Future of Iraq - After Saddam: Early Bird

Future of Iraq - After Saddam
The object in war is a better state of peace.... Hence it is essential to conduct war with
constant regard to the peace you desire.
-- B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach
 Bush, Blair Say Iraq's Future Belongs to Iraqis Themselves, State Dept report 8 Apr 03
"We support the aspirations of all of Iraq's people for a united, representative government
that upholds human rights and the rule of law as cornerstones of democracy," they said.
They added that "As early as possible, we support the formation of an Iraqi Interim
Authority, a transitional administration, run by Iraqis, until a permanent government is
established by the people of Iraq."
 Early Bird, selected news articles, accessible for DoD personnel

 News Sampling - World ... AP ... Reuters ...
o Media o BBC o Kuwait
worldwide, by country o BBC - Iraq News Agency
o Arab View Conflict o The Moscow
opinion pieces o BBC - Times
o Iraq Daily military fact files o The
o Baghdad o Times Palestine Chronicle
Bulletin Online, UK o Pravda
o Al-Ahram, o China Daily o Gulf Times,
Egypt - World News Qatar
o Al-Jazeera TV, o Dawn o Reuters raw
Qatar (Arabic) (Pakistan newspaper) video feed
o Al-Jazeera TV, o Gulf News o The Straits
Qatar (English) Online Times, Singapore
o Aljazeera.com, o International o Syria Daily
Qatar (English) Herald Tribune o The Times
o Arab News, o Islamic of India
Saudi Arabia Republic News
o The Australian Agency (IRNA), Iran o Uzbekistan
o Jerusalem Info Directory
Post
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Key UN Security Council resolutions

 Chronology by Iraq violations of UN resolutions, posted by the State Department
 Chronology by Iraq Nuclear Verification Office (INVO), IAEA -- includes links to UN
Security Council resolutions and summaries of resolutions and reports from and about
inspections
 Security Council Resolution 1441, 8 Nov 2002, passed 15-0
"... resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means
to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all
relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 ..."
"... resolution 687 (1991) imposed obligations on Iraq as a necessary step for
achievement of its stated objective of restoring international peace and security
in the area, ... "
"... Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure, as
required by resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop
weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one
hundred and fifty kilometers, and of all holdings of such weapons, their
components and production facilities and locations, as well as all other nuclear
programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to
nuclear-weapons-usable material, ... "
"... the Government of Iraq has failed to comply with its commitments pursuant to
resolution 687 (1991) with regard to terrorism, pursuant to resolution 688 (1991)
to end repression of its civilian population and to provide access by international
humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in Iraq, ... "
"... in its resolution 687 (1991) the Council declared that a ceasefire would be
based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution, including the
obligations on Iraq contained therein, ... "
"... Iraq has been and remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant
resolutions, including resolution 687 ... "
 Security Council Resolution 1205, 5 November 1998
demands Iraq rescind its decision to not cooperate
 Security Council Resolution 1194, 9 September 1998
demands Iraq rescind its decision to not cooperate
 Security Council Resolution 1134, 23 October 1997
"demands ... the Government of Iraq allow the Special Commission inspection
teams immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access"
 Security Council Resolution 1115, 21 June 1997
 Security Council Resolution 1060, 12 June 1996

 Security Council Resolution 707, 15 August 1991
"Condemns Iraq's serious violation of a number of its obligations under section C

of resolution 687 (1991) and of its undertakings to cooperate with the Special
Commission and the IAEA, which constitutes a material breach of the relevant
provisions of resolution 687 which established a cease-fire and provided the
conditions essential to the restoration of peace and security in the region"
 Security Council Resolution 688, 5 April 1991
"Condemns the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq,
including most recently in Kurdish populated areas, the consequences of which
threaten international peace and security in the region"
"Demands that Iraq, as a contribution to remove the threat to international peace

and security in the region, immediately end this repression and express the hope
in the same context that an open dialogue will take place to ensure that the
human and political rights of all Iraqi citizens are respected"
"Insists that Iraq allow immediate access by international humanitarian

organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq and to make
available all necessary facilities for their operations"
 Security Council Resolution 687, 3 April 1991
establishes conditions for a formal cease-fire
 Security Council Resolution 678, 29 November 1990
"Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless

Iraq on or before 15 January 1991 fully implements, as set forth in paragraph 1
above, the foregoing resolutions, to use all necessary means to uphold and
implement resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions and to
restore international peace and security in the area"
condemns Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and calls for Iraq to withdraw
"Deeply dismayed by the missions' conclusions that there had been continued
use of chemical weapons in the conflict between Iran and Iraq and that such use
against Iranians had become more intense and frequent"
"Condemns resolutely the use of chemical weapons in the conflict between Iran
and Iraq, in violation of obligations under the Protocol for the Prohibition of the
Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological
Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva on 17 June 1925, and in defiance of its
resolution 612 (1988)"
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CRS Reports
 Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports
o RL32370 - The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA): Origin, Characteristics, and
Institutional Authorities
o RS21546 - Iraq Reconstruction Resources: Fact Sheet
o RS21578 - Iraq: Summary of U.S. Casualties
o RS21626 - Iraq Oil: Reserves, Production, and Potential Revenues
o RL32395 - U.S. Treatment of Prisoners in Iraq: Selected Legal Issues
o RS21529 - Al Qaeda after the Iraq Conflict
o Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors, 2002
o IB92117 - Iraq: Weapons Programs, U.N. Requirements, and U.S. Policy
o IB94049 - Iraq: Former and Recent Military Confrontations With the United States
o RL30472 - Iraq: Oil-For-Food Program, International Sanctions, and Illicit Trade
o RL31339 - Iraq: U.S. Regime Change Efforts and Post-Saddam Governance
o RL31607 - Iraq: Differing Views in the Domestic Policy Debate
o RL31641 - Iraqi Challenges and U.S. Responses: March 1991 through October
2002
o RL31671 - Iraq: U.N. Inspections for Weapons of Mass Destruction
o RL31701 - Iraq: U.S. Military Operations
o RL31715 - Iraq War: Background and Issues Overview
o RL31766 - Iraq: United Nations and Humanitarian Aid Organizations
o RL31833 - Iraq: Recent Developments in Reconstruction Assistance
o RL31946 - Iraq War: Defense Program Implications for Congress
o RS21323 - The United Nations Security Council - Its Role in the Iraq Crisis: A
Brief Overview
o RS21324 - Iraq: A Compilation of Legislation Enacted and Resolutions Adopted
by Congress, 1990-2003
o RS21325 - Iraq: Divergent Views on Military Action
o RS21336 - Iraq: The Turkish Factor
o RS21376 - Iraq: Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Capable Missiles and
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
o RS21396 - Iraq: Map Sources
o RS21654 - Islamic Religious Schools, Madrasas: Background
o RL31533 - The Persian Gulf: Issues for U.S. Policy, 2003
o 98-114 - Iraq: International Support For U.S. Policy , Feb 1998
o 98-120 - Iraq Crisis: U.S. and Allied Forces, Sep 1998
o 98-129 - Iraqi Chemical & Biological Weapons (CBW) Capabilities , Feb 1998
o 98-179 - Iraq’s Opposition Movements
o 98-393F - Iraq: U.S. Policy Options, Dec 1998
Other Reports & Resources

