Contemporary Issues in the Persian Gulf I
American Military University
Looking back on the buildup to the ground war in 1990, prompted by further readings of The Generals’ War, I recall our battalion being briefed about the nature of Iraq’s military structure. In particular, we were instructed as to its reliance on conscripts as frontline padding, with the elite, battle-tested Republican Guard taking up positions in the rear and in Kuwait City.
We were encouraged to read two publications in preparation for the war, and most Marines carried them with their gear to Saudi Arabia. “How They Fight: DESERT SHIELD: ORDER OF BATTLE HANDBOOK” and “Identifying The Iraqi Threat and How They Fight,” prepared by the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency, are still part of my personal library today.
Aside from the devastation wrought on Kuwait’s people and resources by Saddam Hussein’s war machine, his reliance on conscripts for his frontline was especially heinous. So many of these men, unwilling participants in this international game of Risk, were sent to an early grave over one man’s greed and pride.
I recall being told by fellow Marines involved in the transportation and security of P.O.W.’s that many of the weapons retrieved from frontline troops were decades old hunting rifles and older military weapons in a state of disrepair. While inspecting Iraqi bunkers near our own compound on a security detail for a master sergeant whose name I cannot recall, I got a look into the life of the men we faced down from across the border.
I still possess a letter from an Iraqi conscript and dogtags, retrieved from a shallow bunker near the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The author of the letter never got to send his correspondence. A rough translation of the letter portrayed the author as a homesick man who desperately wished to get home to his family and farm. I wonder still today if he was one of the thousands who died in the air war, a casualty of Hussein’s greed, or if he got his wish and returned home at the end of hostilities.
As Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor point out in “The Generals’ War,” Hussein gambled that the United States would not engage his forces in a ground war. Unfortunately, his loss at this table was ultimately covered by those he snatched from their families and careers to fight on his behalf. For all the good that was done for Kuwait’s citizenry by knocking Iraq back across its own border, those who died on each side of this conflict remain a testament to the consequences of unchecked greed and the pursuit of power.