At the beginning of Operation Desert Storm, Iraq had - on paper - formidable armed forces. It had invaded Kuwait in 1990 with 100,000 men and in 1991 it mobilised all of its reserves that boosted numbers to over 600,000 troops. However, it faced a numerically and technically superior UN coalition that had been formed by the United Nations’ Security Council Resolution 678 in November 1990. Dominated by the United States but including 36 countries, the Coalition was an overwhelmingly huge force of almost one million personnel, thousands of aircraft and tanks and hundreds of ships.
Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney meets with Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in Saudi Arabia
“PERHAPS THE MOST SURPRISING ALLY WAS THE RECENTLY UNIFIED GERMANY”