 Saddam's Security and Intelligence Network
o Iraqi Security Apparatus - Wiring Diagram
 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
(even if you disagree with conclusions, following reports at least bring up a good range of
issues and sources for further research)
o Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East
- Regional Trends, National Forces, Warfighting Capabilities, Delivery Options,
and Weapons Effects
o If We Fight Iraq - Iraq and The Conventional Military Balance
o If We Fight Iraq - Iraq and Its Weapons of Mass Destruction
o Iraq - A Dynamic Net Assessment - draft of document being prepared for Naval
War College
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Operation Iraqi Freedom: airmen fight to help end the regime of Saddam
Hussein
Airman, May, 2003 by Chuck Master Sgt. Roberts
Find More Results for: "air war in operation iraqi freedom "
The transformation of...
Operation Iraqi...
AIR AND MISSILE...
Capturing the lessons...
Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Future of the U.S. Military
Iraq Memo #17, June 19, 2003
Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies
The Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) validate a new theory of warfare in which Special
Forces, high technology, and creative war plans will replace America's traditional assets
of firepower, maneuver, and brute strength.
However, what is most striking about the recent war to overthrow Saddam is just how much
traditional combat capabilities still mattered. Yes, Special Forces and modern air power were
important, but so were Abrams tanks, 5-ton supply trucks, rifle-wielding soldiers and marines,
and old-fashioned infantry combat skills. When U.S. forces met the Republican Guard's Madinah
Munawrah Armored and Baghdad Infantry divisions south of the Iraqi capital in the decisive
battle of the war, they did so with numerical superiority, dominant air support, and tremendous
firepower. The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have essentially been won with the military
the Bush administration inherited from Bill Clinton, the first President Bush, and Ronald Reagan
—a force constantly but gradually modernized—not with a reinvented force built by proponents of
defense revolution. As such, those who would jettison the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force
in favor of a Rumsfeld doctrine of stealth, surprise, finesse, and small coalitions of the willing
should temper their views.
All defense strategists know not to assume that the next war will be like the last one, or to over-
learn the lessons of one conflict in anticipation of subsequent military operations. That said, wars
are hugely informative events for the discipline of military analysis, and must be mined fully for
information and insights whenever they occur. In addition, this particular war is reshaping the
basic strategic context of the Persian Gulf region. In particular, it raises questions about the U.S.
two-war requirement, which has formed the basis for force planning for over a decade, and about
the normal overseas deployments of American forces. For these reasons, it is appropriate to
review the war's basic lessons and then suggest preliminary thoughts on their significance for
future American defense planning. On balance, they argue for a less radical realignment of the
U.S. military than observers have often alleged in the war's immediate aftermath. But changes do
not have to be radical to be important, or difficult to get right.
THE FOUR-WEEK WAR AGAINST SADDAM
American, British, and Australian forces accomplished a remarkable feat between March 19 and
April 9, the rough boundaries of the main combat phase of military operations in Iraq. They
defeated a 400,000-man military, overthrew a dictator, and successfully prosecuted major urban
combat operations while suffering fewer than 200 combat deaths—even smaller coalition losses
than in Operation Desert Storm a decade ago. Although American-led forces were poorly
prepared for the initial demands of stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq, that was more a reflection of
poor planning at the Pentagon and CENTCOM than of any inherent lack of capacity on the part of
the deployed troops.
What was responsible for this remarkable battlefield success? In particular, were Vice President
Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers right when they claimed that the strategy
devised by General Tommy Franks and his colleagues at CENTCOM was brilliant? Will war
colleges around the world be teaching it to their students decades from now? Or will the conflict
tend to be seen primarily as a case of overwhelming military capability prevailing over a mediocre
army from a mid-sized developing country?
Whether the war's concept deserves to be called "brilliant," as some claimed during and right after
the war, is debatable. On balance, U.S. military performance was so good and military supremacy
so overwhelming that the American-led coalition probably could have won this war without a
brilliant, or even a very good, war plan. That said, there were major elements of military creativity
in the Iraq campaign as well as some that were not new at all.
Consider several key elements:
 Shock and awe. This was of course the bumper sticker for how the war would begin, well
advertised weeks in advance. But the idea was not so new. Selectively hitting military
targets while sparing civilian infrastructure is an idea that builds on the U.S. experience
in Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Desert Storm. Avoiding attacks against regular Iraqi military
units was smart, but it was well known that these forces were much less loyal to Saddam
than were the Special Republican Guard, Republican Guard, and Fedayeen units. Striking
hard in a war's early hours is a strategy that air-power proponents have counseled for
decades. In the end, the shock-and-awe concept was not really followed because plans
apparently changed with the attempt to kill Saddam on March 19. Given the degree to
which Iraqi forces had become accustomed to coalition bombing in the preceding decade,
there probably would not have been much shock or awe in any case, however.
 Special operations raids. These were more impressive than the early air campaign.
Dozens of small special operations teams disrupted Iraqi command and control, seized oil
infrastructure, prevented dams from being demolished, and took hold of airfields in
regions where Scud missiles might have been launched at Israel. Special operations and
intelligence units also appear to have disrupted Iraqi lines of communication in Baghdad
and elsewhere, perhaps hastening the collapse of Iraqi forces once the urban fights began.
These operations were brave, creative, and effective. They also prevented some nightmare
scenarios.
 Bypassing southeastern cities while rushing to Baghdad. In the war's first 10 days, it was
not clear that coalition ground forces could sufficiently protect their flanks in areas that
they preferred not to seize. The ensuing debate was somewhat overblown; in a worst case,
coalition forces could have waited a couple of weeks for other units to arrive with little
harm done to the broader strategy. Regardless, this approach, which placed a premium
on speed and deep penetration, was hardly new. Hitler's generals did not make pit stops
in Strasbourg or Luxembourg or northeastern France; they drove straight for the French
coast to cut off the French army, and then for Paris.
 Striking Iraqi forces with a powerful preparatory air bombardment. The combination
of GPS-guided all-weather bombs, better all-weather sensors such as JSTARS aircraft
flying well within Iraqi airspace, and real-time joint communications networks denied
Iraqi forces any sanctuary. Even if the Iraqis tried to move during sandstorms, or at night,
coalition forces could see and strike them. In addition, due to the rapid movements of
coalition ground forces, any Iraqi redeployments had to happen quickly if they were to
help frontline forces under attack. That made it more likely they would move in large
formations on roadways. They were badly hurt as a result. Again, this was textbook
doctrine, applied with devastating effectiveness, rather than brilliant generalship.
 Decimating combined-arms attacks against the Republican Guard. In addition to the
above combat dynamics, coalition forces were remarkably effective when air and ground
units worked together. By the last days of March and early days of April, U.S. forces were
mauling Republican Guard forces deployed outside of Baghdad. Saddam made a major
mistake in keeping them there, perhaps out of fear that they would turn against him if
allowed into Baghdad or perhaps out of overconfidence that they could hide in the
complex terrain of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. The coalition did employ some tactics—
such as the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division's "bump and run" move to outflank part of
the Madinah Division near Karbala—but what won that fight was a devastating display of
combined-arms warfare. It built on a decades-old concept with dramatically improved
technology that was acquired and integrated into American military doctrine and tactics
during the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton years. It was less brilliance than sheer dominance.
 The fights for Baghdad and Basra. Here, there was some genuine cleverness and
creativity. To try to seize the cities quickly probably would have produced high casualties
on all sides. By contrast, to wait patiently for the 4th Mechanized Infantry Division and
other reinforcements would have given Saddam's forces confidence as well as time to
regroup and devise new tactics. So the middle ground—using increasingly assertive
"reconnaissance in force" operations to gain information, disrupt Saddam's forces,
embolden the Iraqi population to resist, and engage selectively in firefights against elite
Iraqi forces—was just right.
On balance, the main pillars of the coalition's success in Iraq—new technology and traditional
skills—provided a remarkable pair of capabilities. In terms of equipment, of particular note were
the all-weather reconnaissance systems, all-weather bombs, and modern communications
networks developed in the last decade. (This was during a period when, ironically, advocates of
defense revolution were often frustrated at the pace of change in the U.S. armed forces.) In
addition, one is struck by the competence of American and British troops and their commanders,
and the excellence of their doctrine and training. Indeed, old-fashioned tanks performed
extremely well, and urban combat operations were executed magnificently.
A NEW MODEL ARMY?
According to various press pieces, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is now determined to
make the radical changes in the U.S. military he desired two years ago, but was not able to effect.
Now coming off two successful wars, Rumsefeld is viewed as one of the most influential cabinet
secretaries since Kissinger. Perhaps the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force, including use of
large land armies to win wars, will soon be replaced by a new Rumsfeld doctrine emphasizing
high technology, special operations units, and sheer brainpower to defeat future foes. Yet such a
radical change seems less likely or desirable than many have been inclined to assert in the
immediate aftermath of the war.
The moment seems ripe for big ideas and big innovations. For a decade, U.S. military forces have
been sized and shaped primarily around the possibility of fighting two major regional wars at
once. In principle, those wars could have been anywhere. In practice, everyone knew we were
thinking mostly about Kim's North Korea and Saddam's Iraq. With one of those foes now gone,
the old foundation for force planning has been partly demolished. The logic of a two-war
capability remains compelling for the United States. But the question of which two wars, and
which other military missions the country must conduct, is now open to speculation and debate.
Those who would articulate a new Rumsfeld doctrine propose several clear guidelines. Nation
building and peacekeeping are out—at least in principle (though in fact, Rumsfeld's approach to
alliance and coalition management has left the U.S. Army with the lion's share of the burden of
peacekeeping and nation building in Iraq). Possible preemptive attacks against Syria, Iran, and
North Korea are in. Long-term great-power competition against China is likely. Future warfare
will be characterized more by space, missile, naval, and air-power operations than the ground
armies of old.
But there are a number of practical constraints on how far this thinking can go—and as the man
actually responsible for America's defenses, Rumsfeld is more likely to recognize these constraints
than are many defense visionaries. To begin, the Iraq war did not only validate air power and
small forces, but also reaffirmed the importance of a rather large invasion army. Our quarter-
million-strong force was just as big relative to Iraq's military of 2003 as the Desert Storm force
was relative to Iraq's military of 1991. The Powell doctrine may have to be modified with a
Rumsfeld corollary, but it does not appear dead.
Looking to the future, the commitment in Iraq alone could plausibly consume at least two U.S.
divisions for one to five years, unless coalition partners provide much more help than now seems
likely. Afghanistan continues to tie up well over a brigade, as do operations in the Balkans from
which Rumsfeld has not been able to extricate American troops despite his best efforts. Other
small missions remain possible in the context of the war on terror. War in Korea remains a worry
as well, with the potential need for six to eight U.S. combat divisions. These real missions and
plausible combat scenarios require at least 10 ready divisions (the current U.S. military has 13
active divisions, 10 in the Army and 3 in the Marine Corps). In fact, to maintain two divisions in
Iraq for several years will require roughly all the ground forces the United States now possesses
simply due to demands for troop rotations.
Then there are the unknowns. For example, might the United States and its allies someday be
asked by a failing Pakistani government to help it restore stability before civil war led to the
country's breakup—and a potential loss of security over its nuclear arsenal? That mission would
not be nation building; it would be protecting vital U.S. national security interests. Or might a
major stabilization effort involving substantial U.S. participation be needed anywhere from
Kashmir to Congo to Indonesia?
Overall, Rumsfeld may change the U.S. military in modest ways, but a true revolution seems
unlikely. In particular, he may indeed make a modest reduction in the size and budget of the
Army, using the freed funds for more space and missile defense technology, air power, and special
forces. However, the argument for making changes of more than roughly 5 percent in basic
budget allocations and force strengths is not strong.
The same conclusion applies to the specific new weapons Rumsfeld is likely to purchase. During
the last presidential campaign, then-Governor Bush advocated "skipping a generation" of
weaponry in order to hasten the arrival of a new era in which capabilities such as unmanned
aircraft and submarines, stealthy bombers and ships, and space weapons would predominate. The
likely losers were thought to be short-range combat aircraft, many Army weapons systems, large
surface ships, and other "legacy" weapons that reflected gradual improvements of traditional
capabilities more than bold new technology.
But, as noted, traditional weaponry performed brilliantly in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as did
soldiers and marines using old-fashioned skills of armored maneuver and urban warfare against
the Iraqi military. It was not a war won entirely, or even mostly, with shock and awe. Second, it
may be harder to use Special Forces in other possible wars. Coalition aircraft had mapped Iraq in
detail for a dozen years, enabling surgical deployment of small teams of Americans to places
where they could produce the best effects with the least risk to themselves.
In addition, canceling weapons is harder than it looks. After two years in office, among dozens of
large weapons programs, Rumsfeld has only canceled the Army's Crusader artillery system—and
reportedly at least in part at the behest of President Bush, who wanted to make good on a
campaign pledge. And it is not just about politics. Most of these weapons have good military
arguments in their favor. Some are probably not needed, but it is never trivial to figure out which
to cancel. For example, the F-22 may not be needed in the quantities the Air Force desires. But
given the spread of advanced surface-to-air missiles and given the possibility of a more advanced
threat from a country like China over the next decade or two, some such aircraft are a wise
investment at this point. Similarly, the joint strike fighter may not be needed in the enormous
quantities now planned (almost 3,000 planes between the Air Force, Navy, and Marines). But
several hundred of these advanced attack aircraft are a sensible investment—and we will need to
buy or refurbish other aircraft to make up for any joint strike fighters not purchased given the
aging of aircraft such as the F-16, AV-8B Harrier, and F-18.
Finally, today's U.S. weapons modernization budget already contains substantial funds for new
ideas and concepts. Missile defenses, unmanned aerial vehicles, space communications systems,
submarines converted to cruise missile carriers, unmanned underwater vehicles, and general
research and experimentation budgets are among the beneficiaries of increased funding. After
September 11, the annual defense budget went up a great deal—after being just over $300 billion
at the beginning of Bush's presidency, it now totals about $400 billion (not even counting the
costs of the recent war) and is expected to reach $500 billion by the end of the decade. Less than
half that overall increase can be explained by the combined effects of inflation and the war on
terror. In such an environment, provided that managers are careful, there is no pressing logic to
severely slash Army forces or traditional weaponry to rush a defense transformation process that
most cannot even clearly define at this point anyway.
What about American global military presence? Rumsfeld wants to reconsider the locations and
roles of the other 250,000 U.S. forces based or deployed overseas from Germany to Korea. And
deployments will clearly change in the Persian Gulf over time, beginning with reductions in troop
strength in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Rumsfeld's plan for reshaping America's global military footprint is radical, creative, and
generally smart. Take the example of Korea. U.S. forces there will remain in their current strength
(37,000 overall, of which about 27,000 are US Army), but move southward on the peninsula. This
move will be made in recognition of South Korea's greater capabilities to thwart any North
Korean invasion attempt and in anticipation of the allied counteroffensive that would quickly
follow any such surprise attack. In fact, such a move better positions the more advanced
American force to initiate a major counterattack. Adding access in southeast and central Asia
makes sense too, as does getting most American forces out of Saudi Arabia now that the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein is gone.
Or take the U.S. presence in Europe. Why does the United States still have 70,000 troops in
heavily urbanized Germany, 55,000 of them Army soldiers, far from any combat zone? Largely
because, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was easier to shrink the huge U.S. military presence in
Germany than to rethink our basic role in Europe.
Rather than keep most of two of the U.S. Army's six heavy divisions in Germany, far from any
plausible combat theater, there is a good argument that the United States should go smaller,
lighter, and quicker. As General James L. Jones, NATO's top commander, suggests, bases in
Europe should be viewed as "lily pads" for regional and global deployments.
This might mean eventually building the future U.S. presence in Germany around one of the
Army's new medium-weight "Stryker brigades" (units that depend on advanced electronics and
communications systems, and that are neither as heavy and unwieldy as Abrams-tank formations
nor as vulnerable as current light forces). The United States might also station an equivalent-sized
Marine formation there. Having such lighter and more deployable forces is consistent with the
likely security requirements around Europe's periphery, and would help the United States set a
good example of moving to more expeditionary military capabilities for its NATO allies to
emulate. And perhaps another unit might be placed in a new NATO member such as Poland,
Romania, or Bulgaria. With the Balkan wars over, the case for doing this is stronger than ever.
Such a smaller, more mobile force would also face fewer problems training than it does now in
heavily populated Germany.
There is a caveat, however. Adding more places where the Army would have to send troops on
unescorted, temporary deployments is exactly what an overworked service does not need right
now. Unless the U.S. Marine Corps and American allies help with stabilization efforts in Iraq
more than now expected, or unless the mission proves much easier than historical precedent
would suggest, the Army might be better served to go slowly. It might also look for places to allow
troops to bring their families, and settle in for two or three years, on the territories of some of the
new NATO members.
In any event, expect Rumsfeld to make some of these kinds of changes while the Iraq situation
remains in flux. The latter provides good cover for certain changes that are sensible anyway, but
always difficult to carry out for political reasons—such as those in Korea and Germany. It helps to
be able to tell several allies at once that we are rethinking our entire global military basing
concept and network. Otherwise, any one ally might misread a decision to move forces on its
territory, assuming that Washington is sending it political messages when in fact it is military
efficiency and strategic flexibility that are really driving American decision making.
Transformative Military Plan Vindicated in Iraq

