Kyle McGivern, Josh Kinyon, Riley Wilson, and Michael Hughes

The London Investigator

0.75 £4/2/1992

AMAZING NEWS!!!

INSIDE!

The Impact of the War

The British Endeavor

Why Did We Enter?

Why Did We Enter?The Persian Gulf War was a war that was fast and used overwhelming force, yet to

some people the reasons why some countries entered are vague and unclear. There are many reasons such as the fact that many of the participants were members of the UN. Other reasons were that the leaders of the UK and many other countries thought that the invasion was immoral and that nobody wanted Iraq to obtain almost a full monopoly on oil within the Middle East.

The first reason and most prominent reason that the UK joined the coalition to fight Iraq was that they were part of the UN. The UN, an agency formed out of the winning powers in WWII, had gathered and voted against Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait and then gave him a deadline to pull out and if they had not by the deadline, force would be taken against Saddam and the Iraqi army. The deadline was obviously not met and force was taken by many nations including the US, Great Britain, France, Italy, and many others.

The second reason that the UK joined the fight against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War is that the leaders of the UK saw that the invasion and the results of the invasion in Kuwait were inhumane and action needed to be taken against Iraq much like the Nazi concentration camps that were present in WWII. There were public executions that shocked the world and any attempts to rid the Iraqi army by Kuwait were smashed into dust. Any government would see that this is wrong, many did, and some acted on this, one of which was the UK. Based off of the atrocities committed by the Iraqis it was clear to many countries, including Great Britain to join the war.

The final reason that the UK joined the fight to drive Iraq out of Kuwait was one that involved oil and the economy. Had Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait with impunity, he would have taken the opportunity to invade the neighboring countries, also similar to Adolf Hitler’s strategy in WWII, allowing him to acquire the massive reserves of oil present in the large country of Saudi Arabia. With a majority of the world’s oil at his fingertips, Saddam could choke the world off of oil and eventually have a complete monopoly on it, allowing for almost a total domination of the world.

All of these reasons and more were the causes for the UK and many other countries with it to join the Persian Gulf War. Had action not been taken, these issues would never have been resolved, as Iraq was not likely to give into sanctions even if they continued. Luckily, the latter of the reasons never came to be and all other issues were resolved through overwhelming force and swift action.

Oil Fields in the Region

BY MICHAEL HUGHES

The British Endeavor

British Troops in

Kuwait

As war threatened to erupt in the Middle East and the majority of the world's oil exports were endangered, many countries sprang into action in order to save their relationships with countries in the Middle East, and to prevent the possibility of oil, the world's most important resource, from collapsing. The United Nations forces that entered the Persian Gulf War were led mainly by the United States military, but involved the support of other nations such as Great Britain, Pakistan, and Spain. For Instance, some of Great Britain’s key military involvement included several air strike campaigns, the assistance of the U.S. forces in the main invasion into Iraq, and the deployment of SAS forces for everything from destroying missile launchers to saving hostages' lives. The first of Great Britain’s military campaigns were the air strikes they launched against the Iraqi forces. The British involvement of the RAF squadrons were not only able to reach Kuwait in a short amount of time after they were invaded by Iraqi forces, but they also were able to deal immense amounts of damage to units on the ground. The RAF, however, was equipped with more than just weapons used to fight ground based units; they had a wide variety of planes and helicopters able to do any mission, from simple reconnaissance, to attacking ground positions or buildings to specifically air battles and anti-aircraft assault missions. The RAF was extremely efficient, and ran continuous bombing runs and air assault, launching almost 2,000 coordinated “sorties”, which were flights of a combat aircraft on a mission. The RAF also made frequent targets out of Iraqi runways and airfields, to prevent them from getting their planes off the ground or to destroy the aircraft altogether. The RAF certainly provided excellent support very early in the war and continued to be a key asset all the way until the end of the conflict, being the second most important aircraft presence, only being surpassed by the United States Air Force. Another defining military presence was the British Army’s activities. The British Army undertook many joint force operations that helped the war effort of the Coalition Forces, and they also took part in the invasion led by the US into Iraq in order to swing into Kuwait behind the Iraqi forces in the area. The British ground forces had only a minor role in this invasion but they supported the main force of French and American forces as they attacked into Iraq, and the UK’s premier fighting force, the 1st Armored division, was tasked with holding up the rear flank as the US fighting force entered Kuwait behind enemy lines. The overall name given to the ground forces’ activities in the Middle East was Operation Granby, and it

