Essay, Research Paper: Us Involvement In The Gulf War

In the early morning hours of 2 August 1990 Iraq sent an invasion force consisting of 120,000 troops and 2000 tanks into the neighboring country of Kuwait (Military Analysis Network, Operation Desert Shield ). The invasion force quickly overwhelmed the small country to the south, thus allowing Iraq to declare, in less that a week, that Kuwait had become Iraq s nineteenth province. The United Nations quickly responded, passing a series of resolutions condemning the invasion, called for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Kuwait, imposed financial and trade embargo s and declared the annexation void.
President George Bush, regarding the actions as a threat to a vital U.S. interest, namely the oil production capability of the Persian Gulf Region, immediately ordered warplanes and ground forces to Saudi Arabia after obtaining King Fahd s approval (Military Analysis Network, Operation Desert Shield ). Iraqi troops had begun to mass along the Saudi Arabian border indicating the possibility of an attack into the Saudi oil fields.
The first course of action lasted for five months, from August 1990 until January 1991. The diplomatic community conducted furious and fast paced diplomatic activity aimed at getting Iraq out of Kuwait. Two main issues were at the heart of the diplomacy: the occupation itself and the matter of the hostages. Iraq had detained and taken hostage a large number of foreign nationals that had been working in Kuwait and Iraq at the time of the invasion and threatened to use them as a human shield against a possible attack on Iraq. During this time period the United Nations Security Council passed a total of 12 resolutions condemning the actions and calling for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. The last Resolution, # 678, was passed on 29 November 1990 and authorized the member states to use all necessary means to uphold and implement Security Council Resolution # 660 and to restore international peace and security in this area , unless Iraq fully complied with the resolutions on or before 15 January 1991. (Compton's Encyclopedia).
The second course of action, the use of military force, commenced on 17 January 1991, two days after the deadline imposed by Security Council Resolution # 660. The military campaign, called Operation Desert Storm, was conducted by a massive array of forces from more that two dozen nations. By the time Desert Storm began there were approximately 539,000 American troops and 270,000 allied troops, under the command of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, compared to about 545,000 Iraqi troops in and around Kuwait. For the first thirty-seven days of the war, allied Air Forces continually bombed Iraq s military installations, communications facilities, armed forces in the field, weapons producing factories, and nuclear production facilities with more than 100,000 air sorties and sea launched missiles from the Persian Gulf (Comptons Encyclopedia). At 4 a. m. on the 24th day of January 1991, Desert Saber, the ground offensive into Iraq was launched. With uncounted thousands already dead, unofficially 150,000 and the surviving Iraqi troops surrendering in mass, the remaining soldiers who stood to fight were quickly and decisively defeated (Comptons Encyclopedia). On the 27th day of January, this allowed President Bush to order a cease-fire and declare that the four National Security Objectives that he outlined in National Security Directive 54 had been met. The four objectives were:
1. To effect the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
2. To restore Kuwait s legitimate government.
3. To protect the lives of American citizens abroad.
4. To promote the security and stability of the Persian Gulf.
(William M. Arkin, The Fog of War , The Washington Post)
The U.S. used several different approaches to military strategy during the build up and execution phases of the Gulf War. In the beginning a deterrent strategy was used by the deployment of forces to Saudi Arabia in an effort to prevent Iraq from continuing the attack into the Saudi oil fields. Almost simultaneously a sequential approach was being used for the build up of military forces in the region by the continued deployment of U.S. forces and the diplomatic process that was underway to gain international support and military assistance from more than two dozen other allied nations. Also, ongoing at this same time was the massive step by step planning for the air and ground war. On 17 January 1991 the operation entered the direct approach phase when the allied forces attacked into Kuwait and Iraq to cut off and defeat the Iraqi army. Although this was a direct approach, it was still a sequential approach as seen by the four-phased plan of the offensive campaign, each phase dependent on the success of the previous phase.
Iraq, on the other hand, seemed to use only a direct approach to their military strategy in their invasion of Kuwait. After the invasion, Iraq was suddenly faced with a massive and unexpected allied coalition against it. From that point forward the Iraqi s were extremely over confident in believing that their 500,000 man army with 7,000 tanks and 3,000 artillery pieces would be enough to outnumber and destroy the opposing coalition forces (Jim Marshal, The Survival of a Regime , The Mistakes of the Gulf War ). After the air campaign started and the Iraqi air defenses were rendered useless, their military leaders had no view of the battlefield from the air. Without knowing how the battlefield was shaping up, effective planning could not happen. The only thing they could do at this point was to react to actions taken by coalition forces.
The Military Strategic Concept used by the U.S. was one of flexible response and also one of collective military security as evidenced by the participation of the more than two dozen allied nations comprising the coalition forces arrayed against Iraq. The size and make-up of the U.S. forces deployed to Saudi Arabia made the response flexible enough to be able to array them along the Saudi and Iraqi border and ultimately respond to any situation that may have arisen. If the Iraqis had decided to attack into Saudi Arabia, then the coalition forces would have easily been able to stop them. Ultimately the size and make-up of the coalition forces were more than enough to attack into Iraq and Kuwait and destroy the remaining Iraqi forces. The participation by the allied nations that made up the coalition not only gave the U.S. an additional edge in the amount of arms and personnel, but it was also a psychological edge. The fact that there were more than two dozen countries allied on the coalition force, many of them middle eastern, had to have a great psychological impact on the will of the Iraqi people and soldiers to sustain and carry out the war.
The Iraqi s appeared to use no military strategic military concepts other than insurgency. The invasion of Kuwait was an outright attempt to overthrow the constitutional government of Kuwait through the use of armed conflict.
Work Cited
1. Military Analysis Network, Operation Desert Shield
2. Comptons Encyclopedia
3. William M. Arkin, The Fog of War , The Washington Post
4. Jim Marshal, The Survival of a Regime , The Mistakes of the Gulf War