Immediate Aftermath of the War

The Persian Gulf War ended in a dramatic military victory for the U.S.-led coalition on February 27, 1991. The one-hundred-hour ground war had liberated Kuwait from occupation by Iraq. During the next few weeks, the two sides agreed on the terms of a cease-fire. Iraq ultimately agreed to honor all of the resolutions passed by the United Nations (UN) Security Council. (The Security Council is the division of the UN charged with maintaining international peace and security. It consists of five permanent member nations [the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, and China] and ten elected members that serve two-year terms.)

Once the war ended, U.S. troops returned home to triumphant celebrations. But some Americans criticized President George H. W. Bush (1924–; served 1989–93) for ending the war while Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (1937–) was still in power. In the meantime, both Kuwait and Iraq struggled to overcome the terrible destruction the war had caused. Kuwaitis faced the difficult tasks of rebuilding their cities, putting out hundreds of raging oil fires, and moving toward a more democratic society. The Iraqi people rose up in rebellion against Hussein's weakened government after the war, but Hussein used the remains of his military to crush the uprisings.

U.S. troops return home

Once the Persian Gulf War ended, American troops began returning home at a rate of several thousand per day. The last U.S. troops were withdrawn from southern Iraq by the end of April 1991. They were replaced by a UN peacekeeping force that provided security along the Iraq-Kuwait border.

In the weeks following the war, the American media was full of praise for the troops' strong performance. The returning soldiers were greeted with triumphant celebrations and parades in cities and towns across the United States. President Bush's popularity rose to an all-time high following the successful conclusion of the war.

While the celebrations were continuing, however, some people criticized President Bush's decision to end the war before coalition forces had captured Baghdad. They noted that Hussein remained in power in Iraq, and though the war had reduced his military strength, he still controlled an army of between three hundred thousand and five hundred thousand men. Some critics called the war a "hollow victory" for the United States.

American military leaders admitted that they easily could have pushed on to capture the Iraqi capital and removed Hussein from power. But they pointed out that they had accomplished the main goals of the war: liberating Kuwait from Iraqi control and reducing Hussein's military capability so that he could no longer threaten his neighbors. "We were 150 miles [240 kilometers] away from Baghdad, and there was nobody between us and Baghdad," U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf (1934–) stated, as quoted in The Persian Gulf War by Zachary Kent. "If it had been our intention to take Iraq ... we could have done it unopposed.... [But] our intention was purely to eject the Iraqis out of Kuwait and to destroy [Iraq's] military power."

The Bush administration gave several different reasons for ending the war with Hussein still in power. For one, they were worried that the Arab members of the coalition would not support an American military overthrow of Iraq's government. In addition, they believed that Hussein's position was weak enough that the Iraqi people would rise up and overthrow him on their own. "Saddam Hussein will, in fact, one day be gone," Bush stated, as quoted in Understanding the Crisis in the Persian Gulf by Peter Cipkowski. "We can only hope that that day will be soon and that the people of Iraq will have the opportunity to choose a leader who will respect them."

Kuwait works to recover from the war

Although the Persian Gulf War succeeded in freeing Kuwait from Iraqi control, it also left the tiny country struggling to recover from six months of death and destruction. Once the Iraqi forces retreated, most Kuwaiti citizens found themselves without electricity or phone service. Food, water, and medical supplies were hard to find. Unexploded land mines (bombs hidden under the ground so that they explode when someone steps on them) littered the beaches and highways, while the wreckage of Iraqi tanks was scattered across the desert. In addition to the damage caused by coalition bombing campaigns, Kuwait had to repair or replace hundreds of homes and office buildings that had been destroyed or damaged by the Iraqi occupying forces. Some experts thought it would cost at least $50 billion to repair Kuwait's roads, cities, and oil facilities.

The most immediate problem was the damage the fleeing Iraqi troops had done to Kuwait's oil-production facilities. Hussein's forces had set fire to six hundred of Kuwait's one thousand oil wells during the war. They may have done this out of anger and spite, as a way to punish Kuwait for Iraq's defeat, or they may have been trying to make it more difficult for coalition pilots to bomb their targets. In either case, these enormous blazes created thick smoke that made it hard for the coalition troops to see and breathe. The smoke, which was visible for 500 miles (800 kilometers), dimmed sunlight across the Middle East. It also changed regional weather patterns and caused acid rain that damaged farmlands in Iran and India. In fact, black rain and snow were reported as far away as Pakistan and the Soviet Union. Experts feared that if the fires were not put out, they could continue burning for a century.