By Steven Nider
Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in The Hill.
The swift three-week victory in Iraq was a vindication of a vision of military

transformation that began with pioneers like former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff William Owens, was picked up and championed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-
Conn.) and former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), and is now being taken up by Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. What we witnessed was a new kind of warfare based on
lightning speed, precise targeting, total information dominance and the adaptability and
flexibility to react quickly to changing realities on the ground.
Operation Iraqi Freedom took half as many ground troops and two-thirds the number of
attack planes as the 1991 Gulf War to accomplish a much more difficult task. In less than
three weeks, U.S. forces were able to remove Saddam Hussein from power, achieve
complete air superiority, seize the ports, secure nearly all the oilfields and prevent Iraqi
forces from setting them ablaze f all without destroying religious sites or critical
infrastructure.
The Gulf War of 1991 was really two wars -- air and ground -- each fought separately
and in sequence. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a more integrated war, waged
simultaneously by ground, sea and air. Desert Storm began with a 38-day air campaign,
followed by a brief ground attack. Surprisingly, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the ground
war began before the air war.
In 1991, Saddam Hussein had time to set Kuwait's oil fields ablaze. In the current
conflict, Special Forces seized hundreds of oil wells and pumping facilities in southern
Iraq before Iraqi forces could blow them up. During Operation Desert Storm, Hussein
managed to fire Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia. This time, special operations
forces seized control of most of the missile launch baskets in western Iraq, preventing
their use.
Despite the daring battle plan and a force of more than a quarter-million troops, coalition
forces suffered fewer casualties than in the entire course of Desert Storm. Accidental
deaths were reduced by 75 percent. Although the Iraqi people clearly suffered, improved
intelligence and much more precise weaponry helped reduce the number of civilian
casualties.
A growing inventory of new precision-guided weapons allowed U.S. airpower to destroy

more targets with fewer aircraft sorties. As many as 70 percent of all munitions dropped
on Iraq were precision-guided bombs, compared to 7 percent during Desert Storm. Using
the newest generation of guided bombs, called joint direct-attack munitions (JDAM), it
was possible to continue precision bombing through sandstorms in the early days of the
war. Each bomb is so accurate that a single aircraft can use its payload for multiple
targets, requiring fewer sorties.
The ability to closely link and share intelligence and reconnaissance through an effective
command-and-control structure gave U.S. forces the ability to operate with enormous
speed and unprecedented flexibility in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Computers installed in U.S. tanks, personnel carriers and other vehicles displayed
updated digital battlefield maps showing the location of friendly and enemy forces and
provided intelligence updates from commanders. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) such as the Predator and Global Hawk, high-flying Joint Surveillance Target
Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft and other reconnaissance assets enabled
U.S. forces to use combat aircraft in urban close air support in ways no air force has ever
been able to before. Troops on the ground could call in fire from above in minutes.
During Desert Storm, it usually took up to two days for target planners to get a photo of a
target, confirm its coordinates, plan the mission and deliver it to the bomber crew.
America's edge in information technology gave the U.S. military an unprecedented view
of the battlefield. The military's sensors, weapons, communications systems, commanders
and soldiers were linked in a giant computing grid that gave troops the clearest picture of
the battlefield that soldiers have ever known.
The increased inclusion of special operations forces, which were not used much in Desert
Storm, was a key element in this campaign's success. Building on their success in the war
in Afghanistan, those forces were central. From the beginning they mounted sneak
attacks on targets inside Baghdad, collaborated with Kurdish forces that control northern
Iraq and advanced Army and Marine divisions from Kuwait to Baghdad, scouting targets
and transmitting their positions to air commanders back at headquarters.
The United States should accelerate the transformation it has pioneered. With the world's
most powerful industrial-age military, we have a buffer of capability that allows us the
freedom to change. Even with an accelerated transformation, we could easily sustain and
support enough old-era tactics to deal with any conceivable military challenge that might
emerge during the transition. And, as the war in Iraq has shown, transformation brings
more capability, not less. It might mean somewhat higher defense budgets in the near
future to kick the defense establishment into a higher transformational gear. But once
acceleration began, savings would emerge that are inherent in transforming a massive,
slow-moving institution designed for attrition warfare into a smaller, faster, more agile
force designed for quicker, decisive warfare -- as we saw in Iraq.
Transformative military plan vindicated in Iraq
By Steven J. Nider
The swift three-week victory in Iraq was a vindication of a vision of military

