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The dictator didn't use his last chance either.
Instead of ordering a withdrawal from occupied Kuwait by twelve noon New York time on February 23, 1991, Saddam Hussein continued to tact.
Even after five weeks of night air strikes on Baghdad and the Iraqi army, he apparently still believed he could withstand the combined military power of the USA and 21 other states.
A mistake.
Exactly eight hours after the ultimatum had expired, Armageddon began for Saddam’s soldiers in Kuwait and along the Iraqi-Saudi-Arabian border on February 24, 1991 at 4 a.m. around 1500 tanks in motion.
The first 140 minutes of this Sunday until sunrise in the region belonged almost exclusively to western armed forces, whose technical equipment allowed effective combat even in the dark.
A US tank in southern Iraq in front of a monument to Saddam Hussein
Source: AFP via Getty Images
Two divisions of the US Marines advanced across the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, supported by Syrian, Egyptian and Saudi Arabian forces in daylight.
They came across trenches, barbed wire and minefields, but these were barely defended and overrun in the first few hours.
Several tank duels always led to the same result: the American and Saudi Arabian M1 Abrams shot down the Soviet-made T-55 and T-62 of the Iraqi occupation forces practically at will, supported by attack helicopters.
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In view of the slaughter that was the consequence of every organized resistance by Iraqi troops, the divisions made up of conscripts in Kuwait usually surrendered until noon on February 24th.
The usual pattern was for the Iraqis to fight briefly and then surrender.
Most of the prisoners of war were taken care of by soldiers from other Arab states - until their arrival the men were only disarmed and tied with cable ties and placed on the floor.
General Norman Schwarzkopf (left) and General Colin Powell, the highest soldier in the US Army in 1990/91
Source: AFP via Getty Images
But US General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander in chief of the operation under the name "Desert Storm", was aware of several dangers.
Immediately before the ultimatum expired, Saddam had announced in Baghdad: “Our trust in ourselves, in the heroism of our fighters, in their battle experience and in our weapons is so great that we know that any land offensive can only fail.” With hoarser The speaker continued: "We have prepared to burn the bodies of the corrupt and evil intruders, and our vengeance will be devastating and merciless." Then his voice cracked: "This vengeance will be merciless, merciless, merciless!"
First, Schwarzkopf feared (and he was pretty sure he expected that) that the Iraqis might use poison gas.
Therefore, all available coalition fighters were in the air, ready to shoot down any enemy aircraft immediately;
therefore, any Iraqi gun that fired a shell was immediately targeted and counterfire.
In addition, the vehicles that penetrated Kuwait were all state-of-the-art and suitable for ABC use.
A US soldier in NBC protective clothing before the offensive on Iraq
Source: AFP via Getty Images
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Schwarzkopf was not quite as concerned that the Iraqis might actually use a nuclear weapon.
It could not be completely ruled out that Saddam actually had a primitive atom bomb.
But even if it did, a weapon like that had to be brought to the target, and that was significantly more difficult than shooting a few grenades with mustard gas or the more dangerous but also more difficult to handle neurotoxin sarin.
The Iraqi Scud missiles, which were also too inefficient for a simple, i.e. large nuclear fission weapon, of the kind that Iraq could only trust, had been regularly taken from the sky by Patriot batteries for weeks.
It was also unlikely that an Iraqi jet could get through.
Schwarzkopf also ruled out the risk that a nuclear weapon was hidden somewhere in southern Kuwait and could be detonated as soon as the site was overrun.
In any case, US President George Bush had indicated that any use of weapons of mass destruction would be answered with a nuclear strike - in the worst case against the metropolis of Baghdad.
Blasting of mines in 1991
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
A very practical concern of the US general, however, was that the best troops in the Iraqi army, the Republican Guard, might stay out of the fighting and withdraw into Iraq.
After the liberation of Kuwait, which is covered by the UN mandate, it would then be difficult to destroy it on Iraqi soil.
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So Schwarzkopf had taken an example from the Wehrmacht and designed a kind of "sickle cut" like the one carried out in 1940 against France.
Immediately before the attack, strong forces were moved west along the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian border.
Four armored divisions and two motorized infantry divisions pushed through the Iraqi desert to the northeast and, with a swing to the east, encircled Kuwait over Iraqi territory - just as the German troops had advanced through Belgium and the Netherlands in 1940.
Even further to the west, Schwarzkopf deployed two US airborne divisions and a French unit.
They put up roadblocks in Iraq to prevent the Republican Guard from withdrawing.
In addition, numerous special forces were deployed to destroy defined individual goals.
The plan worked and led the ground offensive of "Operation Desert Storm" to one of the shortest "lightning wars" in military history: within a hundred hours, the Iraqi military power in Kuwait was largely crushed.
When Republican Guard units actually retreated, mainly on Highways 8 and 80 towards Basra, they fell into a deadly trap.
A French tank in the Saudi Arabian desert
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
US special forces had set up mine barriers that made numerous tanks at the head of the columns unfit to drive.
The rest of them jammed and were then shot down by attack helicopters and ground attack aircraft.
At least 1,800 and, according to other sources, up to 2,700 Iraqi vehicles were destroyed on the two roads together.
Although many Iraqis were smart enough to walk as far away from the traffic jam as possible, at least 200 and perhaps more than 1,000 people died in the slaughter.
The USA lost 148 men in combat, 137 more died in accidents;
In total, the 22 states of the anti-Saddam coalition, including Kuwait, lost around 1,600 soldiers.
The Iraqi casualties are completely unclear, the figures range between 1,500 soldiers killed and 2,278 civilians dead, up to a total of 200,000.
The truth is somewhere in the middle, but whether it is closer to 25,000 or 75,000 cannot be decided.
Iraqi soldiers surrender
Source: AFP via Getty Images
On February 28, 1991, US President George Bush announced a unilateral ceasefire;
shortly thereafter, the Iraqi army formally surrendered.
The US renounced the goal of violent regime change in Baghdad, which had been at least temporarily considered.
The Republican Grade was able to evacuate about half of their tanks and other vehicles to Iraq.
Saddam stayed in power and suppressed the Iraqi people for twelve more years.
Nobody can say what would have happened if the dictator had been overthrown in early March 1991.
At that time, the Sunni Islamist movement was far from being as strong as it was after the Iraq war.
Perhaps it would have been better if George Bush had let his troops march straight into Baghdad.
But the UN mandate did not provide that.
His son George W. Bush did it in 2003 - without a mandate.
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