Operation Desert Storm (1991)

The combat phase of the American-led campaign that inflicted a debilitating defeat on Iraq and liberated Kuwait in the period from January to March 1991. Operation Desert Storm required a month of aerial bombardment followed by a swift thrust by land forces, mostly mechanized. Although most fighting took place in Iraq and Kuwait, a brief incursion into Saudi Arabian territory, as well as ballistic missile attacks upon Saudi Arabia and Israel, contributed to heightened tensions. This operation followed Operation Desert Shield, which was the initial response to the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait in August 1990, deploying forces in and near Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf to counter further Iraqi moves, or to resist attack by Iraqi forces.

[Page 555]During Operation Desert Shield, the United States and its allies sent forces to the Persian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean to defend Saudi Arabia, control the gulf, and prepare for the recapture of Kuwait. The head of the U.S. Central Command, General Norman Schwarzkopf, had focused considerable energy upon arraying overwhelming naval and air superiority in the region, accompanied by a logistical buildup calculated to give the coalition forces a comfortable military balance and margin of security. The required 60-day supply of ammunition, tens of thousands of hospital beds, and thousands of tons of spare parts were either in place or placed in the long supply lines extending to bases in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

A presidential order by President George H. W. Bush on November 8, 1990—which called for an effective doubling of the ground forces slated for the offensive—reflected a fail-safe strategy calculated in the Pentagon and agreed to by General Schwarzkopf. The British contingent swelled to an armored division, and a second heavy corps was ordered to the region from the U.S. garrison in Germany. An additional Marine Corps division and amphibious brigade, as well as additional air and naval forces, swelled the U.S. contingent to a total of some 540,000 troops, 6 aircraft carriers, 4,000 tanks, 17,000 helicopters, and 1,800 fixed-wing aircraft.

Important combat forces also were drawn from Egypt (armored corps) and France (armored division and 60 aircraft). Although a Syrian armored division deployed and prepared for action, it was not used, in part because it had equipment identical to that of the Iraqi army. Saudi Arabia, the host nation for most of the allied forces, provided several brigades of ground-combat troops, combat aircraft, and the all-important supply and transportation services required by all the contingents.

The Air Campaign

The air war segment of Operation Desert Storm began on January 17, 1991, with a predawn-attack helicopter strike on the outermost Iraqi radar systems, followed by waves of cruise missiles and stealth aircraft sent against Iraqi air defenses and command and control systems. The classic U.S. air doctrine of “turning out the lights” consisted of destroying the communications and data nodes of the opposing forces and suppressing antiaircraft sites.

Once those goals were accomplished, conventional fighter-bomber and strategic-bomber attacks could occur in relative safety with large volumes of high-explosive bombs. The air attack would also include significant numbers of precision-guided munitions (PGM), which used terminal guidance to destroy high-value targets and those considered too close to the civilian population for conventional attack.

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