transformation that began with pioneers like former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff William Owens, was picked up and championed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-
Conn.) and former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), and is now being taken up by Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. What we witnessed was a new kind of warfare based on
lightning speed, precise targeting, total information dominance and the adaptability and
flexibility to react quickly to changing realities on the ground.
Operation Iraqi Freedom took half as many ground troops and two-thirds the number of
attack planes as the 1991 Gulf War to accomplish a much more difficult task. In less than
three weeks, U.S. forces were able to remove Saddam Hussein from power, achieve
complete air superiority, seize the ports, secure nearly all the oilfields and prevent Iraqi
forces from setting them ablaze æ all without destroying religious sites or critical
infrastructure.
The Gulf War of 1991 was really two wars æ air and ground æ each fought separately
and in sequence. Operation Iraqi Freedom was a more integrated war, waged
simultaneously by ground, sea and air. Desert Storm began with a 38-day air campaign,
followed by a brief ground attack. Surprisingly, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the ground
war began before the air war.
In 1991, Saddam Hussein had time to set Kuwait’s oil fields ablaze. In the current
conflict, Special Forces seized hundreds of oil wells and pumping facilities in southern
Iraq before Iraqi forces could blow them up. During Operation Desert Storm, Hussein
managed to fire Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia. This time, special operations
forces seized control of most of the missile launch baskets in western Iraq, preventing
their use.
Despite the daring battle plan and a force of more than a quarter-million troops, coalition
forces suffered fewer casualties than in the entire course of Desert Storm. Accidental
deaths were reduced by 75 percent. Although the Iraqi people clearly suffered, improved
intelligence and much more precise weaponry helped reduce the number of civilian
casualties.
A growing inventory of new precision-guided weapons allowed U.S. airpower to destroy

more targets with fewer aircraft sorties. As many as 70 percent of all munitions dropped
on Iraq were precision-guided bombs, compared to 7 percent during Desert Storm. Using
the newest generation of guided bombs, called joint direct-attack munitions (JDAM), it
was possible to continue precision bombing through sandstorms in the early days of the
war. Each bomb is so accurate that a single aircraft can use its payload for multiple
targets, requiring fewer sorties.
The ability to closely link and share intelligence and reconnaissance through an effective
command-and-control structure gave U.S. forces the ability to operate with enormous
speed and unprecedented flexibility in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Computers installed in U.S. tanks, personnel carriers and other vehicles displayed
updated digital battlefield maps showing the location of friendly and enemy forces and
provided intelligence updates from commanders. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) such as the Predator and Global Hawk, high-flying Joint Surveillance Target
Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) aircraft and other reconnaissance assets enabled
U.S. forces to use combat aircraft in urban close air support in ways no air force has ever
been able to before. Troops on the ground could call in fire from above in minutes.
During Desert Storm, it usually took up to two days for target planners to get a photo of a
target, confirm its coordinates, plan the mission and deliver it to the bomber crew.
America’s edge in information technology gave the U.S. military an unprecedented view
of the battlefield. The military’s sensors, weapons, communications systems,
commanders and soldiers were linked in a giant computing grid that gave troops the
clearest picture of the battlefield that soldiers have ever known.
The increased inclusion of special operations forces, which were not used much in Desert
Storm, was a key element in this campaign’s success. Building on their success in the war
in Afghanistan, those forces were central. From the beginning they mounted sneak
attacks on targets inside Baghdad, collaborated with Kurdish forces that control northern
Iraq and advanced Army and Marine divisions from Kuwait to Baghdad, scouting targets
and transmitting their positions to air commanders back at headquarters.
The United States should accelerate the transformation it has pioneered. With the world’s
most powerful industrial-age military, we have a buffer of capability that allows us the
freedom to change. Even with an accelerated transformation, we could easily sustain and
support enough old-era tactics to deal with any conceivable military challenge that might
emerge during the transition. And, as the war in Iraq has shown, transformation brings
more capability, not less. It might mean somewhat higher defense budgets in the near
future to kick the defense establishment into a higher transformational gear. But once
acceleration began, savings would emerge that are inherent in transforming a massive,
slow-moving institution designed for attrition warfare into a smaller, faster, more agile
force designed for quicker, decisive warfare æ as we saw in Iraq.
Persian Gulf Wars or Gulf Wars, two conflicts involving Iraq and U.S.-led coalitions in
the late 20th and early 21st cent.
The First Persian Gulf War, Jan.–Feb., 1991, was an armed conflict between Iraq and a
coalition of 32 nations including the United States, Britain, Egypt, France, and Saudi
Arabia. It was a result of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990; Iraq then annexed
Kuwait, which it had long claimed. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein declared that the
invasion was a response to overproduction of oil in Kuwait, which had cost Iraq an
estimated $14 billion a year when oil prices fell. Hussein also accused Kuwait of illegally
pumping oil from Iraq's Rumaila oil field.
The UN Security Council called for Iraq to withdraw and subsequently embargoed most
trade with Iraq. On Aug. 7, U.S. troops moved into Saudi Arabia to protect Saudi oil
fields. On Nov. 29, the United Nations set Jan. 15, 1991, as the deadline for a peaceful
withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait. When Saddam Hussein refused to comply,
Operation Desert Storm was launched on Jan. 18, 1991, under the leadership of U.S. Gen.
Norman Schwarzkopf.
The U.S.-led coalition began a massive air war to destroy Iraq's forces and military and
civil infrastructure. Iraq called for terrorist attacks against the coalition and launched
Scud missiles at Israel (in an unsuccessful attempt to widen the war and break up the
coalition) and at Saudi Arabia. The main coalition forces invaded Kuwait and S Iraq on
Feb. 24 and, over the next four days, encircled and defeated the Iraqis and liberated
Kuwait. When U.S. President George H. W. Bush declared a cease-fire on Feb. 28, most
of the Iraqi forces in Kuwait had either surrendered or fled.
Although the war was a decisive military victory for the coalition, Kuwait and Iraq
suffered enormous property damage, and Saddam Hussein was not removed from power.
In fact, Hussein was free to turn his attention to suppressing internal Shiite and Kurd
revolts, which the U.S.-led coalition did not support, in part because of concerns over the
possible breakup of Iraq if the revolts were successful. Coalition peace terms were agreed
to by Iraq, but every effort was made by the Iraqis to frustrate implementation of the
terms, particularly UN weapons inspections.
In 1993 the United States, France, and Britain launched several air and cruise-missile
strikes against Iraq in response to provocations, including an alleged Iraqi plan to
assassinate former President George H. W. Bush. An Iraqi troop buildup near Kuwait in
1994 led the United States to send forces to Kuwait and nearby areas. Continued
resistance to weapons inspections led to bombing raids against Iraq, and trade sanctions
imposed on Iraq remained in place, albeit with an emphasis on military-related goods
until the second Gulf conflict. See also Gulf War Syndrome.
The Second Persian Gulf War, also known as the

Iraq War,
Mar.–Apr., 2003, was a largely U.S.-British invasion of Iraq. In many ways the final,
delayed campaign of the First Persian Gulf War, it arose in part because the Iraqi
government failed to cooperate fully with UN weapons inspections in the years following
the first conflict.
The election of George W. Bush to the U.S. presidency returned to government many
officials from his father's administration who had favored removing Saddam Hussein
from power in the first war. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center
and Pentagon, the United States moved toward a doctrine of first-strike, pre-emptive war
to eliminate threats to national security. As early as Oct., 2001, U.S. Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld publicly suggested that military action against Iraq was possible, and in
November President Bush asked Rumsfeld to undertake a war-plan review. In Jan., 2002,
President Bush accused Iraq. along with North Korea and Iran, as being part of “an axis
of evil,” and with the Taliban forced from power in Afghanistan in early 2002, the
administration's attention turned to Iraq.
Accusing Iraq of failing to abide by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire (by developing and
possessing weapons of mass destruction and by refusing to cooperate with UN weapons
inspections) and of supporting terrorism, the president and other officials suggested that
the “war on terrorism” might be expanded to include Iraq and became more forceful in
their denunciations of Iraq for resisting UN arms inspections, called for “regime change”
in Iraq, and leaked news of military planning for war. President Bush also called on the
United Nations to act forcefully against Iraq or risk becoming “irrelevant.” As a result,
Iraq announced in Sept., 2002, that UN inspectors could return, but Iraqi slowness to
agree on inspection terms and U.S. insistence on stricter conditions for Iraqi compliance
stalled the inspectors' return.
In October, Congress approved the use of force against Iraq, and in November the
Security Council passed a resolution offering Iraq a “final opportunity” to cooperate on
arms inspections. A strict inspections timetable was established, and active Iraqi
compliance insisted on. Inspections resumed in late November. A December declaration
by Iraq that it had no weapons of mass destruction was generally regarded as incomplete
and uninformative, but by Jan., 2003, UN inspectors had found no evidence of forbidden
weapons programs. However, they also indicated that Iraq was not actively cooperating
with their efforts to determine if previously known or suspected weapons had been
destroyed and weapons programs had been ended.
Despite much international opposition, including increasingly rancorous objections from

