"Kuwait Is Liberated"

By Text by Bruce W. Nelan

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO . . .

THE REPUBLICAN GUARD

The nine divisions of the 125,000-strong Republican Guard were supposed to be Saddam's strategic reserve, his fearsome ace in the hole, the best-equipped and -trained of his soldiers. If the allies broke through fixed Iraqi defenses and the armored divisions backing them up, the Guard would pounce and drive the intruders back. When the allied invasion came, the Iraqi plan fell apart. Coalition forces broke through in several places along the Kuwaiti border and swept into Iraq far to the west. Without air reconnaissance, neither Baghdad nor the Guard's division commanders knew where the main thrust was nor where they should direct a counterattack. They were unable to communicate with one another, and continuous air attacks kept them from moving out to reconnoiter. Though some of the Guards put up a fight and allied officers called them "good soldiers," they were destroyed piecemeal.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

Before they launched their ground attack, allied commanders were concerned that Iraqi artillery might inundate their troops with poison gas and nerve agents. In fact, not a single chemical weapon was fired, even though U.S. Marines found stocks of poison-gas shells in frontline positions. General Schwarzkopf said he did not know why the Iraqis failed to use them, but he speculated that their artillery -- the main delivery system for chemical shells -- was too badly damaged to launch a concerted attack. It is also possible that the chemicals themselves were no longer potent after being stored for months at the front. Another explanation: allied forces broke through Iraqi defenses so quickly and were moving so fast that the surviving artillery units, lacking airborne spotters, could not locate their opponents. The fear of being held personally responsible for the use of chemical weapons may also have deterred Iraqi commanders or even Saddam from issuing the order. British officers said communications between Baghdad and the field were so disrupted that it might have been impossible for Saddam to transmit the order in any case. Finally, the weather had turned rainy and windy, a less than ideal environment for using gas or nerve agents, and the wind was blowing from the south, which could have carried any chemicals in the air right back into Iraqi faces.

AIR DEFENSES

Iraqi skies were protected by an air force of 800 combat planes and thousands of antiaircraft missiles and artillery pieces. These defenses looked more capable than those of North Vietnam, which ended up destroying hundreds of American aircraft. But Iraq's forces proved far less effective. Only 36 U.S. and allied planes were shot down, though Washington had been expecting to lose as many as 200. After 36 of his aircraft were destroyed in combat, Saddam sent most of his best planes to sanctuary in Iran and grounded the rest of the air force. Allied electronic jamming and antiradiation missiles put Iraq's radar tracking systems out of operation. Iraqi missiles and antiaircraft guns could then only be fired blind. While they filled the sky with fire, they presented little threat to allied bombers.

THE FRONT LINE

With elaborate fortifications in the sand, Saddam tried to fight his last war over again. His frontline troops built triangular forts, dug bunkers, sowed minefields, piled up barriers and filled ditches with oil. Attackers were to be channeled into killing zones targeted by Iraqi artillery, which was the strongest weapon Iraq had used against Iran. This time the static defense did not hold. Preoccupied with hanging on to newly conquered Kuwait, Saddam did not extend his fortifications more than a few miles beyond the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. Coalition forces easily outflanked the "Saddam line." Even along the gulf coast, where U.S. and Saudi troops did attack straight north into Kuwait, Iraq's war-weary, underfed frontline army lacked the will to man the barricades. The allies quickly slashed through.