Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War
Dilip Hiro
Harper Collins Publishers
During the first two weeks of the air campaign in January 1991, the allies dropped more conventional explosives on Iraq and Kuwait than in the whole of World War II, which lasted 310 weeks. How was it that Saddam Hussein had failed to draw the right lesson from the Iran-Iraq War: the US would never allow an unfriendly nation to dominate the Gulf, containing two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves? And how was President George Bush able to assemble and hold together such a formidable coalition of 28 Western and Arab countries? In this lucid, perceptive and detailed narrative and analysis of the Second Gulf War, Dilip Hiro - author of a much-acclaimed book on the First Gulf War between Iran and Iraq - lays bare the complex political-economic motivation and diplomatic manoeuvring that preceded the 42-day conflict. He shows how, encouraged by internal discontent in Kuwait and angered by Kuwait’s attempts to undermine Iraq's economy by depressing the price of oil by flooding the international market, Saddam Hussein made a grievous miscalculation in invading Kuwait. Intent on halting the rise of America as the sole superpower in the region, he ironically ended up by enhancing Washington’s power and prestige and curtailing Iraq's independence. Assisted by the ending of the Cold War, the US - in a diplomatic blitzkrieg before hostilities began - was able to fashion a complex, fragile coalition and to muster 750,000 troops and an unparalleled military machine in the region. Dilip Hiro examines the strains within the alliance; the unprecedented co-operation between Washington and Moscow; the new, enhanced role of the United Nations; the financial trade-offs and material inducements between the allies; the repeated attempts at linkage with the Palestinian problem; the delicate roles of Israel, Iran, Turkey and the various Arab regimes; the use of television as an instant diplomatic tool; the causes, course and consequences of the war itself; and the prospects of stability in a region where the gulf between oil-producing and non-oil-producing countries remains as perilously wide as ever. Containing maps, a chronology of events, extensive source-notes and all relevant Security Council resolutions, this book is a comprehensive and objective chronicle of the war as well as an invaluable aid to the understanding of contemporary history and Middle Eastern affairs.
Born in the Indian sub-continent, Dilip Hiro was educated in India, Britain and America. He has been living in London since 1964, and is a full-time writer and journalist, and frequent commentator on Middle Eastern, Gulf and Islamic affairs on radio and television in Britain and North America. His articles on the Middle East and allied subjects have appeared in the Sunday Times, Guardian, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Toronto Star and International Herald Tribune. He is the author of Inside the Middle East, Iran under the Ayatollahs, Islamic Fundamentalism and Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain.
Contents
Illustrations / vii Abbreviations / ix Maps by Richard Natkiel / xiii Preface / 1 Introduction / 4
Part I: Historical Background 1 Iraq and Kuwait: Neighbours or one Family? / 9 2 Prelude to the Crisis / 49
Part II: The Crisis 3 Saddam's Blitzkrieg, Bush's Line in the Sand / 101 4 Diplomacy, Hostages and Military Build-Ups / 156 5 Bush and the Domestic Front / 190 6 Blood on the Mount / 209 7 Desert Shield into Desert Sword / 237 8 The Countdown / 263
Part III: The Military Solution 9 Desert Storm: The Air Campaign / 319 10 Desert Sabre: The Ground War / 380 11 The Aftermath / 399 12 Conclusions / 426
Epilogue / 454 Notes / 456
Appendices I: Chronology / 500 II: Armed Forces of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and United States / 525 III: UN Security Council Resolutions on the Gulf Crisis and the Gulf War / 526 IV: Important UN Security Council Resolutions on the Palestinian Issue / 553
Select Bibliography / 561 Index / 565
Maps
Ottoman Empire on the eve of the First World War; Kuwait 1913 / xv Arab League vote on resolution to send troops against Iraq / xvi-xvii Pipelines and oil fields / xviii Temple Mount, Jerusalem / xix Allied command structure / xx Principal targets in Iraq / xxi Allied and Iraqi troop dispositions and strength / xxii-xxiii Allied attacks / xxiv The recapture of Kuwait / xxv The aftermath of war / xxvi
PREFACE
Since the military conflict between Iraq and the US-led coalition took place in the Gulf, it seems logical to call it the Gulf War. But this term had been in vogue in the 1980s, and was applied to the warfare between Iran and Iraq which lasted from September 1980 to August 1988: a fact of which I, as the author of a book on the subject, am particularly aware. To minimize the confusion, therefore, I often describe the Iran-Iraq armed confrontation as the First Gulf War, and that between Iraq and the US-led coalition as the Second Gulf War.
Indeed, the latter is a direct descendant of the former. It was in the course of the Iran—Iraq War that Baghdad increased the size of its military from 242,250 troops to nearly 1,200,000, and raised huge foreign loans, including about $14 billion from Kuwait. Both these factors came to play key roles in the two-year interregnum between the end of the First Gulf War and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
However, the border dispute between Iraq and Kuwait has a long history, dating back to the era of Ottoman Turkish rule in the region. That is why I begin this book with a chapter tracing the roots of the dispute to earlier times. This chapter also outlines the nature of the state and society in Iraq and Kuwait, and the history of the First Gulf War, which in later years impinged directly on Kuwait.
The second chapter describes the situation in Iraq following the ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War: its attempts to assume the leadership of the Arab world, and its growing alienation from America. It also sketches in the background of the worsening relations between Israel and the Palestinians, whose cause Iraq took up with renewed enthusi* asm. It felt encouraged by the internal discontent in Kuwait to press its demands for concessions on border demarcation, and angry at Kuwait's attempts to undermine Iraq's economy by flooding the international oil market with over-supplies, thus depressing the price.
The next section of the book, entitled 'The Crisis', deals with the situation created by Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait, starting with the responses of America and the United Nations.