France, Germany, and Russia, the United States and Britain continued their military
buildup in areas near Iraq, insisting that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.
Turkey, which the allies hoped to use as a base for a northern front in Iraq, refused to
allow use of its territory, but most Anglo-American forces were in place in Kuwait and
other locations by March. After failing to win the explicit UN Security Council approval
desired by Britain (because Britons were otherwise largely opposed to war), President
Bush issued an ultimatum to Iraqi president Hussein on Mar. 17, and two days later the
war began with an air strike against Hussein and the Iraqi leadership. Ground forces
(almost exclusively Anglo-American and significantly smaller than the large international
force assembled in the first war) began invading the following day, surging primarily
toward Baghdad, the southern oil fields, and port facilities; a northern front was opened
by Kurdish and airborne Anglo-American forces late in March.
By mid-April, 2003, Hussein's army and government had collapsed, he himself had
disappeared, and the allies were largely in control of the major Iraqi cities. The allies
gradually turned their attention to the rebuilding of Iraq and the establishment of a new
Iraqi government, but progress toward that end was hampered by lawlessness, especially
in Baghdad, where widespread looting initially had been tolerated by U.S. forces.
On May 1, President Bush declared victory in the war against Iraq. No weapons of mass
destruction, however, were found, leading to charges that U.S. and British leaders had
exaggerated the Iraqi biological and chemical threat in order to justify the war. Hussein
was captured in Dec., 2003. Subsequently, much of the intelligence used to justify the
war was criticized as faulty by U.S. and British investigative bodies, and the U.S.-led
occupation forces struggled into 2005 with Islamic insurgencies that military and civilian
planners had failed to foresee.
Bibliography
For the second conflict, see W. Murray and R. H. Scales, Jr., The Iraq War: A Military
History (2003) and B. Woodward, Plan of Attack (2004).
Persian Gulf War

Combatants
U.S.-led coalition Iraq
Commanders
George H. W. Bush Saddam Hussein
Strength
660,000 ~545,000
Casualties
25,000 - 100,000 dead,
345 dead,
100,000 - 300,000
1,000 wounded
wounded
Name
Main article: Naming the Persian Gulf War
Gulf War and Persian Gulf War are the most common terms for the conflict used within
the Western countries. These names have been used by the overwhelming majority of
popular historians and journalists in the United States. Since "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
on March 22, 2003 and America's subsequent occupation of Iraq, the 1991 conflict is
now often referred to as Gulf War I. The conflict is also known to Americans as
Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and to the British as Operation Granby.
Kuwaitis and most Arab coalition members refer to the conflict as Harb Tahrir al-
Kuwait or "The war of Kuwait Liberation". In Iraq, the war is often colloquially called
Um M'aārak - "The Mother of All Battles".
Causes
Prior to World War I, under the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1913, Kuwait was
considered to be an autonomous caza within Ottoman Iraq. Following the war, Kuwait
fell under British rule who treated Kuwait and Iraq as separate countries known as
emirates. However, Iraqi officials did not accept the legitimacy of Kuwaiti independence
or the authority of the Kuwaiti Emir. Iraq never recognized Kuwait's sovereignty and in
the 1960s, the United Kingdom deployed troops to Kuwait to deter an Iraqi annexation.
Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
During the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, Kuwait was allied with Iraq, largely due to
desiring Iraqi protection from Shi'ite Iran. After the war, Iraq was heavily indebted to
several Arab countries, including a $14 billion debt to Kuwait. Iraq hoped to repay its
debts by raising the price of oil through OPEC oil production cuts, but instead, Kuwait
increased production, lowering prices, in an attempt to leverage a better resolution of
their border dispute. In addition, Iraq began to accuse Kuwait of slant drilling into
neighboring Iraqi oil fields, and furthermore charged that it had performed a collective
service for all Arabs by acting as a buffer against Iran (Persia) and that therefore Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia should negotiate or cancel Iraq's war debts. Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein's primary two-fold justification for the war was a blend of the assertion of
Kuwaiti territory being an Iraqi province arbitrarily cut off by imperialism, with the use
of annexation as retaliation for the "economic warfare" Kuwait had waged through slant
drilling into Iraq's oil supplies while it had been under Iraqi protection.
The war with Iran had also seen the destruction of almost all of Iraq's port facilities on the
Persian Gulf, cutting off Iraq's main trade outlet. Many in Iraq, expecting a resumption of
war with Iran in the future, felt that Iraq's security could only be guaranteed by
controlling more of the Persian Gulf Coast, including more secure ports. Kuwait thus
made a tempting target.
Ideologically, the invasion of Kuwait was justified through calls to Arab nationalism.
Kuwait was described as a natural part of Iraq carved off by British imperialism. The
annexation of Kuwait was described as a step on the way to greater Arab union. Other
reasons were given as well. Hussein presented it as a way to restore the empire of
Babylon in addition to the Arab nationalist rhetoric. The invasion was also closely tied to
other events in the Middle East. The First Intifada by the Palestinians was raging, and
most Arab states, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, were dependent on western
alliances. Saddam thus presented himself as the one Arab statesman willing to stand up to
Israel and the U.S..
Pre-war Iraqi-American Relations
To the Iran-U.S.-Iraqi relations were stable, and Iraq had been chiefly an ally of the
Soviet Union. The U.S. was concerned with Iraq's belligerence toward Israel and
disapproval of moves towards peace with other Arab states. It also condemned Iraqi
support for various Arab and Palestinian militant groups such as Abu Nidal, which led to
its inclusion on the incipient State Department list of states that sponsor terrorism on
December 29, 1979. The U.S. remained officially neutral during the outbreak of
hostilities in the Iran-Iraq War, as it had previously been humiliated by a 444 day long
Iran hostage crisis and expected that Iran was not likely to win. In March 1982, however,
Iran began a successful counteroffensive (Operation Undeniable Victory). In a bid to
open the possibility of relations to Iraq, the country was removed from the list of state
sponsors of terrorism. Ostensibly this was because of improvement in the regime's
record, although former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Noel Koch later
stated, "No one had any doubts about [the Iraqis'] continued involvement in
terrorism...The real reason was to help them succeed in the war against Iran." [2] With
Iran's newfound success in the war and its rebuff of a peace offer in July, arms sales from
other states (most importantly the USSR, France, Egypt, and starting that year, China)
reached a record spike in 1982, but an obstacle remained to any potential U.S.-Iraqi
relationship - Abu Nidal continued to operate with official support in Baghdad. When the
group was expelled to Syria in November 1983, the Reagan administration sent Donald
Rumsfeld as a special envoy to cultivate ties.
Due to fears that revolutionary Iran would defeat Iraq and export its Islamic Revolution
to other Middle Eastern nations, the U.S. began giving aid to Iraq. From 1983 to 1990,
the U.S. government approved around $200 million in arms sales to Iraq, according to the
Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI). [3] These sales amounted to less than 1%
of the total arms sold to Iraq in the relevant period, though the US also sold helicopters
which, although designated for civilian use, were immediately deployed by Iraq in its war
with Iran. [4]
An investigation by the Senate Banking Committee in 1994 determined that the U.S.
Department of Commerce had approved, for the purpose of research, the shipping of dual
use biological agents to Iraq during the mid 1980s, including Bacillus anthracis
(anthrax), later identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological
warfare program, as well as Clostridium botulinum, Histoplasma capsulatum, Brucella
melitensis, and Clostridium perfringens. The Committee report noted that each of these
had been "considered by various nations for use in war." [5] Declassified U.S. government
documents indicate that the U.S. government had confirmed that Iraq was using chemical
weapons "almost daily" during the Iran-Iraq conflict as early as 1983. [6] The chairman of
the Senate committee, Don Riegle, said: “The executive branch of our government
approved 771 different export licences for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think it’s
a devastating record”. [www.sundayherald.com/42647]
Chiefly, the U.S. government provided Iraq with economic aid. Iraq's war with Iran, and
the consequent disruption in its oil export business, had caused the country to enter a
deep debt. U.S. government economic assistance allowed Hussein to continue using
resources for the war which would have otherwise had to have been diverted. Between
1983 and 1990, Iraq received $5 billion in credits from the Commodity Credit
Corporation program run by the Department of Agriculture, beginning at $400 million
per year in 1983 and increasing to over $1 billion per year in 1988 and 1989, finally
coming to an end after another $500 million was granted in 1990. [7] Besides agricultural
credits, the U.S. also provided Hussein with other loans. In 1985 the U.S. Export-Import
Bank extended more than $684 million in credits to Iraq to build an oil pipeline through
Jordan with the construction being undertaken by Californian construction firm Bechtel
Corporation. [8] [9]
Following the war, however, there were moves within the Congress of the United States
to isolate Iraq diplomatically and economically over concerns about human rights
violations, its dramatic military build-up, and hostility to Israel. Specifically, the Senate
in 1988 unanimously passed the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988," which imposed
sanctions on Iraq. The legislation passed. [10]
These moves were disowned by some Congressmen though some U.S. officials, such as
Reagan's head of Policy Planning Staff at the State Dept. and Assistant Secretary for East
Asian Affairs Paul Wolfowitz disagreed with giving support to the Iraqi regime.
The relationship between Iraq and the United States remained unhindered until the day
Iraq invaded Kuwait. On October 2, 1989, President George H.W. Bush signed secret
National Security Directive 26, which begins, "Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security
of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security." [11] With respect to
Iraq, the directive stated, "Normal relations between the United States and Iraq would
serve our longer term interests and promote stability in both the Persian Gulf and the
Middle East."
In late July, 1990, as negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait stalled, Iraq massed troops on
Kuwait's borders and summoned American Ambassador April Glaspie for an
unanticipated meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Two transcripts of that
meeting have been produced, both of them controversial. According to the transcripts,
Saddam outlined his grievances against Kuwait, while promising that he would not
invade Kuwait before one more round of negotiations. In the version published by The
New York Times on September 23, 1990, Glaspie expressed concern over the troop
buildup, but went on to say:
We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement

with Kuwait. I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late '60s. The
instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on
this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has
directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can
solve this problem using any suitable methods via [Chadli] Klibi [then Arab
League General Secretary] or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that
these issues are solved quickly.
Some have interpreted these statements as diplomatic language signalling an American

