The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

by Mitchell G. Bard, Ph. D.

  In addition, the king had to worry about the attitude of the Palestinians who made up the majority of his subjects. They overwhelmingly supported Iraq. Ultimately, Jordan proved to be the main source of support for Iraq, and King Hussein suffered a brief backlash in the United States, which he later overcame through his involvement in peace talks with Israel.

  Outnumbering Iraqi Forces

  Over the course of five months, Bush succeeded in building a coalition of three dozen nations, which contributed a combined 670,000 troops. In reality, the bulk of the forces was American (roughly 75 percent of the total), British, and French. The United States also deployed 127 ships, including 6 carrier battle groups, while allied navies contributed an additional 72 ships.

  Initially, the Iraqis were believed to have had more than half a million troops, but once the fighting began, it became clear that the number was considerably lower, perhaps fewer than 200,000. Anticipating a possible military strike, Saddam announced that citizens of aggressor countries were being imprisoned at vital military installations as human shields in the hope of deterring attacks.

  From Shield to Storm

  The United Nations authorized the use of “all necessary means” to evict Iraq from Kuwait if Saddam did not withdraw his troops by January 15. On January 9, Secretary of State James Baker met Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz, but they failed to reach an agreement. The U.S. Congress subsequently voted to grant President Bush the authority to wage war to enforce the UN resolutions against Iraq.

  Most Americans agreed with the president’s decision to go to war. For example, the Washington Post–ABC News Poll on January 16, 1991, found that 76 percent of Americans approved of the United States going to war with Iraq and 22 percent disapproved.

  Military and Media Might

  Desert Storm, as the operation was called, began at 3:00 A.M. Baghdad time on January 17, when nine warships began firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at early-warning radar control stations throughout Iraq. These were followed by F-117 stealth planes that dropped laser-guided smart bombs on Iraqi communications centers. These stealth fighters were the only aircraft used against Baghdad because of the city’s heavy anti-aircraft defenses. The planes flew more than 1,200 sorties (combat flights) against the toughest targets without a single plane being lost.

  * * *

  Hieroglyphics

  Cruise missiles can be fired from land, sea, or air, and enable the military to inflict severe damage on the enemy from a distance without risking soldiers’ lives. They follow complex guidance directions from their onboard computers that allow them to skim near the ground, following the terrain to avoid radar detection. The small warhead is very accurate and extremely difficult to shoot down. Smart bombs contain sophisticated guidance systems that make them more accurate than conventional bombs. Stealth planes are not invisible, but they do have a body style and construction designed to make them extremely difficult for radar to detect.

  * * *

  In the first 24 hours, allied planes flew more than 1,000 sorties, wiping out Iraq’s command and control capability and anti-aircraft batteries. From that point on, Iraqi commanders could not gather the intelligence they needed to respond to U.S. air attacks.

  The air campaign consisted of four phases. The first was the destruction of Iraq’s strategic capabilities to achieve air superiority. This took seven days. Phase two required the suppression of Iraqi air defenses around Kuwait. The third phase was directed at the Iraqi army in Kuwait. Phase four primarily involved providing air support for ground operations.

  After its war with Iran during most of the 1980s, Iraq was still very strong militarily. It had the world’s fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force in 1991. The coalition forces so dominated the skies, however, that only 25 Iraqi aircraft managed to get off the ground in the first 2 days of fighting. During the war, coalition forces shot down 35 Iraqi planes in air-to-air combat.

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  I have seen in your eyes a fire of determination to get this war job done quickly. My confidence in you is total; our cause is just. Now you must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm.

  —General Norman Schwarzkopf

  * * *

  Whereas the stealth planes were designed to be unseen deliverers of destruction, B-52 bombers were impossible to miss. These behemoths dropping tons of bombs were frightening, intimidating, and deadly. The coalition used these aircraft to destroy and demoralize Iraq’s elite Republican Guard ground troops and their heavy weapons in and around Kuwait.

  At the beginning of 1991, the U.S. Defense Department imposed censorship on the war coverage by the 1,400 authorized reporters in Saudi Arabia. The Pentagon arranged for rotating groups of journalists to provide “pool” reports from the kingdom, limiting their access to military officials and the battlefield. Throughout the war, the allied forces held tightly controlled press briefings to disseminate information about the war. The most impressive displays were usually video clips taken from aircraft that had dropped smart bombs, showing them landing precisely where they were targeted.

  After the war, it became clear that although their results were impressive, these new smart weapons were not nearly as accurate as portrayed, nor were their targets always the intended ones. Nevertheless, they were a marked improvement over less sophisticated weapons and significantly reduced collateral damage.

  Advocates of air power were convinced that they could bomb Iraq into submission, force Saddam’s troops out of Kuwait, and drive the dictator from power. Despite the devastation of the air campaign, however, Saddam was unbroken and proclaimed his determination to defeat his enemies in the “mother of all battles.”

  Israel Under Fire

  From the beginning of the crisis, one of the critical elements was how to prevent the conflict from engulfing Israel. Iraq had been a leader of the Rejectionist Front (the Arab states most hostile toward Israel) for decades, and Saddam’s anti-Israel rhetoric had grown more heated in the months immediately before and after the invasion of Kuwait.

