25 Years ago – 16th January 1991 – Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait
Twenty-five years ago, former President George H.W. Bush took to the airwaves to announce the launch of what is now known as Operation Desert Storm.
US-led military operation to drive Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait. “Just two hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait,” Bush said on the evening of January 16, 1991. “These attacks continue as I speak.” For five weeks, coalition forces bombarded Iraqi positions from the air and sea. When a ground invasion followed in February, it took only 100 hours to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
Operation Desert Storm marked a shift in how Americans experience combat when the US military deploys in far-flung countries.
For the first time, the beginning of a conflict played out on live TV, and viewers could “watch the war” from the comfort of home as it unfolded.
It was billed as a smashing success: an “accurate” bombing campaign, followed up by a swift, four-day ground assault that led to Iraq’s expulsion from Kuwait and a ceasefire.
Then again, how does one define success in Iraq? Coalition losses reached the hundreds, while Iraqi troop deaths reached into the tens of thousands, and another 2,000-plus civilians were killed.
The anniversary of Operation Desert Storm is a reminder of the unfinished history of the United States at war in Iraq. After all, here we are 25 years later, still dropping bombs there.
Kuwait News
- Events in Kuwait
- ‘Child porno’ gang, network run from Kuwait
- Shahrukh Khan in Kuwait
- Husband and wife in Daesh case
- Expat arrested in Fahaheel for selling drugs to students
- Plans to provide food to homes to deserving people
- Leave the Kuwait without paying fees and come back on new visa
- Residence renewal would be online by filling online forms
- Nurse assaulted at Farwaniya hospital
- New Al Kout Mall , Fahaheel
- 2 Romanian Prostitutes caught in Salmiya
- Story of a billboard triggered a political war
- Iraqi man and 2 Kuwaiti women arrested
- Seyassah and Arab Times stands by scoop on ‘scabies’
- Egyptian child died and he surrendered
- Court sentences man to ‘death’
- Kuwait exposed to 5,000 cyber crimes a year
- Fines from KD 100 to KD 300
- 9 years old boy raped by 5 persons
- Egyptian couple may be deported for a phone call
- 6 days to register for amnesty
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