"green light" for the invasion. Although the State Department did not confirm the
authenticity of these transcripts, U.S. sources say that she had handled everything "by the
book" (in accordance with the US's official neutrality on the Iraq-Kuwait issue) and had
not signaled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein any approval for defying the Arab League's
Jeddah crisis squad, which had conducted the negotiations. Many believe that Saddam's
expectations may have been influenced by a perception that the US was not interested in
the issue, for which the Glaspie transcript is merely an example, and that he may have felt
so in part because of U.S. support for the reunification of Germany, another act that he
considered to be nothing more than the nullification of an artificial, internal border.
Others, such as Kenneth Pollack, believe he had no such illusion, or that he simply
underestimated the extent of American military response.
In November 1989, CIA director William Webster met with the Kuwaiti head of security,
Brigadier Fahd Ahmed Al-Fahd. Subsequent to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Iraq claimed to
have found a memorandum pertaining to their conversation. The Washington Post
reported that Kuwaiti's foreign minister fainted when confronted with this document at an
Arab summit in August. Later, Iraq cited this memorandum as evidence of a CIA-
Kuwaiti plot to destabilize Iraq economically and politically. The CIA and Kuwait have
described the meeting as routine and the memorandum as a forgery. The purported
document reads in part:
We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the
deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country's
government to delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency
gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad cooperation
should be initiated between us on condition that such activities be coordinated at
a high level.
TIME magazine January 28, 1991 cover
Invasion of Kuwait
At the break of dawn on August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops crossed the Kuwaiti border with
armor and infantry, occupying strategic posts throughout the country, including the
Emir's palace. The Kuwaiti Army was quickly overwhelmed, though they bought enough
time for the Kuwaiti Air Force to flee to Saudi Arabia. The heaviest fighting occurred at
the Emir's Palace, where members of the royal guard fought a rear guard action to allow
the royal family time to escape. A cousin of the Emir, who commanded the guard, was
amongst those killed. Iraqi troops looted medical and food supplies, detained thousands
of civilians and took over the media. There were reports of incidents of murder, brutality,
and rape being committed by Iraqi troops against Kuwaiti citizens. However, later
evidence showed that many of these reports were probably exaggerated or false.
However, Iraq detained thousands of Western visitors as hostages and later attempted to
use them as bargaining chips. After a brief puppet government headed by Alaa Hussein
Ali was installed, Iraq annexed Kuwait. Hussein then installed a new Iraqi provincial
governor, describing this as "liberation" from the Kuwaiti Emir; this was largely
dismissed as war propaganda.
Diplomacy
Within hours of the initial invasion, the Kuwaiti and United States of America
delegations requested a meeting of the UN Security Council, which passed Resolution
660, condemning the invasion and demanding a withdrawal of Iraqi troops. On August 3,
the Arab League passed its own resolution condemning the invasion and demanding a
withdrawal of Iraqi troops. The Arab League resolution also called for a solution to the
conflict from within the Arab League, and warned against foreign intervention. On
August 6, the Security Council passed Resolution 661, placing economic sanctions on
Iraq.
The decision by the West to repel the Iraqi invasion had as much to do with preventing an
Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia, a nation of far more importance to the world than Kuwait,
as it did with Kuwait itself. The rapid success of the Iraqi army against Kuwait had
brought Iraq's army within easy striking distance of the Hama oil fields, Saudi Arabia's
most valuable resources. Iraqi control of these fields as well as Kuwait and Iraqi reserves
would have given it a large share of the world's oil supply, second only to Saudi Arabia
itself. The United States, Europe, and Japan in particular saw such a potential monopoly
as dangerous. Saudi Arabia, a geographically large nation with dispersed population
centers would have found it difficult to quickly mobilize to meet the Iraqi division
deployed in Southern Kuwait. Very likely Iraq would have gained control of the Eastern
oil fields but it is heavily debatable whether Iraq could have fought into the Saudi capital
of Riyadh. The Iraqi armoured divisions would face the same difficulties that Saudi
forces were facing in order to defend the Oil fields, namely to transverse large distances
across inhospitable desert. This would have all occurred against the backdrop of intense
bombing by the Saudi Airforce, by far the most modern arm of the Saudi military.
Iraq had a number of grievances with Saudi Arabia. The concern over debts stemming
from the Iran-Iraq war was even greater when applied to Saudi Arabia, which Iraq owed
some 26 billion dollars. The long desert border was also ill-defined. Soon after his victory
over Kuwait, Saddam began verbally attacking the Saudi kingdom. He argued that the
American-supported Kingdom was an illegitimate guardian of holy cities of Mecca and
Medina. Saddam combined the language of the Islamist groups that had recently fought
in Afghanistan with the rhetoric Iran had long used to attack the Saudis.
The addition of Allahu Akbar "God is Great" to the flag of Iraq and images of Saddam
praying in Kuwait were seen as part of a plan to win the support of the Muslim
Brotherhood and detach Islamist Mujahideen from Saudi Arabia. There was further
escalation of such propaganda attacks on Saudi Arabia as western troops poured into the
country.
The battleship USS Wisconsin was one of several naval vessels deployed for Operation
Desert Shield.
President George H. W. Bush quickly announced that the US would launch a "wholly
defensive" mission to prevent Iraq from invading Saudi Arabia - Operation Desert
Shield - and US troops moved into Saudi Arabia on August 7. On August 8, Iraq declared
parts of Kuwait to be extensions of the Iraqi province of Basra and the rest to be the 19th
province of Iraq.
The United States Navy mobilized two naval battle groups, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower
and USS Independence, to the area, where they were ready by August 8. Also on August
8th, 1990, 48 US Air Force F-15s from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley AFB, Virginia,
landed in Saudia Arabia and immediately commenced round the clock air patrols of the
Saudi-Kuwait-Iraq border areas to prevent further Iraqi advances. The United States also
sent the battleships USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin to the region, and they would later
become the last battleships to actively participate in a war. Military buildup continued
from there, eventually reaching 500,000 troops. The consensus among military analysts is
that until October, the American military forces in the area would have been insufficient
to stop an invasion of Saudi Arabia had Iraq attempted one.
A long series of UN Security Council and Arab League resolutions were passed
regarding the conflict. One of the most important was Resolution 678, passed on
November 29, giving Iraq a withdrawal deadline of January 15 1991, and authorizing "all
necessary means to uphold and implement Resolution 660", a diplomatic formulation
authorizing the use of force.
The United States, especially Secretary of State James Baker, assembled a coalition of
forces to join it in opposing Iraq, consisting of forces from 34 countries: Afghanistan,
Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Honduras, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands,
New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United
Kingdom and the United States itself. US troops represented 74% of 660,000 troops in
the theater of war. Many of the coalition forces were reluctant to join; some felt that the
war was an internal Arab affair, or feared increasing American influence in Kuwait. In
the end, many nations were persuaded by Iraq's belligerence towards other Arab states,
and offers of economic aid or debt forgiveness.
H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. and President Bush Sr. visit U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia on
Thanksgiving Day, 1990.
The United States gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict. The
first reason given was the importance of the United States' longstanding friendly
relationship with Saudi Arabia. However, some Americans were dissatisfied with this
explanation and "No Blood For Oil" became a rallying cry for domestic opponents of the
war, though they never reached the size of opposition to the Vietnam War. Later
justifications for the war included Iraq's history of human rights abuses under President
Saddam Hussein, the potential that Iraq may develop nuclear weapons or weapons of
mass destruction, and that "naked aggression will not stand."
Although the human rights abuses of the Iraq regime before and after the Kuwait invasion
were well-documented, the government of Kuwait set out to influence American opinion
with a few accounts. Shortly after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the organization Citizens for
a Free Kuwait was formed in the U.S. It hired the public relations firm Hill and
Knowlton for about $11 million, money from the Kuwaiti government. This firm went on
to manufacture a campaign which described Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of
incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and letting them die on the floor. One year later, however,
this allegation was labeled a fabricated hoax. The person that testified to this allegation
was found to be a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family living in Paris during the war,
and therefore could not have been present during the alleged crime. (See Nurse Nayirah.)
Various peace proposals were floated, but none were agreed to. The United States
insisted that the only acceptable terms for peace were Iraq's full, unconditional
withdrawal from Kuwait. Iraq insisted that withdrawal from Kuwait must be "linked" to a
simultaneous withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and Israeli troops from the West
Bank, Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon. Morocco and Jordan were
persuaded by this proposal, but Syria, Israel, and the anti-Iraq coalition denied that there
was any connection to the Kuwait issue. Syria joined the coalition to expel Saddam but
Israel remained officially neutral despite rocket attacks on Israeli civilians. The Bush
administration persuaded Israel to remain outside the conflict with promises of increased
aid, while the PLO under Yasser Arafat openly supported Saddam Hussein, leading to a
later rupture in Palestinian-Kuwaiti ties and the expulsion of many Palestinians from
Kuwait.
On January 12, 1991 the United States Congress authorized the use of military force to
drive Iraq out of Kuwait. Soon after the other states in the coalition did the same.
Air campaign
USAF F-16A, F-15C, F-15E combat aircraft flying over burning oil wells (set alight by
retreating Iraqi forces) during Desert Storm.
A day after the deadline set in Resolution 678, the coalition launched a massive air
campaign codenamed Operation Desert Storm with more than 1,000 sorties launching per
day, beginning early morning on January 17, 1991. Five hours after the first attacks,
Baghdad state radio broadcast a voice identified as Saddam Hussein declaring that "The
great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great
showdown begins."
Weapons used in the air campaign included precision-guided munitions (or "smart
bombs"), cluster bombs, BLU-82 "daisy cutters", and cruise missiles. Iraq responded by
launching 8 Scud missiles into Israel the next day. The first priority for coalition forces
was destruction of the Iraqi air force and anti-aircraft facilities. This was quickly
achieved and for the duration of the war Coalition aircraft could operate largely
unchallenged. Despite Iraq's better-than-expected anti-aircraft capabilities, only one
coalition aircraft was lost in the opening day of the war. Stealth aircraft were heavily used
in this phase to elude Iraq's extensive SAM systems and anti-aircraft weapons; once these
were destroyed, other types of aircraft could more safely be used. The sorties were
launched mostly from Saudi Arabia and the six coalition aircraft carrier groups in the
Persian Gulf.
surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile (SAM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to

destroy aircraft. It is a type of anti-aircraft system.
SAMs can be deployed from fixed installations or mobile launchers. The smallest SAMs,
developed by the Soviet Union, are capable of being carried and launched by a single
person. Soviet SAMs have been exported around the world and can still be found in many
of their former client states.
Radar-guided SAMs
French Air Force Crotale battery
Bendix Rim-8 Talos surface to air missile of the US Navy