BY RILEY WILSON

included the support of over 53,000 soldiers and over 5,000 tanks and artillery. Once again, the British Army added great support to the overall campaign, and the only force surpassing the British Army was the United States Army. One of the most overlooked but also the most important campaigns led by the British were the deployments of SAS (Special Air Service) troops on certain covert missions. One extremely important use of the Special Forces was the search for the SCUD missiles. During the middle part of the war, Iraq started firing long range missiles from mobile missile launchers into Israel, hoping to cause political tensions to hinder the Coalition. This action received an immediate response from the US Air Force as they sent planes out to find them, but often the mobile launchers could be kept hidden and out of sight from the planes. That is where the SAS came in; they could easily move around the ground, seek out the missile launchers, and destroy them efficiently. The SAS became instrumental in helping ease the missile attacks, and possibly even prevented Iraq from taunting Israel into action. And yet another thing that the SAS was useful for came in the form of search and rescue missions. Often times in this conflict, the Iraqis would set up headquarters and communications posts up around civilian areas, preventing the Coalition from simply air striking the building. But the SAS was highly trained for instances like this, and were often sent on missions into civilian areas where the Iraqis were thought to be hiding out. They became well noted for saving the lives of many civilians, and also helped speed up the push against Iraqi forces by removing a few of the speed bumps like these along the way. In the Persian Gulf War, the British helped in many ways, including the air strike campaign led by the RAF, Operation Granby, and the deployment of the SAS. The British Army and the RAF, besides the US forces, were undoubtedly the most influential forces that took part in the war. They helped support a number of operations led by the US, helped to disable the SCUD missile threat, saved the lives of innocent civilians, and took part in the main Coalition attacks in Iraq. Although Britain may not have led the charge like the Americans did, they certainly helped the Coalition by swiftly and efficiently diffusing threats all across the Middle East. Without their help, the Coalition would have had a much more difficult time winning the Persian Gulf War.

The British Endeavor(cont.)

RAF logo

The Impact of the War

Great Britain entered into the Persian Gulf War to stop the spread of Saddam Hussein. With Kuwait liberated and Saudi Arabia protected, it can be agreed that Great Britain achieved their goals and the war thus had a positive outcome. The Persian Gulf War had many effects on Great Britain. Some of these were positive and some were negative. These effects included harming the trust in the United States, and a spike in oil prices, but overall, people were happy for the outcomes. The trust in the United States was hurt due to the fact that nine of the sixteen British casualties were caused from friendly fire from the US. This showed that the US killed more Britain's than the Iraqis did. This would look negative to the readers of the newspaper and hurt the US's image. Although it did not hurt the relations too much, it still caused mistrust between two of the world’s closest allies. Due to the friendly fire, trust in the United States’ armed forces had been harmed and this was one huge impact of the Persian Gulf War. The second effect is the increase in oil prices hurt the economy slightly. Iraq destroyed many of the oil fields in Kuwait before leaving. Since Kuwait supplied about 10% of the world’s oil supply, there was less oil in the world. Therefore, the price of oil went up significantly from $20 to $30 a barrel. This would make gas more expensive and would make it so some of the poorer people would have to spend less on other goods. Therefore, stock markets worldwide fell, and Great Britain was hit hard, although oil prices would fall to their original amounts by 1992. The third effect was that people were generally happy with how their government handled the war. They liked how few their casualties were, and the soldiers had a good public view on their return. This is because the media learned to portray the soldiers well to maintain public support for the war. Since the British took few casualties in this war with minimal civilian casualties that Britain committed themselves, people were happy with the war. The outcomes stated above including a decrease in US trust, an increase an oil prices, and good public support for the war greatly effected the United Kingdom. A short dip in the economy occurred, and people’s perception of how war was conducted greatly changed. Overall, the war achieved its limited objectives and thus the positive impacts outweigh the negative impacts for Great Britain.

Price of oil per barrel

BY KYLE McGIVERN

MAP- BRITISH MOVEMENTS INTO KUWAIT

Britain’s forces are marked by the British flag. Some of these movements were by land troops and others, including the movements into Iraq were bombing runs. However, the British movements shown here were actual movements by land troops

BibliographyKyle:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/12/newsid_2511000/2511669.stm http://terrorism.about.com/od/causes/a/causes_terror.htm

Riley: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/3/newsid_2492000/2492781.stm

http://www.ukserials.com/losses-1991.htm http://historyofwar.org/articles/wars_gulf1990.html http://www.eliteukforces.info/special-air-service/history/desert-storm/ http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/HealthandSafety/GulfVeteransIllnesses/19901991GulfConflict.htm http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/AirPowerintheGulfWar.cfm Michael:

http://ics-www.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=30&paper=1001

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1991/jan/17/iraq.davidfairhall Josh: Provided various sources to group members including sources from the BBC