Military Assaults Kuwait

The strategy was launched Aug. 7, just five days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It was relentlessly executed through months of U.N. negotiation, six weeks of allied bombing and five days of lightning-fast ground war against experienced Iraqi forces that greatly outnumbered allied combat troops. While pockets of Iraqi resistance remain, the Iraqi army is effectively out of commission. Aug. 7, 1990-Jan.

President Bush shrugged off allegations Thursday that Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had counseled against military action in the early days of the Persian Gulf crisis. Bush, responding to excerpts from a new book by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, said that Powell has the "integrity and the honor" to offer candid advice and the "discipline" to "salute and march" when the President makes a decision.

American helicopters and jets hammered Iraqi tanks, trucks and armored personnel carriers in what one pilot described Tuesday as a "turkey shoot," and a senior U.S. military source said the month-old air campaign is inflicting "horrendous casualties" on Saddam Hussein's forces.

What was learned: * U.S. ground forces barreled through Iraqi defenses, defeating the vaunted Iraqi infantry and armored units quickly and decisively. * U.S. forces moved far more rapidly than planned in flanking Iraqi positions from the west and then enveloping the disorganized units. * American forces sustained 119 casualties killed in action during the Gulf War. * American Marines were able to clear passages through Iraqi minefields in their frontal assault on Iraqi lines.

By throwing the heaviest concentration of armor since World War II against Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard, trapping it between a lethal "hammer and anvil," allied forces have launched the climactic battle of the Persian Gulf War. The engagement is the centerpiece of Operation Desert Storm, the objective of a seven-month political and military campaign that began Aug. 6 when the United States dispatched the first squadron of fighter planes to Saudi Arabia, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Americans overwhelmingly prefer that U.S. aerial bombing continue before a possible ground assault is launched against Kuwait, according to a poll released Friday. The results of a New York Times-CBS News poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday indicated that a bloody ground war would significantly reduce public support for the Gulf War. Of 1,060 adults interviewed by telephone, 79% said they wanted to continue the air campaign for several weeks.

Through the powerful night-vision gun sights, they looked like ghostly sheep flushed from a pen--Iraqi infantrymen bewildered and terrified, jarred from sleep and fleeing their bunkers under a hellish fire. One by one, they were cut down by attackers they could not see or understand. Some were blown to bits by bursts of 30-millimeter exploding cannon shells. One man dropped, writhed on the ground, then struggled to his feet; another burst of fire tore him apart.

The first U.S. forces entered the capital city of Kuwait. There was fierce fighting near the Kuwait International Airport between Iraqis and U.S. Marines. Hassan Sanad, the Kuwaiti Information Ministry deputy director, said simply: "We confirm that Kuwait city is free." U.S. officials remained cautious, however. There were immediate signs of joy and a hint of the problems ahead: Central Kuwait city: Government buildings, the Royal Palace and major hotels reportedly have been burned or destroyed.

If and when Marines storm the beaches to liberate Kuwait, most will be carried ashore by a toady-looking, 41,000-pound craft handled by crews trained at Camp Pendleton. Last August, when the first Marines were deployed to the Middle East, the Amphibious Vehicle School at the world's largest amphibious assault training base literally shifted into overdrive to prepare for war. "We're going to train more of these guys in four months than we would during a normal year," Col.

The United States has moved Patriot missile batteries closer to massed allied troops and artillery in northern Saudi Arabia, anticipating that Iraq will fire Scud missiles or launch aircraft against military targets in the ground war. Iraq has fired 75 Scuds at civilian targets so far. A Patriot missile knocked down one aimed at Saudi Arabia early today. On Saturday, a Scud heading toward Israel was intercepted and another exploded harmlessly over the eastern Saudi desert. Col.

Years from now, when time has swept over it like so much sand on the desert wind, how will the Persian Gulf War and its lessons apply to future generations of American fighting men and women? No one is certain so soon after the war, but Marine Reserve Col. Charles J. Quilter is doing his best to find out. He and a handful of other Marine reservists have assembled in this industrial city to research and begin writing the definitive history of how the Marine Corps fared in combat against Iraq.

One moment, 60 half-clad and grinning Iraqi prisoners were dancing around Lance Cpl. Charles Weatherman in the Kuwaiti desert, shouting "George Bush No. 1! George Bush No. 1!" The next, mortar rounds were exploding everywhere, spraying metal fragments that cut down half a dozen of his fellow platoon members. One struck Weatherman in the neck. "I thought I was a goner," the Waynesville, N.C., native said Wednesday.

The morning fog coated the desert plains of southern Kuwait, and the U.S. Marine's 2nd Division was poised to march toward Kuwait city. Their left flank exposed, they awaited Saddam Hussein's counterattack. And they waited. Six hours passed on that second day of the ground war before the Iraqi army finally launched insignificant, misplaced counterpunches. "It was at that point," a senior American intelligence officer said, "that we knew we had him."

The 1.8 million readers of the arch-conservative daily Sovietskaya Rossiya opened their newspapers Wednesday to a gripping and detailed, if completely outlandish, version of how the war was going in the Persian Gulf: "Here are the latest reports from the front: Iraqi forces continue their fierce battles with the enemy," the paper said. It continued: "Iraqi fighters have courageously taken the first mighty blow, remained standing and in turn, units and detachments of the 3rd Corps under Gen.

As the allies' air-and-ground war against Iraq reached a rousing climax Wednesday night, many of the 17,000 members of the much-feared Marine amphibious assault force felt an understandable twinge of regret. "So now we know what it's like if they gave a war and nobody showed," said one of the American fighting men who sat on the sidelines as the forces of the anti-Iraq coalition swiftly routed the enemy occupiers of Kuwait.

Kuwait's liberation army paraded into the nation's capital Wednesday on rumbling chariots of armor as thousands of cheering, chanting Kuwaitis poured into the streets in celebration. "Blood for Freedom: Welcome Allied Forces," read a banner draped over the main highway into Kuwait, which was choked by midday with dozens of allied tanks, supply trucks and a honking stream of Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs and Chevrolets in a city come suddenly to life after seven months of occupation.

One of the most violent battles in the history of modern warfare began on the wind-swept deserts beside the Persian Gulf today as the United States and its allies launched their long-threatened ground assault against Iraqi forces to drive them out of Kuwait. "The liberation of Kuwait has now entered a final phase," President Bush announced at 10 p.m. EST Saturday at the White House.

American tank crews, on the attack in one of the biggest armored battles since World War II, were ordered today to halt offensive fire against badly mauled Republican Guard tank divisions in southeastern Iraq. The order to American troops came eight hours after as many as 800 tanks from the 1st and 3rd Armored divisions of the U.S. Army's VII Corps were reported battling two armored divisions of the Republican Guard about 50 miles west of the city of Basra.

The strategy was launched Aug. 7, just five days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. It was relentlessly executed through months of U.N. negotiation, six weeks of allied bombing and five days of lightning-fast ground war against experienced Iraqi forces that greatly outnumbered allied combat troops. While pockets of Iraqi resistance remain, the Iraqi army is effectively out of commission. Aug. 7, 1990-Jan.

American tank crews, on the attack in one of the biggest armored battles since World War II, were ordered today to halt offensive fire against badly mauled Republican Guard tank divisions in southeastern Iraq. The order to American troops came eight hours after as many as 800 tanks from the 1st and 3rd Armored divisions of the U.S. Army's VII Corps were reported battling two armored divisions of the Republican Guard about 50 miles west of the city of Basra.