File: aacwr_15.txt
Page: 15
Total Pages: 49

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fighter pilots had destroyed 36 Iraqi aircraft in aerial combat. USAFE pilots accounted for half of them. The coalition air campaign forced an estimated 112 Iraqi fighters and 24 transports to fly to Iran, where they and their crews were interned.

Saddam Hussein's response was not to challenge the coalition air forces directly, but to attempt to unravel the alliance by dragging Israel into the war. He mistakenly believed that if he attacked Israel with Scud short range ballistic missiles, the Israelis would retaliate and, rather than fight side-by-side with Israel, Arab states would quit the coalition. Another worry for coalition leaders was the possibility that Saddam had equipped his Scuds with chemical warheads, thus the priority given to finding the launchers. During the first 10 days of the war, Iraq launched an average of five Scud missiles per day. The intensity of the coalition's hunt for Scud launchers forced the number down to an average of one per day during the last 33 days of the war. In all, Iraq fired 40 missiles at Israel and another 46 at Saudi Arabia. The most devastating Scud attack occurred on 25 February when a missile hit a U.S. military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; 28 U.S. military personnel died and another 100 were injured.

Throughout the air campaign, coalition ground units conducted numerous maneuvers, made reconnaissance probes, rehearsed battles near the Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian border, practiced beach landings, and maintained a significant Navy and Marine Corps presence in the Persian Gulf to give Saddam the impression the coalition forces would make an amphibious landing on Kuwait's coastline. Saddam took the bait. In fact 1 General Schwarzkopf planned to attack Iraqi forces along a 300-mile front extending along Saudi Arabia's border with Kuwait and Iraq. The attack entailed the deployment of over 200,000 troops and their equipment far to the west, into the Saudi desert. deployment of forces west began on 17 January. Iraq failed to detect it because Saddam bad lost air- superiority on the first day of the war. By 16 February, coalition units were in place; the ground attack began in the early morning hours of 24 February.

The air campaign bad cut Iraq's lines of supply; its command and control was in disarray; and its troops were demoralized to the point where many had begun to desert. No Iraqi aircraft or helicopters came to the aid of Saddam's ground troops. As coalition ground forces advanced, Iraqi units began surrendering en masse. By mid-day on 27 February, Iraqi forces were on the brink of defeat. In less than 48

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