Word: deserts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Nowhere was the sight of the French tricolor flying above advancing armor greeted with more relief than at allied headquarters in the gulf. When Desert Storm began, there had been fears that the 12,600-strong French contingent, reluctant to accept U.S. leadership, might stand aloof from the coalition's integrated command structure, much as France does in NATO, perhaps even disdaining to fight. During the countdown to hostilities, President Francois Mitterrand had courted British and American anger by launching an eleventh- hour peace proposal that would have handed Saddam Hussein a diplomatic victory by rewarding an Iraqi withdrawal with...
While it took months for Desert Shield to be transformed into Desert Storm, U.S. policymakers were scrambling for cover within days of the invasion, trying to defend their actions from the harsh judgments of hindsight. The great "Who lost Kuwait?" debate was on. Revisionism was rampant. But what was clear was that the roots of a failed policy went back more than a decade. The American embrace of Saddam Hussein began on Nov. 4, 1979, when the Islamic revolutionaries who had overthrown the Shah of Iran seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. That cataclysmic event...
...prisoners, all reservists, said they had eaten only rice and bread containing sawdust for months. They also claimed they were terrorized by the Kwat al-Khasa, the Iraqi special forces, who threatened to kill them if they tried to desert. How could these pathetic men explain the atrocities committed by Iraqis in Kuwait? "We are the victims of this war," said one soldier who gave his name only as Ali. "One man ruled everything. He sent us to Kuwait, which is a friend and an Arab country. He did it out of envy." Another chimed in, "Saddam is a bloody...
...General Norman Schwarzkopf did not march into Kuwait City last week proclaiming "I have returned," it was for two reasons. One was that he had never been driven out. The second was more important: the U.S. commander of Operation Desert Storm wanted the ravaged Arab capital to be liberated by Arabs -- exiled Kuwaitis as well as Saudis and kindred units in the anti-Iraq coalition. So strongly did Schwarzkopf feel about dramatizing the Arab role that he was expected to pass up any uninvited triumphal visit to Kuwait. In 1944 a jut-jawed General Douglas MacArthur had made a point...
...most specialized chores and earned glory in doing it. In the now celebrated flanking maneuvers launched directly into Iraq from the west, Britain's 1st Armored Division mounted a highly mobile battle against Saddam's best forces, the Republican Guard. British soldiers are no strangers to desert warfare, of course: aided by the heroics of T.E. Lawrence -- the legendary Lawrence of Arabia -- they helped oust the Ottoman Turks from the Bedouin homeland in World War I and later defeated Rommel's Afrika Korps in the Libyan desert. One tank unit that punched into Iraq last week was the 7th Armored...