made on the 15th of January 1991.President Bush signed a directive authorizing the use of force. Just after midnight on 16 January, Task Force Normandy, made up with three Pav Low special operations helicopters and nine Apache attack helicopters, engaged their targets inside Iraq. When finished, two early warning radar stations were destroyed. As the task force turned away, one hundred plus Air Force jets passed through a gap in the radar coverage heading for Bagdad. The air campaign was first. Planners expected to achieve five objectives. (1) Isolate the Iraqi regime: (2) gain and maintain air superiority: (3) destroy Nuclear, Biological and Chemical capabilities; (4) eliminate Iraq’s offensive capabilities; (5) render the Iraq army in Kuwait ineffective (Bay 229). After more than 180 days of Naval and air operations, the ground offensive began.The ground war objectives were to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait, destroy the Republican Guard in the Kuwait Theater of operations (KTO), and restore the legitimate government to Kuwait. By the morning of February 28, 1991, the Iraqi army in the KTO was routed and incapable of coordinated resistance. In the 100 hours of ground combat, the fourth largest army in the world was shattered. The United States approach to military strategy against Iraq was composed of (1) political pressure through the United Nations; (2) economic pressure through an embargo; (3) military pressure by deploying forces to the Gulf region (Mahnken). Skilled diplomacy and the backing of a series of United Nations resolutions allowed the United States to build a broad-based coalition to oppose Iraq with the objective of ejecting Iraq from Kuwait. Iraq’s military strategy against the coalition was to get into a prolonged attritional ground war. This would produce heavy U.S. casualties. Saddam thought this would split U.S. opinion and force the Untied States to withdrawal. Saddam also believed he cou...
