Gulf War

• 1. Introduction

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  The Gulf War pitted Iraq against a coalition of 42 countries led by the United States. On the 2nd of August 1990, Iraq invaded its small neighbor Kuwait and occupied the country within two days. Behind that invasion sat a tangle of grievances. There was a debt of $14 billion owed to Kuwait. There was a contested oil field called Rumaila. And there was Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader who governed a state that, by 1988, fielded the world's fourth largest army.

  What followed was a conflict watched live, broadcast into living rooms from cameras mounted on military aircraft. It earned a nickname: the Video Game War. Yet behind the broadcast images lay quieter stories. A nurse who turned out to be a princess. A meeting between Saddam and an American ambassador that both sides would later argue about for years. A patriot missile that failed because of a rounding error in its computer. How did a dispute over oil quotas become the broadest military alliance since World War II? And what did the world learn about modern war when the bombing stopped after exactly one hundred hours on the ground?

• 2. Roots Of A Grievance

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  By August 1988, when the ceasefire with Iran was signed, Iraq was heavily in debt. Most of what it owed went to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and the Kuwaiti share alone reached $14 billion. Saddam Hussein pressed both nations to forgive these debts. Both refused.

  The border itself was disputed. Kuwait had once been part of the Ottoman province of Basra, which Iraq took as proof that Kuwaiti land was rightfully Iraqi. The al-Sabah ruling family had signed a protectorate agreement in 1899 placing its foreign affairs under the United Kingdom. The British then drew the border in 1922, leaving Iraq almost entirely landlocked.

  Oil deepened the quarrel. OPEC wanted a price of $18 per barrel, but the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait kept overproducing. The price slumped as low as ten dollars a barrel, costing Iraq about $7 billion a year. Iraq called this economic warfare and accused Kuwait of slant-drilling across the border into Rumaila. Oil workers in the area said the claim was invented, noting that oil flowed easily from Rumaila without such techniques. On the 15th of July 1990, Saddam laid his objections before the Arab League, warning that some Arab rulers were inspired by America to undermine Arab interests.

• 3. Mixed Signals

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  On the 25th of July 1990, Saddam met April Glaspie, the US ambassador to Iraq, in Baghdad. He told her that if America used pressure, Iraq would deploy pressure and force, adding that everyone can cause harm according to their ability and their size. Glaspie replied that the United States had no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, such as the border disagreement with Kuwait.

  Glaspie believed war was not imminent. By her own account she told Saddam that she had served in Kuwait twenty years before, and that then, as now, the United States took no position on these Arab affairs. The exchange would later be picked over as a possible green light for invasion.

  Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister, dismissed that reading. Speaking to PBS Frontline in 1996, he said the Iraqi leadership was under no illusion about America's likely response, calling the idea that the Americans would not attack nonsense. In a later interview in 2000, he insisted there were no mixed signals, that Glaspie's comments were routine, and that Saddam had wanted her to carry a message to George Bush rather than receive one. Meanwhile the Jeddah talks collapsed over money: Iraq demanded $10 billion for lost Rumaila revenue, and Kuwait offered $500 million.

• 4. Two Days In Kuwait

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  The invasion began on the 2nd of August 1990 with the bombing of Kuwait City. The Kuwaiti military was believed to number about 16,000 men, and its air force held roughly 80 fixed-wing aircraft and 40 helicopters. The army had been stood down on the 19th of July, and many personnel were on leave when the attack came.

  Iraqi commandos crossed the border first, followed at midnight by the main units in a two-pronged attack. The commander of the 35th Armoured Brigade mounted a robust defense at the Battle of the Bridges near Al Jahra, west of the capital. Kuwaiti aircraft scrambled, but about 20% were lost or captured. Other Iraqi forces struck from the sea by helicopter and boat, seizing airports and airbases.

  The Iraqis attacked the Dasman Palace, residence of the emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, killing his youngest brother Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. Within twelve hours most resistance had ended and the royal family had fled south to Saudi Arabia. On the 8th of August, Saddam installed his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid as Kuwait's governor. The Iraqi military looted over $1 billion in banknotes from Kuwait's Central Bank, and Saddam set the Kuwaiti dinar equal to the Iraqi dinar, slashing its value to one-twelfth. Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah ruled the stolen notes invalid, leaving them worthless and, in time, a curiosity for numismatists.

