When nothing changed in Kuwait and Egyptian diplomacy failed, Saddam began the invasion. Saddam, frequently emphasizing a desire for U. The invasion happened during the first Palestinian Intifada, which enjoyed wide Arab support. As Palestinians tried to shake off Israeli occupation, Saddam tried to appeal to pan-Arab nationalism by being the strongman who would stand up to the West and Israel.
He reasoned that the British illegally cut Kuwait out of greater Iraq in the 19th century and he was trying to right a Western wrong. The Arab League was not okay with this. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak tried to negotiate a treaty to avert a war, but Saddam walked out after two hours. His forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, Whenever possible, Kuwaitis resisted fiercely, even establishing an underground resistance movement, though it was largely untrained and incapable.
His body was placed in front of a tank and run over. In that time, the Iraqi forces committed at least sixteen crimes against the Laws of Armed Conflict as outlined in the Geneva and Hague Conventions. Those crimes include running of at least two dozen torture sites in Kuwait City alone, torturing civilians to the point of death and disfigurement.
Kuwaiti women were taken hostage and raped repeatedly. Iraqi occupation forces killed at least 1, Kuwaiti civilian noncombatants, including women, children, and the mentally handicapped. Then they rigged the oil wells to explode if they were attacked. Once Coalition forces and Iraqi forces met in the field, the Iraqis committed more war crimes.
Among them, they pretended to surrender to U. Marines, then opened fire on them. Iraqis would disguise themselves as civilians and then ambush Coalition forces. Iraqi troops also tortured prisoners of war. Desert Shield began as the U. Until the buildup, however, Iraqi forces would have easily overwhelmed the Saudi defenses.
Iraqi forces invaded Saudi Arabia at the January Battle of Khafji, capturing the city on the night of 29 January. By this time, however, it was far too late. Coalition forces had more than enough troops and hardware to repel the Iraqis.
The attacks were fought off by U. Marines, Army Rangers, and Coalition aircraft and the city was soon recaptured by Saudi and Qatari forces, backed by U. The Army set up FOB Weasel near the opposite end of the Kuwaiti border, which was a network of fake camps manned only by several dozen soldiers.
With computer-controlled radios, messages were passed between fictitious headquarters sections. Smoke generators and loudspeakers playing prerecorded tank and truck noises were used, along with inflatable Humvees and helicopters. He commanded a Coalition of , personnel from 28 countries, along with combined Naval and Air Forces, with , troops from the United States.
According to his memoirs, he implemented his operational plan to defend Saudi Arabia and expel Iraq from Kuwait using Gen. The body of an Iraqi soldier lies in a sandy ditch on the outskirts of Kuwait City on February 27, , after being killed as coalition forces moved in to liberate the city. Somewhere in Iraqi desert, U. S soldiers guard captured Iraqi prisoners of war on February 25, A wounded Ken Kozakiewicz, left, cries after being given the dogtags and learning of the death of a fellow tank crewman, in the bodybag at right, in this February 28, photo.
The widely published photo came to define the Persian Gulf war for many. At right is wounded comrade Michael Santarakis. The soldiers were from the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division.
Residents of Tanuma in the Iraqi province of Basra stand guard over captured Iraqi military personnel in March of A satellite communications antenna destroyed during Operation Desert Storm. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, left, escorts Iraqi Lt. General Sultan Hashim Ahmad, third from left, with other Iraqi military leaders to a tent prior to the start of a meeting to set the terms for a permanent ceasefire.
The meeting took place at an airbase in Safwan, Iraq, on March 3, An Iraqi sits huddled in a barbed wire holding area at a U.
A long line of vehicles, including destroyed Iraqi Army Russian-made T tanks and trucks stand abandoned by fleeing Iraqi troops on the outskirts of Kuwait City, on March 1, , after the Allied troops liberated the capital of Kuwait. A devastated convoy of vehicles on a highway north of Kuwait City is visible in this aerial photo made on March 1, , during the Gulf War. Iraqi forces fleeing the city in every available vehicle were intercepted by allied forces and destroyed.
The bodies of dead Iraqi soldiers hang from a truck abandoned by fleeing Iraqi army on the road in North-Eastern Kuwait, leading to Iraq, on March 11, Several blown-out wells damaged by retreating Iraqi soldiers in Al-Ahmadi oil-field burn on April 1, , in southern Kuwait. Iraqi troops retreating after a seven-month occupation, smashed and torched wells, badly polluting the atmosphere and creating crude oil lakes. In addition, up to eight billion barrels of oil were split into the sea by Iraqi forces damaging marine life and coastal areas up to kilometers miles away.
The effects of Iraqi troops setting fire to the oil wells in Kuwait during February , is captured in this near-vertical photograph of the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf taken on April 7, The black smoke plumes of more than individual oil-well fires are being blown by the wind.
Kuwait City is visible at center-left north is to the right in this rotated image. Geysers of flame and thick, toxic smoke spew forth on March 10, , from just a few of the hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells set afire by fleeing Iraqi troops. Witnesses reported seeing the men being arrested by interior ministry commandos at a market near Baghdad before being driven away.
No one knows with certainty how many people have been killed and wounded in Iraq since the United States invasion. However, we know that between , and , civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the U. The violent deaths of Iraqi civilians have occurred through aerial bombing, shelling, gunshots, suicide attacks, and fires started by bombing.
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