 Akash Missile - India
 Arrow - Israel
 Aster - United Kingdom/France/Italy
 Bloodhound - United Kingdom
 Crotale - France
 Ground launched AMRAAM - NASAMS (AIM-120 AMRAAM AAM) - Norway
 Ground launched AMRAAM - CLAWS (AIM-120 AMRAAM AAM) - United
States
 Ground launched AMRAAM - SLAMRAAM (AIM-120 AMRAAM AAM) -
United States
 Hongqi-9 - People's Republic of China
 MEADS - US/Germany/Italy
 MIM-3 Nike Ajax - United States
 MIM-14 Nike Hercules - United States
 MIM-23 Hawk - United States
 MIM-72 Chaparral FAADS
 MIM-104 Patriot - United States
 MIM-146 ADATS - Switzerland
 Nike Zeus - United States
 BAe Blindfire Rapier - United Kingdom
 RIM-2 Terrier - United States Navy
 RIM-7 Sparrow - United States Navy
 RIM-24 Tartar - United States Navy
 RIM-66 Standard Missile-1 - United States Navy
 RIM-156 Standard Missile-2ER - United States Navy
 RIM-162 Evolved SeaSparrow Missile - United States Navy
 Roland - France / Germany
 SA-1 'Guild' - USSR
 SA-2 'Guideline' - USSR
 SA-3 'Goa' - USSR
 SA-4 'Ganef' - USSR
 SA-5 'Gammon' - USSR
 SA-6 'Gainful' - USSR
 SA-8 'Gecko - USSR
 SA-10 'Grumble' - USSR
 SA-11 'Gadfly' - USSR
 SA-12A 'Gladiator'/SA-12B 'Giant' - USSR
 SA-15 'Gauntlet' - USSR
 SA-17 'Grizzly' - USSR
 SA-19 'Grisom' - USSR
 SA-20 'Triumf' - Russia
 Sea Cat - United Kingdom
 Sea Dart - United Kingdom
 Sea Slug - United Kingdom
 Sea Wolf - United Kingdom
 Thunderbird - United Kingdom
 Trishul missile - India
There are different types of radar guidance:
 Patriot, SA-10, SA-12 and SA-20 utilise track-via-missile radar guidance.

 SA-1, SA-2, SA-3, SA-6 and SA-15 utilise radar command guidance.
 SA-5 utilises radar command guidance with terminal active radar homing.
 SA-4, SA-11 and SA-17 utilise radar command guidance with terminal semi-
active radar homing.
 SA-8 utilises semi-autonomous command line-of-sight guidance (SACLOS).
IR-guided SAMs
 CA 94 - Romania
 CA 95 - Romania
 Chaparral - United States (this is a ground-launched version of the AIM-9
Sidewinder AAM)
 Enzian - Germany (WW2)
 FIM-43 Redeye - United States
 FIM-92 Stinger - United States
 Hongqi-7 - People's Republic of China
 Igla - Russia
 Mistral - France
 RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile - United States/Germany, has also initial
passive radar (ESM) guidance
 SA-7 'Grail' - USSR
 SA-9 'Gaskin - USSR
 SA-13 'Gopher' - USSR
 SA-14 'Gremlin' - USSR
 SA-16 'Gimlet' - USSR
 SA-18 'Grouse' - USSR
 Type 91 - Japan
 Umkhonto-IR - South Africa
Laser-guided SAMs
 RBS-70 - Sweden
 Starstreak/laser Close Air Defence Missile - United Kingdom
Visually-guided SAMs
 Blowpipe - United Kingdom
 Javelin - United Kingdom
 Rapier - United Kingdom
 Wasserfall - Germany (WW2)
 ERYX - France
precision-guided munition
BOLT-117 laser guided bomb
Precision-guided munitions (smart munitions or smart bombs) are self-guiding

weapons intended to maximize damage to the target while minimizing "collateral
damage". Because the damage effects of an explosive weapon scale as a power law with
distance, quite modest improvements in accuracy (and hence reduction in miss distance)
enables a target to be effectively attacked with fewer and/or smaller bombs. Thus, even if
some bombs miss, fewer aircrews are put at risk and collateral damage is somewhat
reduced. The creation of precision-guided munitions resulted in the renaming of older
bombs as "gravity bombs", "dumb bombs" or "iron bombs". Recent, and common,
collateral damage caused by precision weapons has proved the "bomb through a window"
concept to be less than perfect. The reliability of precision-guided munitions appears to
have fallen somewhat short of the promises made by the US Department of Defense.
Types of precision-guided amunitions
Radio-controlled weapons
The United States Army began experimenting with radio-controlled remotely guided
planes in the First World War, but the program had few successes. The first successful
experiments with guided bombs were conducted during World War II when television-
guided bombs flare sighted bombs and other steerable munitions were developed. The
Germans developed several types of steerable munitions, such as the Fritz X. There was
even an attempt to produce a glider bomb that was released from a larger plane over the
target, but the program stopped with the nuclear attacks in Japan.
The programs started again in the Korean War, where the political ramifications of
nuclear war would have been unthinkable. In the 1960s, the electro-optical bomb or "fire
and forget" camera bomb was introduced. They were equipped with television cameras
and steerable flare sights, in which the bomb would be steered until the flare
superimposed the target. The camera bombs transmitted a "bomb's eye view" of the target
back to a controlling aircraft. An operator in this aircraft then transmitted control signals
to steerable fins fitted to the bomb. Such weapons were used increasingly by the USAF in
the last few years of the Vietnam War because the political climate was increasingly
intolerant of collateral damage.
Although not as popular as the newer JDAM and JSOW weapons, or even the older
Laser-guided bomb systems, weapons like the AGM-62 Walleye TV guided bomb are
still being used, in conjunction with the AAW-144 Data Link Pod, on US Navy F/A-18
Hornets.
Laser-guided weapons
In 1962, the US Army began research into laser guidance systems and by 1967 the USAF
had conducted a competitive evaluation leading to full development of the world's first
laser-guided bomb—the BOLT-117—in 1968. All such bombs work in much the same
way, relying on the target being illuminated, or "painted", by a laser "target designator"
on the ground or on an aircraft. They have the significant disadvantage of not being
usable in poor weather conditions where the target illumination cannot be seen, or where
it is not possible to get a target designator near the target. The laser designator sends its
beam in a series of encrypted pulses so that the bomb cannot be confused by an ordinary
laser.
Laser-guided weapons did not become commonplace until the advent of the microchip.
They were used, though not on a large scale, by the British forces during the 1982
Falklands War. The first large-scale use of smart weapons came in 1991 during Operation
Desert Storm when they were used by coalition forces against Iraq. Even so, most of the
air-dropped ordnance used in that war was of the "dumb" kind. Laser-guided weapons
were used in large numbers during the 1999 Kosovo War, but their effectiveness was
often reduced by the poor weather conditions prevalent in the southern Balkans.
Satellite-guided weapons
The problem of poor visibility does not affect satellite-guided weapons such as JDAM
(Joint Direct Attack Munition) and JSOW (Joint Stand-Off Weapon), which uses satellite
navigation systems, specifically the United States' GPS system. This offers improved
accuracy compared to laser systems, and can operate in all weather conditions, without
any need for ground support. Because it is possible to jam GPS, the bomb reverts to
inertial navigation in the event of losing the GPS signal. Inertial navigation is
significantly less accurate; JDAM achieves a CEP of 13 m under GPS guidance, but
typically only 30 m under inertial guidance. Further, the inertial guidance CEP increases
as the dropping altitude increases, while the GPS CEP does not.
The precision of these weapons is dependent both on the precision of the measurement
system used for location determination and the precision in setting the coordinates of the
target. The latter critically depends on intelligence information, not all of which is
accurate. However, if the targeting information is accurate, satellite-guided weapons are
significantly more likely to achieve a successful strike in any given weather conditions
than any other type of precision-guided munition.
Fictional uses of the term "smart bomb"
In video games (particularly arcade-style shooters such as Defender), the concept of