• 5. Building The Coalition

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  Margaret Thatcher, the UK prime minister, played a decisive role in stiffening Washington's response. She reminded Bush that appeasement in the 1930s had led to war, warned that Saddam could control 65% of the world's oil supply, and famously urged him not to go wobbly. Once persuaded, US officials demanded Iraqi withdrawal with no linkage to other Middle Eastern problems.

  James Baker, the US secretary of state, spent eleven days in September 1990 traveling to nine countries on a tour the press dubbed the Tin Cup Trip. He asked King Fahd of Saudi Arabia for $15 billion and got it, then secured the same from the emir of Kuwait. Egypt received roughly $7 billion in debt forgiveness for sending troops and support.

  In Damascus, President Hafez Assad agreed to pledge up to 100,000 Syrian troops, motivated partly by a personal enmity with Saddam, who he said had been trying to kill him for years. Germany, barred by its constitution from fighting abroad, committed a two billion dollar contribution. Japan and Germany together gave financial contributions of $10 billion and $6.6 billion. The final coalition drew forces from 42 countries, with US troops making up 73% of its 956,600 personnel. General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. was named commander.

• 6. The Babies And The Princess

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  Citizens for a Free Kuwait hired the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton for about $11 million, paid by Kuwait's government. The firm distributed books on Iraqi atrocities, handed out Free Kuwait T-shirts, and sent speakers to college campuses. Its most powerful move came before members of the US Congress.

  A young woman identifying herself as a nurse in a Kuwait City hospital testified that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators and left them to die on the floor. The story helped tip opinion toward war. Six Congressmen cited it as enough to support military action, and seven Senators referenced it in debate. The Senate approved military action in a 52-47 vote.

  A year after the war the account was revealed as a fabrication. The young woman was a member of Kuwait's royal family and the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the United States, and she had not lived in Kuwait during the invasion. The details emerged in John R. MacArthur's book Second Front, and an op-ed by MacArthur prompted Amnesty International to reexamine and retract its own version. The Iraqi army did commit documented crimes, including the summary execution of three brothers whose bodies were stacked in a street. One resident later compared the destruction to a surrealist painting by Salvador Dali.

• 7. Scuds And Patriots

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  Iraq fired 88 Scud missiles during the war's seven weeks, hoping to provoke Israel into a response that would split Arab states from the coalition. President Bush pressed Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir not to retaliate, fearing the alliance would fracture. In exchange the coalition promised to deploy Patriot missiles to defend Israel.

  Two Israeli civilians died as a direct result of the missile attacks. Between 11 and 74 more died from causes such as incorrect use of gas masks and of the anti-chemical drug atropine, and roughly 230 Israelis were injured. According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the damage included 1,302 houses, 6,142 apartments, 23 public buildings, 200 shops, and 50 cars. On the 22nd of January 1991, a Scud struck Ramat Gan after two Patriots failed to intercept it, causing three fatal heart attacks among elderly residents.

  The deadliest single strike fell not on Israel but on Saudi Arabia. On the 25th of February 1991, a Scud hit a US Army barracks of the 14th Quartermaster Detachment, out of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, stationed in Dhahran. It killed 28 soldiers and injured over 100. An investigation found the assigned Patriot battery had failed to engage because of a loss of significance in its computer's floating point calculations, compounding over 100 hours of continuous use and shifting the range gate until it lost the Scud.

• 8. One Hundred Hours

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  The ground campaign opened with a 90,000 round artillery preparation that lasted two and a half hours. It became three or possibly four of the largest tank battles in American military history. The fights at 73 Easting, Norfolk, and Medina Ridge are noted for their scale, with the Battle of Norfolk ranked the second largest tank battle in American history behind the Battle of the Bulge.

  The US VII Corps was the primary combat formation, with 1,487 tanks, 242 attack helicopters, and 146,321 troops. By the close of operations on the 28th of February 1991, it had driven 260 kilometers, captured 22,000 Iraqi soldiers, and destroyed 1,350 Iraqi tanks. The A-10 Warthog crews alone destroyed 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 other vehicles, and 1,200 artillery pieces. The 1st Marine Division destroyed around 60 Iraqi tanks near the Burgan oil field without losing one of its own.

  The coalition halted its advance after one hundred hours and declared a ceasefire. The aftermath ran on. The Iraqi government suppressed uprisings until the 5th of April 1991, and the coalition set up two no-fly zones over Iraq's north and south. Iraqi forces left behind over six hundred oil well fires and the largest oil spill in history to that point. US bombing and demolition of Iraqi chemical weapons facilities were judged the primary cause of Gulf War syndrome, reported by over 40% of US veterans, an injury that outlasted every tank battle fought in the desert.