Referat The Persian Gulf War (1991)

The Persian Gulf War (1991)

a)         Roots

The main cause of the constant hostility between the United States and Iraq seems to be disagreement over the extent of need for United Nations inspections. The US and the UN claim that Iraq is not living up to the terms of the agreement and is continuing to develop WOMDs (Weapons of mass destructions). Iraq denies this and claims that the US is attempting to subvert its national sovereignty and humiliate the country through continued economic sanctions. Periodically, the government of Saddam Hussein attempts to force the UN weapons inspectors out of the country and the US and UN respond with threats and occasional bomb and missile attacks.

Another point of discussion are the "no fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq. Originally designed to protect the rebellious Kurdish minority in the north and the oppressed Shiite minority in the south, these zones are Iraqi airspace in which Iraqi aircraft are not allowed to fly. Gulf Coalition air forces have occasionally enforced these zones by shooting down Iraqi planes and attacking Iraqi defence missile batteries on the ground.

In December 1998 the Iraqi government evicted the UNSCOM inspectors, accusing them of spying for the American CIA. This allegation seems to hold some truth. As a result of the end of Iraqi cooperation with UNSCOM the US and Britain unleashed Operation Desert Fox on Iraq. From December 16^th to 20^th, Allied warplanes and cruise missiles hammered Iraqi targets. Saddam Hussein then declared that Iraq would no longer recognize the validity of the "no fly zones" and would actively contest the Allies for control of all Iraqi airspace. This resulted in nearly continual combat in the skies of Iraq as air-defence missile batteries attempted to shoot down American and British warplanes. In response, Allied forces attacked these missile batteries and occasionally engaged in punishing air strikes on other targets in Iraq.

Another conflict point between the US and Iraq has always been. Since its independence in 1961 Iraq has insisted that Kuwait is an integral part of Iraq. Finally in August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait

b)         The Persian Gulf War

Over the years, the continued conflict between the US and Iraq erupted into violence several times. After the invasion of Kuwait events had been started that in a few short months would result in several thousand Iraqi dead and millions more casualities, a deserted land and massive ecological damage, turmoil through the Arab world, and financial and political reverberations that would shake the global community.

During the Gulf War, the US deliberately conducted bombing raids aimed at the "population". The Bombing of civilian infrastructure such as electicity, water, sanitation and other systems which sustain life, was intended to "degrade the will of the civilian population".

One of the most significant factors of the Gulf War was the speed with which the US-led coalition was able to achieve air supremacy. Iraqi air defences were systematically devastated, many of the targets being attacked again and again. Within a few days it became clear that that Iraqi aircraft were unlikely to engage allied planes in a battle and soon, with the speedy and comprehensive destruction of the multilayered Iraqi anti-aircraft systems, allied aircraft were able to range and bomb at will. What this meant in human terms is hard for distant and comfortable observers to imagine. Tens of thousands of hapless Iraqi conscripts, many of them from groups known to be persecuted by Saddam Hussein, had no choice but to sit in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait until the bombs fell. Here they were forced to suffer napalm, cluster bombs that shred human flesh, air fuel explosives that incinerate some and asphyxiate others, and the carpets of "earthquake" bombs laid down by B52s - all the obscene paraphernalia that in earlier days had killed perhaps three million people in Korea, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The destruction of Iraq's electricity-generating plants, including four of the country's five hydro-electric facilities, was little discussed and never questioned during the war. Pentagon and the Bush Administration officials never publicly offered a justification during the war for attacking and crippling most of Iraq's electrical power system - a destruction which continues to have devastating consequences for the civilian population. As a modern, electricity dependent country, Iraq relied on electrical power for essential services such as water purification and distribution, sewage removal and treatment, the operation of hospitals and medical laboratories, and agricultural production. The report of a UN mission to Iraq in March stated that the allied bombing 'has paralysed the oil and electricity sectors almost entirely. Power output and refineries' production is negligible."