Chapter 3 covers the first three weeks of the Gulf crisis. And Chapter 4 outlines the events from 23 August to 17 September 1990, the day the American secretary of defence dismissed General Michael Dugan, the US air force chief of staff, for revealing Washington's offensive strategy of bombing Iraq. The following chapter describes, primarily, the domestic problems facing President George Bush (1989—). Chapter 6, starting with the 8 October 1990 killings of the Palestinians in Jerusalem, dwells on the responses of various parties to the event, and their impact on the ongoing Gulf crisis. President Bush's announcement of doubling the US forces in the Gulf region marks the beginning of the next chapter, which ends with the United Nations Security Council's adoption of a resolution, on 29 November 1990, authorizing 'all necessary means' to reverse the Iraqi aggression. Chapter 8 describes the events until 16 January 1991, when the Second Gulf War erupted.
The final part of the book, entitled 'The Military Solution', is divided into three chapters: the air campaign until 23 February; the ground war until 28 February; and the aftermath, which continues.
In the concluding chapter I give an analytical summary of the causes of the outbreak of the war as well as the impact it has had on the region and the outside powers, including the United Nations.
To produce contemporary history, one has to rely largely on the media. There, a resident of London is especially privileged. He has access to five quality British newspapers as well as the International Herald Tribune, which carries important news stories and comments published simultaneously in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. English translations of significant radio and television broadcasts in the Middle East are published daily by the US government as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and by the British Broadcasting Corporation as the BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. Since there is no standard way of transliterating Arabic names and words, spelling Arabic words can be a nightmare. Ther e are 52 different ways of spelling Hussein, for example. There is no uniformity even for such common words as Moslem/Muslim. When it comes to looking up an index, a particular difficulty arises where the same place or person is spelled with a different first letter - as in Arbil/Erbil/Irbil; or Gadhafi/Qadhafi. In each case I have chosen one of the most widely used spellings in the English-language print media, and stuck to it - except when the spelling of a book author is different from mine. There I have simply reproduced the published spelling in quoted matter.
There is also no standard definition of the Middle East. Some authors apply the term to the geographical area extending from Morocco to Pakistan, and Turkey to Sudan, including the island republic of Cyprus,- others restrict it to the Arabic-speaking section of the region and Israel, leaving out Turkey, Cyprus, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Still others narrow it further by excluding Arab North Africa - Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya - as well as Djibouti and Sudan. I use the term in the narrowest sense.
The right name for the gulf that divides Iran from the Arahian Peninsula is also debatable. The internationally recognized term is the 'Persian Gulf', but Arabs like to call it the 'Arab Gulf', and the international media 'the Gulf'. I have used the last name, but have listed the two others in the index.
Confusion can also arise regarding dates due to large differences in local times in the Gulf and on the eastern coast of America to dispel it, I have always used Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Eastern Standard Time (EST), applicable to New York and Washington, DC, is five hours behind GMT, except during spring and summer months, when it is four hours behind. Gulf time is three hours ahead of GMT throughout the year. In other words, the clocks in Baghdad are seven to eight hours ahead of those in New York or Washington, depending on the season.
The dinar is the Iraqi unit of currency, and is noted as ID. In 1990 the official exchange rate was 0.3109 to one US dollar. The dinar is also the Kuwaiti unit of currency, and is noted as KD. Its official exchange rate in 1990, before the Iraqi invasion, was 0.292 to one US dollar.
The following Arabic words signify religious or secular titles of a leader: ayatollah, emir, hojatalislam, imam, sayyid, shaikh and sultan. To help the reader place a political leader in time, I state in brackets, following the first mention of the leader's name, the years when he/she was, or has been, in power.
Last, but not least, my thanks to Heather. But for her diligent assistance in researching this book, it would have taken longer to materialize.
London 21 August 1991 Dilip Hiro Introduction
Several features of the Second Gulf War make it unique among the armed conflicts of this century: the numbers of troops and amount of military hardware assembled in the region; the complex, fragile coalition that America managed to put together and hold; the frenetic diplomatic activity before and during the hostilities; the role of the United Nations; the unprecedented co-operation between Washington and Moscow in resolving the crisis by reversing the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait; the round-the-clock media coverage in the West of the 42-day war; and the role of television, particularly the Atlanta-based Cable News Network, as an instant diplomatic tool.
During the initial two weeks of their air campaign, the allies dropped more conventional explosives on Iraq and Kuwait than in the whole of the Second World War, which lasted 310 weeks. In the first 12 hours of the hostilities, the US-led coalition dropped more bombs on enemy territory than the United States had done in its 17-day air campaign, codenamed 'Linebacker-2', in Vietnam in 1972. The 600,000 gallons of fuel consumed by one US armoured division of 350 MI Abrahams tanks was nearly twice the total used by the US 3rd Army during its drive into Germany from France in 1944—5. To sustain its 430,000 troops at the start of the Second Gulf War, the Pentagon moved 6 million pounds of materiel daily.1
The Gulf crisis emerged on the heels of the end of the Cold War, which resulted in a 'cold' victory for the West, captured dramatically in the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. It was a by-product of the break-up of the Moscow-led bloc. The collapse of this bloc, accompanied by an apparent weakening of the Soviet Union, led to a dramatic rise in the exodus of Soviet Jews, most of whom went to Israel. This increased fears in the Arab world for the future of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. These were shared by Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein (1979— ), who was disappointed at the diminution of the power of Moscow, a long-term ally of Baghdad, and its predominant arms supplier.
He saw the hand of Washington in the newly adopted policy of Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of exceeding the Emits on their oil output specified by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting …
Dilip Hiro
Desert Shield to Desert Storm The Second Gulf War
Harper Collins
Harper Collins Publishers Desert Shield to Desert Storm The Second Gulf War Dilip Hiro
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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