicated that the Patriot had been much less effective than believed during the war. The Patriot did however, build public confidence in Israel and in Saudi Arabia.
The Coalition targeted nuclear, chemical and biological weapon sites. Most targets were clearly plants that made weapons. Some targets may not have been of military use. On January 23, U.S. bombed a baby-milk factory in Baghdad, claiming that it was a biological weapons plant. Iraq denied that it was anything other than a plant to make milk for infants.
The most controversial attack occurred on an air-raid shelter in the Baghdad neighborhood of Amiriya in which 314 Iraqi civilians died when U.S. fighters mistakenly destroyed it, believing that it was a command-and-control center. The Iraqis seized this opportunity to discredit the Coalition air campaign. Despite such well-publicized incidents Iraqi civilian casualties were relatively low with the best estimate placing the total loss at less than 2,300 dead and about 6,000 injured.
Iraq began a concerted attempt to use oil as a weapon. On January 19, Iraq opened the valves on an oil terminal near Kuwait. The resulting 500,000 barrels of oil produced a slick that covered 240 square miles of the Persian Gulf. Coalition air planes bombed the pumping facility and halted the worst-ever oil-related ecological disaster. However, this was not the last time Iraq used oil as a weapon in the war.
Saddam wanted the Coalition to attack his defenses before the air campaign had destroyed his ability to fight. To provoke such a premature attack his forces launched an incursion into Saudi Arabia on January 29. The Saudi town of Khafji, which had been evacuated earlier, was lightly defended and was easily captured by the Iraqis. Iraq planned to follow up on this incursion with a major attack by forces in Kuwait. Allied air power severely damaged these forces, and Khafji was retaken by Coalition forces two days later.
On February 15, Iraq announced that it would withdraw from Kuwait conditional upon Israel's withdrawal from its occupied Arab territories. King Hussein of Jordan and Yasser Arafat strongly supported Saddam's statement. The Saudis vilified Saddam, King Hussein and Arafat. Bush called the offer a "cruel hoax," and set February 23 as deadline for any Iraqi withdrawal. Saddam threatened to use chemical weapons if the Coalition attacked. On February 22, Iraq began blowing up 800 oil wells, storage tanks and refineries. Many wells caught fire and continued to burn for over a year. Iraqi soldiers began looting Kuwait and executing young Kuwaitis.
As there was no move by Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, the allied ground assault began on February 24. Since Saddam had most of his forces in southern Kuwait and along the Gulf Coast to the east, the ground plan called moving the VII Corps several hundred miles in a wide flanking movement to the west, and attacking through Iraq. The idea was to force Iraq units from their entrench positions so they could be destroyed by superior U.S. air and ground fire.
The Marines carried out a frontal attack at the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, and promptly breached the strong Iraqi defense lines. They concentrated on a narrow area of Iraq's front, penetrated it quickly, and leapfrogged Iraqi positions by helicopter. Some Iraqi soldiers in entrenched positions were buried with sand. Others were bypassed and were frozen in place with air power. The Iraqi military lost cohesion and were forced in the direction that the Coalition desired. The Coalition kept the initiative and quickly ejected the Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait.
Due to the air war, many of the Iraqi troops were half starved, and had little will to fight. More than 64,000 surrendered to Coalition forces. Saddam announced a formal withdrawal from Kuwait. Kuwaiti troops formally liberated Kuwait City.
On February 27, Iraq accepted all U. N. Security Council Resolutions, and on the following day agreed to meet allied military leaders to arrange a cease-fire. In just 100 hours the Iraqi army in Kuwait and southern Iraq had been routed.
On March 3, the U. N. approved a resolution backing Bush's insistence that allied troops remain in Iraq until Saddam has complied with cease-fire terms. On the following day, Iraq accepted the allied terms, including the release of all allied prisoners.
Student Questions
Why was the war won so quickly by the Coalition forces?
Why did Iraq agree to the U.N. resolutions?
Why did Iraq attack Israel with Scud missiles, when Israel was not apart of the Coalition attacking Iraq?
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