·   The war in the Persian Gulf was a war of religious fervor, and cruel leadership. Desert Storm was the same type of war that had occurred in this area for many years except for one fact.  In Operation Desert Storm, sophisticated technology was used to end the war in a quick and timely manner.

     In 1979 Saddam Hussien took control of Iraq, and immediately set the tone for his rule by killing 21 of his cabinet members.  He wanted to make his country whole once again so in 1990 he invaded Kuwait and in less than 4 hours he had taken Kuwait and controlled 24% of the worlds oil supplies. It seemed as if his next target was Saudi Arabia. 

     This was where the United States entered after a call for protection by Saudi Arabia.  The United States set a deadline, January 15, 1991 for all Iraq forces to be out of Kuwait, but Saddam ignored the deadline. That triggered Desert Shield, or the  build-up of troops in the region and eventually led to Desert Storm, a all-out attack to free Kuwait. 

     It can be clearly said that due to the extreme power and sophistication of the U.S. and her allies that Saddam and his tiny nation of 17 million people stood no chance against the military might that is the United States and its Allies. 

Little Known Info About the War:

 

          On the final night of the war--within hours of the cease-fire--two U.S. Air force bombers dropped specially designed 5,000-pound bombs on a command bunker fifteen miles northwest of Baghdad in a deliberate attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.

          The decision to seek United Nations involvement was part of a larger, more cynical strategy of the Bush administration to circumvent Congress, to bypass the constitutional authority of Congress--and only Congress--to declare war.

          During the very week King Fahd was persuaded to invite U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia in order to defend his monarchy from the alleged threat of an Iraqi invasion, a U.S. intelligence officer who was secretly sent to Kuwait by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf reported that Iraq had began withdrawing its Republican Guard divisions from Kuwait entirely.

          Several weeks before the Baghdad was bombed on January 17th, 1991, U.S. intelligence agents successfully inserted a computer virus into Iraq's military computers. It was designed to disable much of Baghdad's air-defense system.

          The largest tank battle of the war, which has previously has gone unreported in any detail, conclusively demonstrated the superiority of American tanks and fighting doctrine over that of the Soviets. As a whole, the battles of the ground war showed that American military maneuverability clearly outclassed the plodding tactics of the Iraqis, who emphasized pitched engagements and linear movements as they had been taught by their Soviet advisers.

          The size of the Iraqi army in the Kuwait Theater of Operations was probably much smaller than claimed by the Pentagon. On the eve of the war, Iraq may have had as few as 300,000 solders, compared to 540,000 estimated by the Pentagon.

          In official reports, the Pentagon has admitted that of the 148 American servicemen and women who perished on the battlefield, 24 percent of the total killed in action were victims of 'friendly fire'. Eleven more Americans were killed when un exploded Allied munitions blew up, raising the 'friendly fire' percent to 31 percent. Most solders said that the thousands of unexploded mines and bomblets they encountered, were more dangerous than enemy fire.