Soon newspaper reports stimulated the discussion as to what might constitue a war crime. Thus the correspondent Denis Knight (The Guardian, 5 March 1991) suggested that the deliberate massacre of thousands of fleeing soldiers might qualify. And what of the specific weapons used? Paul Flynn, British Member of Parliament, cites a report that fuel air explosives were 'designed to produce nuclear-like levels of destruction without arousing popular revulsion'; and comments (The Guardian, 21 June 1991 ) that the 'cluster bombs, daisy cutters and fuel air explosives should not be classed as conventional weapons They are massacre weapons.' Flynn added that the British government had willfully refused to recognise 'the holocaust results of the Gulf War. The most recent estimate is that 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis were killed and 300,000 to 700,000 injured, most of them Shiite and Kurdish conscripts.'

Further reports indicated the extent to which the war had been fought against human beings, rather than simply against tanks and other weaponry. Thus  discussions were provoked by the revelation that the American army had used earthmovers and ploughs mounted on tanks to bury thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive. One attack of this sort resulted in thousands of Iraqi dead and wounded, with not a single American fatality. Colonel Lon Maggart, commander of the US 1st Brigade, estimated that his forces had buried about 650 Iraqi soldiers; and Colonel Anthony Moreno, commander of the 2nd Brigade, commented: 'For all I know, we could have killed thousands. What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people's arms and things sticking out of them'. Such improvised mass graves, to which must be added the bulldozing of thousands of Iraqi corpses at the end of the war, are part of the post-war face of Iraq and Kuwait. And there are many other characteristic features in the former battlefields: the massive remains of beaten armed forces, the inevitable residue of unexploded weapons, and the radioactive waste left in the desert by the allied forces.

It can be assumed that many of the Iraqi casualties were caused by inaccurate bombing: the US forces, while at first applauding the reliability of the 'smart' weapons, later came to admit the massive number of inaccurate targetings. Thus in one US analysis, the computer-navigated Tomahawk cruise missiles just hit their targets in about 50 per cent of the cases. The 'smart' laser-guided bombs launched from the US F-117A Stealth attack jets hit their targets in only about 60 per cent of the missions flown, in contrast to the 90 per cent claimed earlier. In any case, of the 88,500 tons of bombs dropped on Iraq and Kuwait, only 6520 tons were precision-guided, and 70 per cent 'missed their targets'.

At the end of the war, wrecked armament, unexploded mines and other munition, radioactive debris and mass graves littered the Iraqi and Kuwaiti deserts. It was also suspected, though not at that time known for certain, that the American forces had drawn up plans for the launching of chemical and nuclear attacks against Iraq. Thus Major Johan Persson, a liaison officer at a Swedish army field hospital, declared in interviews in Stockholm that he had seen official guidelines about the use of nuclear and chemical weapons in certain circumstances. Major Persson: 'There was such an order. I saw it. I had it in my hands. It was the real thing.' When US Secretary of State James Baker met the Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz on 9 January 1991, days before the start of the US-led bombing of Iraq, Baker declared: 'We know that you have a vast stock of chemical weapons Our sincere advice to you is not to even think of using them. If you do, or if we feel that you did, then our reply will be unrestrained. I hope I am understood well.' The authoritative commentator Mohamed Heikal noted Aziz's understanding 'that Baker was hinting at the use of nuclear weapons'.

c)         Results

The consequences of the Gulf War are still to be felt today. Since 1991 there have been air strikes on Iraq. No longer anybody in Iraq can feel safe. Whenever the US fears that Saddam Hussein is going to build WOMDs, which of course should not happen, they are attacking with the same weapons that they want to destroy.

After Vietnam the Persian Gulf War was good cure for the American self-confidence. Now again they feel mighty and powerful, and now again they want to take over the role as the "world police" that they have had for so long. It doesn't matter that they killed thousands of innocent people, without even losing one single airplane - as long as they feel alright, and if they don't, they can attack once more.

Especially in recent times this crisis got acute again by several threats of G. W. Bush jun., which ended in a declaration of Sadam Hussein that he would, for his country's sake, resign if the US attacked again.