Egypt Joins the Gulf War Coalition
A coalition of thirty-five states drove Iraq out of Kuwait in early 1991 in a war that lasted six weeks. Saddam Hussein had invaded on 2 August 1990 with grievances that were partly real — Kuwait was drilling into a shared oilfield, exceeding OPEC quotas and depressing prices, and demanding repayment of loans made during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran — and he annexed it as the nineteenth province. The response was assembled at the United Nations with unusual ease, because the Cold War had just ended and the Soviet Union did not veto. Resolution 678 authorised all necessary means if Iraq had not withdrawn by 15 January 1991. Something over 900,000 troops were assembled in Saudi Arabia, about 700,000 of them American, with Britain, France, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia among the significant contributors, and Japan and Germany paying rather than deploying. The air campaign ran for five weeks and destroyed the command system, the air defences and much of the army in the field. The ground war lasted a hundred hours. American armour swung far west through the desert and cut the Iraqi army off from behind while it faced the expected frontal attack from the south. Iraqi deaths are estimated in the tens of thousands; the coalition lost under 300. George H. W. Bush stopped at the border rather than take Baghdad, on the reasoning that the mandate covered Kuwait and that occupying Iraq would break the coalition. Shia and Kurdish risings encouraged from outside were then crushed.
- Year: 1991 CE
- Category: War