  Israel was frustrated by the fact that the United States did not take Saddam’s threats to attack Israel seriously in the early part of 1990. When Bush began to assemble the allied coalition during the time of Desert Shield, however, his attitude changed and one of his top priorities was to keep Israel out of the conflict.

  The Bush administration was convinced that the Arab states would not support a war against Iraq if Israel were involved, regardless of the justification. Consequently, he urged the Israelis to stay out, even if provoked or attacked.

  At this time, U.S.–Israel relations were already strained because of differences between Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir concerning the peace process. Nevertheless, Shamir realized that it was crucial for the future of the relationship that Israel cooperate with the United States at a time when American soldiers were being sent in harm’s way.

  * * *

  Mysteries of the Desert

  Saddam’s threats were particularly ominous given revelations that Great Britain and the United States foiled an attempt to smuggle American-made “krytron” nuclear triggers to Iraq in March 1990. In addition, in April, British customs officers found tubes about to be loaded onto an Iraqi-chartered ship that were believed to be part of a giant Iraqi cannon to lob nuclear or chemical missiles into Israel. Iraq denied it was building a “supergun,” but, after the war, it was discovered that Iraq had built such a weapon. After Saddam used chemical weapons against his own Kurdish population in Halabja in 1988, few Israelis doubted his willingness to use nuclear weapons against Jews if he had the opportunity.

  * * *

  Israel’s Risk

  The decision to cooperate with the coalition was an extremely painful one, however, because it meant Israel would have to absorb a first strike and almost certainly suffer casualties that might be avoided by preemptive action. The Israelis’ experience had taught them two things over the decades: one, that it was fa
r better to preempt than to wait to be attacked; and two, that failure to respond to an assault would be interpreted by their enemies as weakness.

  Israel’s concerns grew when it found out that Saddam had Scud missiles (a short-range ballistic missile) capable of delivering chemical weapons into the heart of Israel. In preparation for a possible missile attack, Israelis were given gas masks and told to prepare sealed rooms in their homes to stay in during a possible assault. Special enclosures had to be used for cribs to protect infants. Hotels acquired gas masks for their guests.

  Israel hoped to be spared in the fighting, but Saddam consistently issued threats. “If the U.S. moves against Iraq,” he said in December 1990, “then Tel Aviv will receive the next attack, whether or not Israel takes part.” At a press conference following his January 9, 1991 meeting with Secretary of State James Baker, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz was asked whether Iraq would attack Israel if the war started. He replied bluntly, “Yes. Absolutely, yes.”

  On January 19, Iraq fired its first Scud missiles at Israel. Initially, reports confirmed Israel’s worst fears, that Saddam had indeed used his chemical warheads. This proved untrue, but the possibility of future attacks remained.

  Israel’s Restraint

  Israel desperately wanted to respond and had plans in place to take out the Iraqi missile sites. But Bush pressured Israeli prime minister Shamir to let the coalition forces handle the problem, and he promised to make the destruction of the missile launchers his top priority. The Israelis were skeptical of the coalition’s ability to do the job and were reluctant to rely on someone else for their protection, but they held their fire and were applauded by American officials for their restraint.

  To partially compensate Israel for its decision to hold its fire, Bush offered to send Patriot missiles to Israel. These defensive weapons are designed to intercept and destroy enemy missiles before they strike. The first batteries arrived on January 20. These proved only marginally effective, however, because Patriots that did intercept incoming Scuds (and fewer than half did) caused them to explode over population centers, raining debris that caused extensive damage.

  The PLO Backs Saddam

  The PLO, Libya, and Iraq were the only members who opposed an Arab League resolution calling for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. Throughout the crisis, the Palestinians were Saddam’s most vocal supporters. The intifada leadership, for example, sent a cable of congratulations to Hussein, describing the invasion of Kuwait as the first step toward the “liberation of Palestine.” In Jenin, on the West Bank, 1,000 Palestinians marched, shouting, “Saddam, you hero; attack Israel with chemical weapons.”

  According to some sources, the PLO also played an active role in facilitating Iraq’s conquest of Kuwait. The logistical planning for the Iraqi invasion was at least partially based on intelligence supplied by PLO officials and supporters based in Kuwait.

  After the war began, Arafat sent a message to Saddam hailing Iraq’s struggle against “American dictatorship” and describing Iraq as “the defender of the Arab nation, of Muslims, and of free men everywhere.”

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  We can only be in the trench hostile to Zionism and its imperialist allies who are today mobilizing their tanks, planes, and all their advanced and sophisticated war machine against our Arab nation.

  —Yasser Arafat

  * * *

  Saddam’s Mother Cries Uncle

  Although reeling from the air campaign, Saddam employed a new tactic by starting an “environmental war.” On January 22, he ordered that Kuwaiti oil wells be blown up. A few days later, Iraq began to pump oil into the Persian Gulf. Later, when the Iraqis started to retreat, they destroyed nearly half of Kuwait’s 1,300 oil wells—many of which continued to burn uncontrollably long after the war’s end.

