The 42-Day Gulf War of January-February 1991 That Drove Iraqi Forces Out of Kuwait

The Iraqi army invaded Kuwait at 02:00 on 2 August 1990 under orders from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The 22-hour invasion overran the Kuwaiti armed forces of approximately 16,000. Iraq announced annexation of Kuwait as its “19th Province” on 28 August 1990. The motive was financial — Iraq owed approximately $80 billion from the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and accused Kuwait of slant-drilling the cross-border Rumaila oilfield.

UN Security Council Resolution 660 (2 August 1990) demanded immediate withdrawal. UNSCR 678 (29 November 1990) authorized “all necessary means” to enforce withdrawal after a 15 January 1991 deadline.

A coalition of 35 nations under US Central Command leadership assembled approximately 700,000 troops in Saudi Arabia under Operation Desert Shield across August 1990 - January 1991. The coalition commander was US General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. The coalition included Arab participation — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Morocco — alongside Western forces.

Desert Storm — the air campaign

The 15 January 1991 deadline passed without Iraqi withdrawal. Operation Desert Storm opened with air strikes against Baghdad at approximately 02:38 Baghdad time on 17 January 1991. CNN’s live broadcast from the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad — anchors John Holliman, Peter Arnett, and Bernard Shaw — provided the first live war coverage in television history.

The 39-day air campaign struck:

— Iraqi air defence — destroyed within approximately 48 hours — Command and control — Baghdad telecommunications, government buildings — Republican Guard divisions in Kuwait — Iraqi armour and artillery in Kuwait and southern Iraq — Iraqi nuclear, biological, chemical facilities

Approximately 100,000 sorties were flown. Coalition aircraft losses were 75 aircraft; 39 aircrew were killed.

The Iraqi response included approximately 88 Scud ballistic missile launches at Israel and Saudi Arabia. The most lethal Scud strike — Dhahran, 25 February 1991 — killed 28 US soldiers when a Patriot interceptor failed. The Scud launches were intended to provoke Israeli military retaliation that would have collapsed the coalition’s Arab participation; the US-supplied Patriot deployments and US diplomatic pressure kept Israel out of the war.

The ground offensive

The 100-hour ground offensive opened at approximately 04:00 on 24 February 1991. The coalition plan — Schwarzkopf’s “Hail Mary” — involved a massive armoured VII Corps sweep west of the Kuwaiti border that flanked the Iraqi defensive line and trapped the Republican Guard in southern Iraq.

The ground campaign:

— 24 February 1991 — Marines breach Iraqi defences in Kuwait; VII Corps begins the western flank manoeuvre — 25 February 1991 — Coalition forces inside Kuwait — 26 February 1991 — Battle of 73 Easting — US 2nd Armored Cavalry destroys the Iraqi Tawakalna Republican Guard division in approximately 23 minutes — 27 February 1991 — Kuwait City liberated; Battle of Medina Ridge destroys the Iraqi Medina Republican Guard division — 28 February 1991 — President Bush announces unilateral ceasefire effective 08:00 Iraqi time

The retreating Iraqi columns on the “Highway of Death” from Kuwait City to Basra were attacked by coalition aircraft on 26-27 February 1991. Approximately 1,400-2,000 Iraqi vehicles were destroyed.

The end

The Iraqi delegation signed the ceasefire at Safwan airfield on 3 March 1991. The terms required Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, payment of war reparations, destruction of weapons of mass destruction programmes, and acceptance of UNSCR 687 inspection regime.

Coalition forces did not advance on Baghdad. President George H. W. Bush’s 1991 strategic judgment — defended in his 1998 memoir A World Transformed — was that regime change had not been authorized by the UN coalition mandate and that occupying Iraq would destabilise the region.

Casualties

The 42-day war casualties:

— Coalition military dead: 292 (148 American, 38 British, the remainder distributed across the other 33 coalition members) — Iraqi military dead: approximately 25,000-50,000 — Iraqi civilian dead: approximately 3,500 (immediate combat phase) — Kuwaiti dead during the seven-month occupation: approximately 1,000

The Iraqi army that had been the world’s fourth largest in August 1990 was destroyed in 42 days.

The post-war Shia and Kurdish uprisings that the Bush administration had encouraged were brutally suppressed by Saddam’s retained Republican Guard divisions across March-April 1991. Approximately 50,000-100,000 Iraqis were killed in the suppression. The humanitarian crisis triggered the establishment of UN no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq that remained in place until the 2003 US invasion.