smart bombs has often, somewhat ironically, been assigned to a type of weapon that
obliterates any and all targets in sight but does no damage (or minimal damage) to the
player's ship. One reference where the smart bomb at least retains its homing function
(but still razes anything within its ludicrously large blast radius) is in Star Fox 64, where
the Nova bomb moniker was switched with the more generic Smart Bomb name.
Lessons of Operation Iraqi Freedom
By Richard Perle
Publication AEI Online (Washington)
Date: August 1, 2003
The war in Iraq has demonstrated the significance of strong, decisive government leadership, bold military
tactics coupled with advanced technology, and the possibility of spreading freedom and democracy
throughout the Arab world.
We have learned at least nine lessons from the war in Iraq.
First, the successful conduct of this war, from the concept through the execution, required an extraordinary
sense of purpose, determination, and courage. It took an extraordinary president, vice president, and
secretary of defense to do this. When was the last time we saw a president risk his presidency to
accomplish something that he thought was vital to the nation? It does not happen very often. It happened in
this case, and we are enormously in debt to those leaders. There were so many occasions when some
alternative policy must have seemed attractive.
Second, there are huge rewards for boldness. This was a bold strategy. There are huge rewards for
surprise, and I think we delivered a surprise to Saddam Hussein. Ample evidence suggests that he expected
a repetition of Desert Storm with a long period of bombing prior to the introduction of ground forces. It
entailed serious risks to move in with ground forces at the outset. The war plan was bold; it achieved
surprise. It permitted the war to be won in a very short period of time. It saved lives, ironically, by reflecting a
strategy that ran counter to the common wisdom that the way to save lives was to do all the damage from
the air before introducing ground forces. And General Tommy Franks and others deserve enormous credit
for their vision and for their willingness to take the risks that that vision entailed.
By the way, I think one of the reasons why we have had trouble finding weapons of mass destruction--and
we will find them--is that they were hidden in a way that made them not easily accessible. And whatever
time the Iraqis may have thought they would have to reconstitute those hidden capabilities was simply
denied to them by the rapidity of the advance.
Third, the war has demonstrated a really quite remarkable ability of the United States to operate more or
less independently. Of course, we needed some space in Kuwait and elsewhere to amass some forces, but
we were extraordinarily independent in this operation. When Turkey refused to allow access for a northern
front, we adapted quickly. And without the availability of that real estate, we were nevertheless able to
reshape and execute a very complex war plan.
This independence meant that we could say to our allies: You can opt in or you can opt out. This is a
coalition of the willing. You do not have to participate if you do not want to. (Some of our allies, like the
Germans, decided not to participate even before they were asked to do so.) The ability to operate more or
less independently, working only with those who are willing to join us, is of enormous political importance for
the future.
Implications of Military Technology
Fourth, the importance of precision cannot be overstated. I remember a paper some years ago, by Alan
Greenspan, in which he talked about intellectual capital and related it to physical capital. He talked about
how much of the steel, concrete, timber, and glass had been squeezed out of the modern building by
engineering and new materials. We have seen the military equivalent of that. We squeezed out--and you
heard some of the figures--massive quantities of iron by making sure that the iron that we did deliver hit the
target. And, of course, when you reduce the iron-on-target you reduce the whole forces and logistics base
that delivers that iron. The leverage that comes from the kind of precision of which we are capable is truly
breathtaking. And we are at the beginning of the transformation that incorporates that ability--at the
beginning. The combination of the ability to hit the target at which you aim and the ability to acquire
information about the location of the target and transmit that information in real time has changed warfare
forever.
This was truly the first modern war, and it has enormous implications for this country and the world. If we
can see a target, we can destroy it. And sensor technology permits us to see targets under adverse
circumstances at significant distances operating from beyond the lethal range of the enemy. And we are, if
not unique, almost unique today in the ability to do that.
These technological advances also have important political implications. When you can win a war as we
have done it, with the destruction of targets so precise and so appropriately defined that you could walk
through downtown Baghdad today and not see any evidence that a war had taken place, or see the ruin of a
building here and a building there that was selected for destruction because it was instrumental to Saddam
Hussein's ability to fight back, it means that politically we can use force in a way that would not have been
possible if we had to create a Dresden. And, indeed, much of the opposition to the war, certainly in Europe
and even some in the United States, was predicated on a very wrong image of what the war would be like.
I am quite sure the Germans saw Dresden when they thought about this war. Had they understood that a
small number of targets would be destroyed decisively and that this country would be liberated in a matter of
days, we might not have had the political opposition that developed. We need to drive this lesson home:
when the United States goes to war, it will not recreate the assault on Dresden.
A B-2 can destroy sixteen distinct targets. A future version of the B-2, or future armament for the B-2 will
permit a single aircraft to destroy potentially as many as 300 targets--a single airplane, and an airplane that,
by virtue of its stealth characteristics, is essentially beyond the range of the enemy. Three-hundred targets
from a single airplane.
Lesson five, transformation, is hard, but it is worth it. When I say it is hard, I can recall battles when I was in
the Pentagon two decades ago on the very question of precision. It was hard work to get the military
establishment to accept the importance of precision. And battles were fought on this issue, and lost, by
civilians who believed that we had to drive as fast and as hard as we could to incorporate the technologies
that would permit us to operate precisely. Programs were cancelled; programs never got off the ground. But
finally there is now recognition of the overwhelming importance of being able to strike the target at which you
aim.
This means that small forces can do the work that at one time required massive forces. It is Greenspan's
observation about the efficiency of intellectual capital. It means that we can downsize. I think we all
remember that period of about a week when the pundits thought we were bogged down and the Q word
appeared--quagmire. There was no quagmire; there was never a quagmire. But the number of editorialists
and retired military and others who said we had taken too few forces to the theater simply did not
understand that in today's world with today's technology--with our technology and a war plan that exploits
that technology--a small force can do extraordinary things that in the past could only have been done by a
much larger force. And Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was right. He would be in deep trouble today
if he had taken too small a force and so would the vice president. But they had it right. They understood the
leverage that comes from our technology, and we were able to do this with a small force.
Lesson six: Faced with overwhelming power, dictators cannot count on their subjects to fight for them. The
Iraqis did not fight for Saddam Hussein. There were individuals who fought because, as instruments of the
regime, they knew they had no future in Iraq. In the first thirty days after the liberation of France, 35,000
Frenchmen died at the hands of other Frenchmen. The people who fought, and the people who are fighting
today, are like the French collaborators. They know they have no future in Iraq. And we were right to
suggest that the Iraqis would not fight for Saddam, and they did not.
Political Implications
Lesson seven: In the political world, the political consequences of war are inseparable from victory. If you
win, it solves a lot of the problems you anticipated as you contemplated going to war. How often did we hear
it said that the Arab world would rise up in opposition to the United States, that we would create a thousand
bin Ladens? It did not happen. The Arab world did not rise up. There is no evidence that we have created
new bin Ladens. On the contrary, for the first time, the terrorists and their friends and supporters and
sponsors are on the defensive. Victory settles these issues.
Lesson eight is not such a happy lesson: our allies are woefully inadequate by comparison with the United
States, and there is no sign that it is getting better. Indeed, in many ways, it is getting worse. This has
important political implications, because as we contemplate the use of force in the protection of our own
interests and the interests of others, our friends and allies, it is not clear they can fight alongside us. What
we saw in Europe in the form of opposition to this war reflects, at least in part, the inability of Europeans to
participate in a way that accords their own soldiers and citizens the relative safety that we have earned by
virtue of the way we fight, by out-ranging the enemy, for example.
The last lesson is that we have set the stage for another transformation, a political transformation of
enormous importance. A great deal depends, of course, on how successful we are now in this postwar
period in facilitating the construction of a decent and modern society in Iraq. But I think we will demonstrate
that democracy is possible in the Arab world, and I think we will demonstrate that there is a better future
when people are no longer ruled by the likes of Saddam Hussein. And in terms of protecting this country
from the terrorist threat we face, and indeed, in liberating people throughout the Arab world, this
transformation, if it succeeds in Iraq, will spread. It will spread by inspiring others who are now the victims of
oppression, and it will spread by recognizing that the Western world is not unique in its desire for individuals
to live in freedom.

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Future of Iraq - After Saddam

 Early Bird, selected news articles, accessible for DoD personnel

Key UN Security Council resolutions

 Security Council Resolution 1205, 5 November 1998

demands Iraq rescind its decision to not cooperate

 Security Council Resolution 1194, 9 September 1998

demands Iraq rescind its decision to not cooperate

 Security Council Resolution 1134, 23 October 1997

 Security Council Resolution 1115, 21 June 1997

 Security Council Resolution 1060, 12 June 1996

 Security Council Resolution 707, 15 August 1991

"Condemns Iraq's serious violation of a number of its obligations under section C

 Security Council Resolution 688, 5 April 1991

"Demands that Iraq, as a contribution to remove the threat to international peace

"Insists that Iraq allow immediate access by international humanitarian

 Security Council Resolution 687, 3 April 1991

establishes conditions for a formal cease-fire

 Security Council Resolution 678, 29 November 1990

"Authorizes Member States co-operating with the Government of Kuwait, unless

 Security Council Resolution 660, 2 August 1990

condemns Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and calls for Iraq to withdraw

 Security Council Resolution 620, 26 August 1988

Other Reports & Resources

Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Future of the U.S. Military

Iraq Memo #17, June 19, 2003

Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies

THE FOUR-WEEK WAR AGAINST SADDAM

Consider several key elements:

Transformative Military Plan Vindicated in Iraq

Editor's Note: This piece originally appeared in The Hill.

The swift three-week victory in Iraq was a vindication of a vision of military

A growing inventory of new precision-guided weapons allowed U.S. airpower to destroy

The swift three-week victory in Iraq was a vindication of a vision of military

A growing inventory of new precision-guided weapons allowed U.S. airpower to destroy

The Second Persian Gulf War, also known as the

Despite much international opposition, including increasingly rancorous objections from

Persian Gulf War

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein

Pre-war Iraqi-American Relations

We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement

Some have interpreted these statements as diplomatic language signalling an American

A surface-to-air missile (SAM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to

French Air Force Crotale battery

Bendix Rim-8 Talos surface to air missile of the US Navy

There are different types of radar guidance:

 Patriot, SA-10, SA-12 and SA-20 utilise track-via-missile radar guidance.

BOLT-117 laser guided bomb

Precision-guided munitions (smart munitions or smart bombs) are self-guiding

Types of precision-guided amunitions

Fictional uses of the term "smart bomb"

In video games (particularly arcade-style shooters such as Defender), the concept of

We have learned at least nine lessons from the war in Iraq.

Implications of Military Technology

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