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Jan 11, 1991 - The United States and Iraq intensified their rhetoric, with Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third telling Air Force pilots in Saudi Arabia, "We pass the brink at midnight January 15," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein boasting of his army's readiness. Jan 15, 1991 - With hours remaining before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar made a final appeal to Saddam Hussein to remove his troops. Jan 16, 1991 - With hours remaining before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar made a final appeal to Saddam Hussein to remove his troops. Jan 17, 1991 - On the first day of Operation Desert Storm, US-led forces hammered Iraqi targets in an effort to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. A defiant Iraqi President Saddam Hussein declared that the "mother of all battles" had begun. Iraq attacked Israel with ten Scud missiles. The US Patriot defense missile was used in battle for the first time to shoot down a Scud fired at Saudi Arabia. Jan 19, 1991 - During the Gulf War, Israel's anti-missile force was boosted by additional Patriot missile batteries and U-S crews. A second Iraqi missile attack caused 29 injuries in Tel Aviv. Allied forces began bombarding Iraq's elite Republican Guard. Jan 23, 1991 - After some 12,000 sorties in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said allied forces had achieved air superiority, and would focus air fire on Iraqi ground forces around Kuwait. Jan 23, 1991 - Iraq deliberately created a huge oil spill in the Persian Gulf. Jan 28, 1991 - The US military reported that more than 60 Iraqi fighter-bombers had taken refuge in Iran, where they were impounded by the Iranian government. |
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Feb 8, 1991 - Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell met with American pilots in Saudi Arabia. Powell drew cheers as he described how allied troops would deal with the Iraqi force in Kuwait: "We'll cut it off and kill it." Feb 14, 1991 - The Iraqi weapons depot at Ukhaydir was bombed. Iraqi authorities revealed to US authorities in 1996 that the site stored hundreds of rockets filled with mustard gas and nerve gas. Feb 22, 1991 - President Bush and America's Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the "shameful" US ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan the US had rejected. The US invaded Kuwait in the Gulf War Desert Storm and quickly chased out the Iraqi forces. US soldiers may have been exposed to minute amounts of the nerve gas agent called Substance 33. Russia had developed the Novichok family of nerve gases that were designed to be undetectable by American instruments and they may have been in Iraqi hands at this time. Gen. Anatoly Diamianovich Kuntsevich was in charge of the secret development of the gases and post-Soviet disarmament and the information about the battlefield sensors was revealed by former Soviet scientist Vil Mirzayanov. Their stories agree. Feb 23, 1991 - President Bush announced that the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forces had begun (because of the time difference, it was already the early morning of February 24th in the Persian Gulf). Feb 26, 1991 - Allied troops took control of Kuwait after a 100-hour ground war. Feb 27, 1991 - President Bush declared that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq's army is defeated," and announced that the allies would suspend combat operations at midnight. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the US commander in the Gulf, briefed reporters in detail on the successful allied offensive. Coalition forces liberated Kuwait after seven months of occupation by the Iraqi army. Feb 28, 1991 - A cease-fire was announced in Kuwait. Allied and Iraqi forces suspended their attacks as Iraq pledged to accept all United Nations resolutions concerning Kuwait. |
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March 3, 1991 - American General H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Saudi Lt. Gen. Prince Khalid discussed cease-fire terms with Iraqi commanders Lt. Gen. Mohammed Abdez Rahman al-Dagitistani and Lt. Gen. Sabin Abdel-Aziz al Douri. The Iraqis' astonishment at the disparity involved in the prisoner exchange demonstrated how ignorant they still were of the magnitude of their own defeat. |
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April 12, 1991 - Defense Secretary Dick Cheney announced plans to close 31 major US military bases, including Ford Ord in California and Fort Dix in New Jersey. |
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Sept 23, 1991 - UN weapons inspectors found documents detailing Iraq's nuclear weapons program and said Iraq was close to building a bomb. |
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Dec, 1991 - Boris Yeltsin, Ukrainian Pres. Leonid Kravchuk, and Belarus Pres. Stanislav Shuskevich met in a hunting lodge to proclaim the Soviet Union null and void and to form a loose Commonwealth of Independent States.
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