But the Kuwaiti oil fires were so large and burned so hot that putting them out was very difficult, dangerous, and expensive. Coalition firefighters began examining the damage in mid-March. First the oil fields had to be cleared of land mines before they could begin work. The firefighters laid pipelines to transport tons of seawater to cool the burning wellheads. Then they drilled diagonal "relief wells" to redirect the oil flow and allow them to fill the main wells with cement, putting out the fire. This process of "capping" the burning wells took months and cost up to $10 million per well. The last fire was finally put out in November 1991. By this time, the fires had destroyed roughly ten billion barrels of valuable oil, reducing Kuwait's total oil reserves by 10 to 15 percent.

Iraqi forces created another environmental disaster by releasing millions of barrels of oil from Kuwaiti ports into

American Veterans Suffer from Gulf War Syndrome

Within a year after returning home from service in the Persian Gulf War, thousands of American soldiers developed unexplained health problems. Some of the most common symptoms included headaches, blurred vision, insomnia, short-term memory loss, abdominal pain, diarrhea, skin rashes, and aching joints. The collection of mysterious illnesses suffered by these veterans eventually became known as Gulf War syndrome.

No one knew what had caused the Gulf War veterans to become ill. Some people wondered if they might have been exposed to chemical weapons. These poisonous chemicals could have been used secretly by Iraqi forces or could have been released during coalition bombing of Iraq's chemical weapons plants. Other people thought that the problems might have come from the vaccinations (injections to prevent people from catching certain diseases) and experimental drugs the American forces were given to protect them from chemical and biological warfare. Some people raised the possibility that inhaling smoke from Kuwaiti oil well fires had caused the illnesses. Exposure to some combination of these toxic substances could have damaged the soldiers' nervous and immune systems.

At first the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) insisted that there was no connection between the veterans' unexplained health problems and their service in the Persian Gulf War. Military officials initially denied that troops had been exposed to chemical or biological weapons during their service in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Kuwait. In 1996, however, the U.S. government admitted that up to twenty thousand American soldiers may have been exposed to the toxic nerve gas called sarin during the war.

Later that year the U.S. House of Representatives launched an investigation into the possible causes of Gulf War syndrome. This investigation led to a 1997 report that was highly critical of the DOD and the Veterans Administration. The report claimed that these agencies ignored veterans' complaints and refused to declassify documents that might have helped explain what happened to them. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency later suggested that the sarin had spread farther than originally thought and may have affected more than one hundred thousand American soldiers.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century more than 110,000 American veterans displayed symptoms of Gulf War syndrome. Hundreds had fallen ill from rare cancers and neurological diseases, and their children were born with birth defects at a rate between two and ten times higher than the national average. Many of these veterans and their families felt abandoned and betrayed by the U.S. government and military, which had long tried to deny that their problems existed. They viewed themselves as the forgotten casualties of the Persian Gulf War.

the waters of the Persian Gulf. The oil spill, which was the largest the world had ever seen, killed thousands of marine birds and animals. It also ruined Saudi Arabia's shrimp industry and threatened the habitat of the endangered dugong (a marine mammal closely related to the manatee). Although special containment booms (long floating barriers) prevented the oil from reaching the desalinization plants (facilities that convert salty seawater into drinking water) along the Saudi coast, it caused a great deal of damage to beaches and shorelines. Experts stated that it would likely take decades for the region's coastal environment to recover.

Kuwait struggles with social problems as well

In addition to the damage to cities, oil facilities, and the environment, Kuwait also struggled to repair its society after the war ended. While most Kuwaitis rejoiced at the liberation of their country, many also lashed out in anger at reminders of the Iraqi occupation. Angry mobs burned the portraits of Saddam Hussein that the Iraqi forces had placed all over Kuwait City. They also tortured and killed at least ten people who were suspected of collaborating with (secretly supporting and helping) the Iraqis, and imprisoned thousands of others.

One target of the Kuwaitis' anger was the country's large Palestinian population. The Palestinians are an Arab people whose ancestors lived in the area of the Middle East that is now covered by the Jewish state of Israel. The creation of Israel in 1948 displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, some of whom eventually settled in Kuwait. Before the Persian Gulf War, Palestinians made up one-third of Kuwait's population. Since the Palestine Liberation Organization (a political group that represents the interests of displaced Palestinians, including reclaiming lost territory from Israel and founding an independent Palestinian state) had supported Iraq during the war, however, many Kuwaitis believed that all Palestinians must have supported Iraq. In 1992 the government of Kuwait forced thousands of Palestinians to leave the country.

