Desert Storm Begins: Gulf War Air Campaign Launches

At 2:38 a.m. Baghdad time on January 17, 1991, stealth aircraft and cruise missiles struck targets across Iraq, beginning the most intensive aerial bombardment campaign since World War II. Operation Desert Storm had been five months in the making, preceded by the largest military buildup since Vietnam, and its opening hours demonstrated a technological revolution in warfare that reshaped military doctrine worldwide. The coalition assembled by President George H.W. Bush included thirty-five nations, though the United States contributed the overwhelming majority of combat forces. More than 2,700 sorties were flown on the first day alone. F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighters struck command bunkers and communications centers in Baghdad while Tomahawk cruise missiles, launched from warships in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, hit air defense installations with GPS-guided precision. Iraqi air defenses, considered among the densest in the world, were systematically dismantled within the first forty-eight hours. Saddam Hussein's response was aimed not at the coalition's military but at its political cohesion. Within hours of the first strikes, Iraq launched Scud missiles at Israel, a nation that had no role in the conflict. The strategy was calculated to provoke an Israeli military response, which Saddam believed would fracture the coalition by making it impossible for Arab states to fight alongside Israel. Eight Scuds hit Israeli cities that first night, causing property damage and injuries but no deaths. The United States rushed Patriot missile batteries to Israel and applied intense diplomatic pressure to keep the Israelis from retaliating. Israel stayed out of the war. The air campaign continued for thirty-eight days before ground forces advanced into Kuwait and southern Iraq. The ground war lasted one hundred hours. Iraqi military casualties were estimated in the tens of thousands; coalition forces lost 292 killed in action. Kuwait was liberated, and Iraqi forces that had not surrendered retreated north along Highway 80, which became known as the "Highway of Death" after coalition aircraft attacked the retreating columns. Desert Storm demonstrated that precision-guided munitions and stealth technology had fundamentally changed warfare. The "CNN effect" of live television coverage from the battlefield altered how wars were perceived and reported. But the decision to stop short of Baghdad and leave Saddam in power would generate consequences that played out for the next two decades.