The Gulf war of 1990-1991 between Iraq and a US led international coalition draws some of its origins from the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-1988, which started with a surprise attack by Iraqi forces on the orders of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. He did this to resolve border issues and prevent Iraq’s large Shi’ia Muslim population from rallying behind Iranian fundamentalism (Friedman, 1991). In 1990 Iraq seizes Kuwait partly in order to recover financially from the effects of the war in 1980-1988. Kuwait had loaned Iraq’s government US$14 billion in the interval and they did not refund any of it. Given the quarrels with Kuwait over borders and slant drilling into the Rumelia oil fields, President Saddam Hussein decided to settle these issues with war. Es c
As observed by Estes, “Iraqi forces, in the strength of three divisions, crossed into Kuwait at 01:00 local time on august 2, 1990.” (Estes, 2000). US President George H. W. Bush ordered the US Central Command to defend and reinforce Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates, at the same time forming a coalition to resist and expel Iraqi forces.
With the growing international support in the United Nations (UN), the US led a defensive effort to protect the remaining Arab states of the Gulf region from Iraqi forces (Friedman, 1991). The US at the end of the Cold War had benefited from previous war plans and major military infrastructure had been built in the Gulf region especially in Saudi Arabia to defend it from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979).
According to the Estes, “US aircraft reached Saudi Arabia on 8 august 1990 and were followed by US Army airborne and Marine Corps ground units, backed by naval aviation from offshore aircraft carriers and supporting land bases.” (Estes, 2000). Within a month there was enough military force in Saudi Arabia to block any advances from Iraqi forces. The US forces named this defense ”Operation Desert Shield” which was aimed at confining Iraqi forces to the Kuwait territory they had seized.
However, the US diplomacy encountered complex problems; Arab states sending forces to the coalition only would receive orders from their fellow Arab commanders while some like Syria did not agree with the new offensive mission. With the Iraqi threat to fire missiles into Israel would have led to more problems so the Russians, long military patrons to Iraq offered their offices for a diplomatic solution after seeing their investments were at stake (Schwartz, 1998).
With the Arab-Western coalition, the military forces in air, land and water were overwhelming giving the Iraqis very little hope of resisting. But Israel warned of not ignoring Iraq’s attack and this made Iraq hope that it would use Israel to weaken the Arab-Western coalition. US forces acted fast and deployed missile batteries to shield Israel while Special Forces were deployed to the Western Iraqi desert to counter attack any missiles that might be launched against Israel.
In this war the number of US deployments in the Gulf region was greater than the succeeding wars, there were more than 500000 troops including mobilization of national guardsmen and reservists (Hammond, 1998). In order to maintain the forces present and the ones arriving, US logistical support battled with long supply lines and harsh conditions of the desert.
President Hussein resisted US and UN calls to leave Kuwait making the UN to authorize removal of his army on 29 November 1991. Us congress followed by authorizing the president to use force against Iraq on9 January 1991 ,the offensive dubbed “Operation Desert Storm”and ”Operation Grandby” by the Us and UK respectively. It began with air strikes on strategic and tactical target in Kuwait and Iraq on 17 January (Hammond, 1998).
On 24 February 1991 the ground war began with the attack on Kuwait by the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions of 1 Marine Expeditionary Force (Schwartz, 1998). The attacking US forces destroyed or captured whole brigades of Iraqi troops and swept past oil fields towards the capital of Kuwait. The advance of the forces was greatly enhanced by repeated air assaults that only halted at night to avoid accidental combat among allied and Marine Corps units. Four days and four hours later coalition forces took over Kuwait while the Arab units cleared its Capital of remaining Iraqi forces (Hammond, 1998).
The nature of Iraqis failure became obvious making President Bush to accept his stuffs advice to cease fire. On 3 March two Iraqi generals met with Prince Khalid and General Schwartzkopf to pledge for adherence to the various UN demands.
Due to this war, Kuwait was restored to its emir, Iraq’s power was crippled, UN ensured the destruction of ammunition and weapons and later air patrols referred to as Anglo-American were established over northern and southern Iraq.
At the end of the war the US forces had encountered a lot of expenses which amounted to US$75 billion. Countries in the UN coalition had promised to cover the whole amount but after contribution it only amounted to US$49 billion. By the end of it all it was noted that this war was more economical.
Bibliography
Friedman .N. Desert Victory: The War of Kuwait. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991
Kenneth W. Estes: Iraq Between two Occupations: The Second Gulf War (1990-1991): International Relations and Security Network (ISN), Zurich, Switzerland, 2006
Dr. Grant Hammond: Myths of the Gulf War: Some Lessons Not to Learn: Air Power Journal. Fall 1998.
Schwartz, Richard Alan. Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf War. McFarland & Co., 1998.
