The Persian Gulf War 2 Essay Research

The Persian Gulf War 2 Essay, Research Paper

The Persian Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm, was a war that separated good versus evil and what s right from wrong. It was the war that put the greedy and totalitarian Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein versus the American President George Bush. It was the 1st major international conflict since the end of the Cold War years earlier. The events leading to one of history s shortest wars started on August 2nd, 1990 when the first Iraqi tanks crossed into Kuwait, as part of an invasion that claimed Kuwait in less than 24 hours. These tanks were ordered to invade Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi troops took money from Kuwaiti businesses and brutalized Kuwaiti civilians. Saudi Arabia began to fear that they may be invaded too, and on August 6th King Fahd of Saudi Arabia formally asked President George Bush for US military assistance. The US promised to defend the Saudis, and President Bush declared that the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait will not stand . Great masses of troops from many different nations were ordered by the United Nations, to protect and serve in the Persian Gulf area. At 4:30 PM EST on January 16, 1991, the first aircraft with orders to attack Iraqi targets was launched from Saudi Arabia, marking the beginning of Operation Desert Storm.

It has always been international law that Dictators like Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to take advantage of smaller countries like bullies after lunch money. There has to be someone to stop them, or they will gain more and more power and land, just like the lessons that the world learned when Adolph Hitler did the same in World War II. That someone who was called on to stop Hussein was the United States, with help, eventually, from a multinational coalition . The US had just cause in entering a war against Iraq because of Iraq’s invasion of the small and defenseless nation of Kuwait. Iraq had no just cause in invading Kuwait. Their reasons for their own benefit. Hussein wanted to control Kuwait because of the wealth Kuwait had in oil and also he wanted better access to the Persian Gulf. Another reason why the United States entered the war was because of the threat that Iraq might declare war on Israel. Israel is one of the US s closest allies.

Days after the invasion of Kuwait the United Nations put an embargo on Iraq that prohibited all trade with Iraq except for medical reasons. At this point all of Iraq s foreign relations were pretty much gone. Iraq had no allies. Following the announcement Iraq declare that they officially annexed Kuwait. At the same time the United States were sending over the first batch of American troops who would be based in Saudi Arabia. Weeks later Iraq began to take any innocent foreigners who were based in either Kuwait or Iraq as hostages. They were all moved to Iraqi military bases and served as human shields to discourage any countries from attacking .

On August 25th, the same month in which all of this started, The United Nation Security Council authorized any military force needed in enforcing the embargo against Iraq. This eventually escalated to the decision by the Security Council to grant permission to the coalition of countries against Iraq, to use all means necessary to kick Iraq out of Kuwait unless the Iraqi forces did not pull out all their military forces by January 15, 1991.

United States congress later voted on whether they would support the permission granted to them. They unanimously agreed. The vote was as good as a declaration of war, as far as legitimate authority is concerned. The January 15th deadline for Iraq was basically set so that the countries could quarter up enough troops and develop a battle plan. The battle plan was not to destroy Iraq s military, but to simply get Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. President Bush planned to get Iraq’s troops out of Kuwait and then stop. He had no intention of carrying the war further. Although Bush probably would have dearly liked to have marched US troops toward Baghdad to destroy Hussein’s government, he did not, because of the risk of heavy casualties, and it would have been a negative representation of a world leader.

The United Nations knew that Saddam Hussein was much too proud of a dictator to pull his troops out of Kuwait by the January 15th deadline. So of coarse he did not remove any troops at all. When the deadline passed the nations had their battle plans all mapped out. What was named Operation Desert Storm by U.S. army leaders like Colin Powell and General Schwarzkopf, officially started at 3 A.M., Iraqi time, on January 17th, 1991 when aircraft bombed parts of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. The war started in the air. The Air Force and other allied air craft aimed to destroy Iraq s ability to launch missile attacks and also aimed at eliminating all of Iraq s deadly weapon facilities.

The objectives on the most part were obtained with the help of new technologies. The use of night vision systems and precision guided weapons were first introduced to warfare. The precision warfare enabled the US to launch cruise missiles, like the Tomahawk Missile , from the Persian Gulf and hit a specific target precisely.

Iraq responded to the start of the war by launching inaccurate SCUD missiles to places in Saudi Arabia and Israel. The attacks killed many innocent civilians in both Israel and Saudi