  After Iraq ignored another ultimatum to withdraw, the U.S.–led coalition initiated the ground campaign, Operation Desert Sabre, on February 24. Iraqi defenses along the Kuwaiti-Saudi border had left the flanks of Saddam’s positions exposed in such a way that the easiest way into Kuwait was through Iraq.

  The “Left Hook”

  Thus, while Iraqi troops were concentrated along Kuwait’s southern border in anticipation of an attack on Kuwait City, coalition troops planned to march into Iraq from the north of Kuwait. To deceive Saddam, Schwarzkopf had a small contingent of Marines attack Kuwait from the south while the bulk of his force began its flanking maneuver.

  Actually, nearly 17,000 Marines were prepared to launch the largest amphibious assault since the landing at Inchon in the Korean War, but only a token force was required for the deception. Meanwhile, Schwarzkopf’s main attack plan was taken out of the Civil War play book of General Ulysses Grant, who used a similar “left hook” maneuver to win the battle of Vicksburg.

  The allies moved more than 250,000 soldiers behind the Iraqi forces. One contingent of ground forces advanced toward the Euphrates River before turning east to besiege the city of Basra and cut off Iraq’s line of supply and retreat. Meanwhile, other troops attacked Iraqi forces along Kuwait’s northern border. In addition, the Marines deployed primarily as decoys broke through the defenses in the south and advanced toward Kuwait City, liberating it on February 27, 1991.

  One of the operations to deceive the Iraqis involved Task Force Troy, a 460-man Marine phantom division deployed south of Kuwait, which used tank and artillery decoys, and loudspeakers blaring tank noises across a 20-mile front. The unit never had more than 5 real tanks, but it gave the impression of being a large force.

  The outcome of the war was not in doubt, so the Iraqis tried a new tactic by turning their Scud missiles that were terrorizing Israel on the United States. The Patriots were more effective in defending the military bases than civilian targets—in part because the debris from the missiles didn’t fall in civilian neighborhoods—and they shot down most of the incoming missiles. On February 25, however, a Scud slammed into the U.S. barracks at the Dhahran base in Saudi Arabia, killing 28 Americans.

  One of the lasting images of the Gulf War was the sight of journalists on rooftops as sirens went off to indicate incoming Iraqi missiles, followed by the firing of Patriot missiles sent to intercept them. During the war, the Pentagon gave a lot of credit to the Patriots for blowing up the Scuds in the air, but postwar analyses determined that they were really far less effective than advertised.

  High-Tech War

  The coalition forces had overwhelming superiority, and the technology gap was even wider. To give one example, U.S. forces developed a tactic called “tank plinking,” where Iraqi tanks hidden in the sand or otherwise concealed were destroyed. This was possible because the United States discovered that the residual heat from the metal tanks showed up on F-111 infrared sensors at night, allowing the otherwise difficult-to-find armor to be targeted.

  Military operations ceased on February 28, 1991, after 43 days of fighting—100 hours after the ground war began. On April 6, Iraq accepted a cease-fire and agreed to pay reparations to Kuwait, destroy its stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, and also destroy nonconventional weapons production facilities.

  The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, returned from exile and resumed his autocratic rule while fulfilling a pledge to reconvene a parliament. The sheikh also expelled 400,000 Palestinians who worked and lived in Kuwait to punish them for supporting Iraq during the war.

  * * *

  Sage Sayings

  Iraq went from the fourth-largest army in the world to the second-largest army in Iraq in 100 hours.

  —U.S. Lieutenant General Tom Kelly

  * * *

  * * *

  Ask the Sphinx

  During the war, Israel was hit by 39 Iraqi Scud missiles. The damage caused by those that landed in Tel Aviv and Haifa, two of Israel’s three largest cities (Jerusalem was spared), was extensive. Approximately 3,300 apartments and other buildings were affected in the greater Tel Aviv area alone. The
biggest cost was in human lives. A total of 74 people died as a consequence of Scud attacks.

  * * *

  A War Too Short

  The decision to end the war was controversial. The U.S. military leadership had engaged in the war reluctantly. After years of buildup and billions of dollars spent on hardware, critics saw the military as unwilling to use its power. The Pentagon, however, insisted its mission was solely to enforce UN resolutions that called for the liberation of Kuwait and that it had no mandate for further action.

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, and others argued that destroying the Iraqi army and toppling Saddam Hussein would require a long, costly war that would likely require the taking of Baghdad. This would inevitably involve many more casualties on both sides, which would generate opposition in the United States. Also, an American-led attack on an Arab capital was likely to cause widespread anger in the Middle East and force the Arab members of the coalition to withdraw and probably oppose the U.S. action.

  On the other hand, by stopping when they did, military leaders failed to destroy the Iraqi army or its suspected nonconventional weapons capability. The campaign left Saddam militarily weakened, but still in power. As a result, Saddam remained a thorn in the side of the United States and the international community, as well as a threat to his neighbors, and prompted President Bush’s son to finish the job his father started (see Chapter 25).