Kuwaiti society underwent a number of other changes as a result of the war. The citizens who remained in Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation and the war, and especially those who had joined the resistance movement against the Iraqis, felt a great deal of bitterness toward the emir and other leaders who fled the country and spent the months of occupation in relative safety. Some members of the resistance openly criticized the emir and demanded a greater say in the government, pointing out that only 10 percent of Kuwait's population had been allowed to vote before the war. The fight for greater democracy (a form of government in which the people direct the country's activities through elected representatives) in Kuwait eventually died down as people focused on the task of rebuilding the country. But in 1992 the emir did follow through on his wartime promise to found an elected parliament that would guide his rule.

Hussein crushes uprisings to remain in power

Iraq also suffered severe damage during the Persian Gulf War. Coalition bombs had destroyed buildings, roads, and bridges in Baghdad and other major cities. The country's water, sewer, and electrical systems had been destroyed as well. The total cost of rebuilding Iraq was estimated at more than $100 billion.

The Iraqi people struggled to deal with shortages of food, water, and medical supplies during and after the war. Many survived the war only to fall victim to the epidemics of disease that followed it. There was also some concern that allied bombing of chemical weapons factories and nuclear reactors could have released harmful chemicals or radiation, which could cause long-term damage to people's health.

Iraq's defeat left Hussein's government in a weakened state. Some of his opponents took advantage of the opportunity to try to remove him from power. A few days after the war ended, the Shiite Muslims who lived in the southern part of Iraq launched a major revolt against Hussein's Sunni Muslim government. (Islam is divided into two main branches, Sunni and Shiite. About 90 percent of all Muslims are Sunnis.) The Shiites took to the streets in cities across the south and fought the Iraqi troops that were returning from Kuwait. The rebels took control of many towns, including Basra, and captured the local representatives of Hussein's Baath Party.

But Hussein fought back against the Shiites by using the remains of his powerful army to attack his own people. Iraqi tanks and artillery turned cities into battlefields and killed thousands of civilians in order to crush the uprising. Some reports said that Republican Guard troops fired guns into crowds and bombed civilian neighborhoods with artillery fire. (The Republican Guard was an elite force that was the best-trained and best-equipped part of Iraq's army.) By mid-March Hussein's forces had regained control of Basra.

Kurdish rebellion in the north

In the meantime, the Kurds, a non-Arab Muslim people of northern Iraq, launched another rebellion against Hussein's rule. Hussein's army used force to smash this uprising as well. Iraqi helicopters flew low over Kurdish villages, firing machine guns and dropping bombs. Some Kurds fought back, but many chose to flee the country, fearing that Hussein's forces would use chemical weapons against them, as had happened in 1988. An estimated two million Kurds tried to reach Iran and Turkey in the weeks following the end of the Persian Gulf War. Thousands died along the way of cold and hunger, and thousands more died of disease once they reached the crowded refugee camps. International agencies estimated that one thousand Kurdish refugees died each day in March 1991.

On April 11 President Bush announced a major U.S. relief effort to help the Kurds. American planes dropped packages of food and clothing on the refugee camps during the next several weeks. Eventually the United Nations set up "safe havens" for the Kurds in northern Iraq that were guarded by coalition military forces. Under the terms of the cease-fire agreement that ended the war, the United Nations also created "no-fly zones" over northern and southern Iraq to prevent Hussein from using his air force to attack his political opponents.

Some of the Shiite and Kurdish rebels had believed that they would receive support from the coalition in their efforts to topple Hussein's government. After all, President Bush had made several statements indicating that the U.S. government wanted the Iraqi people to rise up and overthrow Hussein. At one point the U.S. leader encouraged "the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside." The rebels interpreted such statements to mean that they would receive American military support.

But the United States and its allies did not provide any direct military assistance to the rebels. Some coalition leaders believed that Iraq might break into three separate countries if the rebels succeeded, adding to the instability of the Persian Gulf region. When the rebellions failed to remove Hussein from power, many Shiite and Kurdish leaders felt betrayed by the coalition. Such feelings became significant twelve years later, when the U.S. government launched a military invasion of Iraq. Some Iraqis who opposed Hussein still did not trust U.S. leaders and were reluctant to support American troops during the 2003 Iraq War.

Once he crushed the challenges to his rule in 1991, Hussein recalled his elite Republican Guard units to defend Baghdad. He also expelled all foreign journalists from Iraq. Hussein's defeat in the Persian Gulf War had cost him many friends, most of his weapons, and a huge amount of money, but he remained in power. He would continue to defy the world for many years to come.