Battle Analysis Iran / Iraq War

     On November 29, with coalition forces over whelming in Saudi Arabia and Iraq showing no signs of retreat, the

Within three days, Iraq had taken over Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabian oilfields. In response to this, the United States initiated Operation Desert Shield to protect Saudi Arabia. Operation Desert Storm began only 4 months after Iraq's initial intent on invading Kuwait. Within almost 4 days, US forces drove out Iraq all the way from Kuwait to the southern border of Iraq.

On 24 April 1980’s United States Special Operation forces , along with Joint Task Force 1-79 , led an operation to save 52 American hostages trapped inside Tehran,Iran known as Operation Eagle Claw. .The Operation was broken up into two phases. The first phase was to take place in Iran at a site called Desert One. Desert One was an Airstrip for USAF special operations to use to land aircraft such as the MC130, AC130H, and the RH53D. The MC130 was a fixed wing aircraft meant to transport ground forces,the C130H was a gunship for security, and the RH53D was a mine-sweeper and transported ground forces. The RH53D was flown by United States Marine Corps aviators from the carrier USS Nimitz. The plan was that these aircraft would fly under radar to Desert One, the men would offload at the site, The Helicopters would refuel and be concealed at Desert Two. The next night the American Forces would then extract the hostages, get to a soccer stadium where they would be picked up by RH53D mine sweeping helicopters. The assaulting force would hit the compound with the security provided by the AC130H. After extracting the hostages helicopters would bring the force from the stadium to Manzariyeh Air Base outside Tehran

Tensions weren’t much different in Baghdad. Due to the relentless bombings, over 600 tommy hawk missiles were fired within the first week of the invasion, and 4300 precision weapons dropped on key targets.

Surprise (9:08): Iraq. Instead of doing what the Iraqi’s expected and attacking at the coast, they kept the troops back and hid their activity. They launched attacks through the barrier, and while the troops were doing that, other ally troops were launching attacks in other areas too on the ground and in the air as well. The french forces in particular surprised the Iraqis with air

Later that evening at 1900, 3rd battalion 1st Marines launched an attack and seized the train station with the help of two platoons from the Iraqi National Guard. (Camp, 2014)

The mission was to attack and clear al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), from Diyala Province in Baqubah The bad Intel was said that there were only 500 to 800 AQI combatants when we initiated operations in Buhriz. On the morning of 14 of March 2007, the Regulars would soon realize that we walked into a hornets nest. When the Regulars began clearing operations in Buhriz they did not know the exact number of AQI that would be in the city. Route (RTE) Gold was the only road into Buhriz this is where the Regulars would encounter their first improvised explosive device (IED), deep buried improvised explosive device (DBIED) and house borne improvised explosive device (HBIED). AQI had hundreds of mines and IED’s laid out in the roads or in manhole covers in sewer diches. (Cpt Chuck

Desert Sabre was a massive coalition ground attack led by the United States. It started just north of Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and Southern Iraq (“Persian Gulf War.” Britannica). The elite Iraqi Republican Guard mounted a defense south of Al-Basrah in southeastern Iraq, but most were defeated by February 27. At the same time as Desert Sabre, the United States led forces went into Iraq 120 miles west of Kuwait attacking Iraq’s armored reserves from the rear (“Persian Gulf War” History.com). Within three days of Desert, Sabre Kuwait city was taken back by the coalition and liberated (“Persian Gulf War” History.com).

The war in the Persian Gulf was a war of religious favor, cruel leadership, and greed. Desert Storm or more commonly known ass The Golf War was the same type of war that had accrued in this area for many years except for one fact. In Operation Desert Storm, it was a mix of sophisticated technology and the combined leadership and cooperation from the coalition that was used to end the war in a quick and timely manner. Which in the end probably saved thousands of lives.

Two days after the invasion, the Iraqi Republican Guard had already defeated the Kuwaiti army, but some soldiers had escaped to Saudi Arabia.

reasons Saddam attacked Iran to begin with is that Iran was calling for Iraqi Shiites to overthrow

The Persian Gulf lead with a massive U.S air force. After 42 days of relentless attack by the air and the ground. According to A and E television, “President George W. Bush declared cease fire on February 28.” Most of Iraqi forces either surrendered or fled. The Persian Gulf conflict was considered an unqualified success. This troubled region and led to another war.

The Battle of Khorramshahr was a battle that transpired between the countries of Iran and Iraq and took place from September 22 to November 10, 1980. The port city of Khorramshahr, the staging area of the first battle that kicked off the Iran-Iraq war, was a predominately wealthy, upper class city with a population of over 200,000 people. The once cosmopolitan city, Khorramshahr, became known as Khuninshahr, the ‘City of Blood’, because of the violent conditions and number of casualties suffered in the city. Most of the Iraq-Iran war took place just inside the borders of both countries and in the Persian Gulf. A truce was called on July 20, 1988 after nearly eight years of war. Iran accepted a United Nations resolution after a tiresome fight with over one million casualties suffered on both sides.

Towards the final years of the war, appeared that neither side were getting any closer to the goal they set when they entered the war. Iraq was no longer pushing into Iran to try and overthrow their government to ensure Hussein’s reign as dictator. While Iraq mainly played defense in the war, Iran was unable to push far enough into Iraq to accomplish their goal of taking Hussein out of power. In an attempt to stop this stalemate of a war, city warfare was taking over instead of conventional, foot warfare. This lead to both sides exchanging bombings of cities in their nations. Iran bombed Baghdad and then in turn, Iraq bombed Tehran. This war of cities continued on for some time, yet this was just another example of stalemate warfare just with

The rise of the Ba’th party in Iraq saw the development of a drive for a singular Iraqi national identity (Albert 2013). The Ba’th pursued a unique brand of Pan Arabism which sought to make Iraq the leader of the Arab world. In this unified Arab Iraq, the Kurds did not have a place and thus began decades of incredibly brutality and war, but it was this brutality that helped unite the various Kurdish political groups. Unification between Kurdish forces began to gain momentum with the development of the Iran-Iraq War. The two main Kurdish political groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), served as proxy forces for Iran and Iraq until in 1986 when Iran negotiated a truce (Entessar 1992). However, Saddam Hussein saw Kurdish unity as a threat and began a series of brutal military actions known as The Anfal Campaigns to destroy Kurdish unity and strength (Yildiz 2007). The Anfal Campaigns were a series of eight military offensive between the spring and summer of 1988 that gained international recognition because of the most deadly use of chemical warfare since WWI. The Anfal campaigns resulted in the displacement of 1.5 million refugees, mass executions, destruction of thousands of villages, and the death of hundreds of thousands Kurds. From eyewitness accounts, “Bombing