Persian Gulf War

Iraq's 'chemical Ali' Gets Second Death Sentence for Shia Massacre
Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin and defence chief, convicted of killings following Gulf war in 1991

Iraq: Vaccinations Did Not Cause Gulf War Illness, Says Study
Soldiers' post-2003 Gulf war syndrome not due to vaccinations according to research

'Chemical Ali' on Trial for Brutal Crushing of Shia Uprising
· Estimated 100,000 dead in rebellion after 1991 war· Saddam's cousin already under death sentence

Gaming for the Fiery Tomorrow
Game scenarios regarding the outbreak of hostilities in Persian Gulf leave out one thing: What happens after. But like the wise Solomon, let's have some follies first.

The Brinkmanship of Energy Geopolitics
The Persian Gulf crisis does open a stunningly audacious window to reorder the world.

Gulf Illness Research 'could Help Tackle Chemical Attack'
Further research into the various illnesses suffered by veterans of the first Gulf war could help to reduce the potentially lethal effects of a terrorist chemical attack, a US congressman said today. Bernie Sanders, an independent congressman for the state of Vermont, also said research...

Congressman Gives Evidence at Gulf 'syndrome' Inquiry
Unlocking the secrets of illnesses suffered by veterans of the first Gulf war - which have been described by some as a "syndrome" - could help to thwart a chemical terror attack, a US congressman said today. Bernie Sanders, an independent congressman for Vermont, also claimed research...

50,000 Troops in Gulf Illness Scare
All 50,000 troops who served in the first Gulf war might have been exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agents during the fighting and its aftermath, a US investigation has suggested. The implication of a Congressional report that large numbers of civilians and troops in Iraq and...

Iraq Will Be His Legacy
History will remember Blair not for the Good Friday agreement or devolution, but for the Gulf war.

Gulf War Veteran Found Guilty of Us Sniper Killings
John Allen Muhammad, a Gulf war veteran and drifter, was found guilty yesterday of the "Washington sniper" killing spree, during which 10 people died and three were wounded last year. A jury in Virginia Beach took less than seven hours to convict him on four counts: murder, terrorism,...

Iraqi Health 'will Suffer for Generations'
Iraqis will suffer the health consequences of the second Gulf war "for years, maybe generations", says a report warning of an "information black hole" on what is truly happening in the country. The international health charity Medact said yesterday that up to 9,565 civilians might have...

Don't Mention the War to the Germans ... the Gulf War
More than 50 years after they stopped fighting one another, Britain and Germany remain divided by a war. But the conflict in question is not the second world war. Tony Blair's support for the US in invading Iraq has prompted young Germans to say it is the British who are warmongers...

Cell graffiti yields clue to lost pilot
Hopes rose yesterday that America might finally determine what happened to the only prisoner of war from the first Gulf war yet to be accounted for.

US claims biggest regime scalp yet
The hunt for Saddam Hussein's inner circle claimed its biggest success so far last night when American military officials announced the arrest of Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaidi, a former Iraqi prime minister who was implicated in the suppression of Shia uprisings after the 1991 Gulf war.

War Games and Gaffes
The artistic and cultural legacy of the war teeters on the edge of taste. During the two Gulf wars - with battle-fields beamed into living rooms - the idea of conflict as a video-game became a popular metaphor.

Coffee, confidences, and lessons in a kind of history from the 'jackal'
Requests from the press to Iraq's information ministry drew predictable and instant answers on the eve of the last Gulf war, in winter 1990. An interview with Saddam (one had to ask)? "Don't be an idiot." Football match? "Definitely."

Vantressa Brown: Animals suffering in war
Animals don’t wage war; why should they suffer because humans do? In our current war against Iraq, the United States Navy is using Dolphins and Sea Lions to intercept terrorists and mines in the Persian Gulf.

Tribal leaders may get local powers
A few months after the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam Hussein welcomed Iraq's tribal leaders to an audience in his palace. He apologised for agrarian reforms that had angered them and offered reconciliation.

US Lobby Could Threaten Iraqi Heritage
Apparent lobbying by American art dealers to dismantle Iraq's strict export laws has heightened fears about the looting of the country's antiquities as order breaks down in the last stages of the war. After the last gulf war a lot of treasures disappeared onto the black market and...

40 Million Starving 'as World Watches Iraq'
UN agency accuses west of pledging to feed victims of Gulf war while concern for plight of hungry Africans fades.

Reliving Old Battles
On a grim night spent at an abandoned airfield in southern Iraq, Burhan Wazir finds it hard not to imagine the ferocious fighting that took place there during the last Gulf war.

City of conflict
Basra, Iraq's second biggest city and principal port, is no stranger to armed conflict. Its location, near the Gulf, and its prosperity have often made it a target. The city has also had experience of British occupation.

Veterans question war strategy
Doubts over the US-led military strategy in Iraq intensified yesterday as several Gulf war commanders added their voices to the charge that it was a mistake to send such a small main force to advance on Baghdad from the south.

Hi-tech arsenal decisive - if targets can be found
In a war characterised as the most hi-tech in history, the first strikes of the battle for Baghdad are being carried out using weapons systems whose effectiveness against Iraqi armour was proven in Kuwait in 1991.

On the sidelines
Although Canada has officially declined to take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq, three Canadian warships, stationed in the Persian Gulf, will escort US and British vessels involved in the attack.

US generals embrace new kind of warfare
Beach landings, commando raids deep into enemy territory and plans for mass paratrooper assaults behind the lines. The opening days of the latest Gulf war are reminiscent of another, more daring era in military tactics, the second world war.

The reality of war on the ground
Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers had surrendered to US and British soldiers last night but it was a far cry from the mass capitulation seen at the outset of the last Gulf war.

War looms as leaders prepare for summit
Tony Blair today embarked on a last-minute round of telephone diplomacy as hopes for a second resolution on Iraq began to fade and a second Gulf war loomed.

Tactical lessons that must be learnt
The impending hi-tech onslaught to depose Saddam Hussein may go down in history as the second Gulf war. Military planners expect this conflict to be fought in Iraq's cities rather than its deserts.

War fears plunge airlines into crisis
The cloud of an imminent Gulf war cast a lengthening shadow over the world's airlines yesterday as Iberia and Japan's JAL warned of weak bookings while American carriers held out the prospect of up to 70,000 job cuts.

Rumsfeld claims more support than in 1991
More countries would back an American-led war on Iraq than the 33-strong coalition in the 1991 Gulf war, even without a second UN resolution, Donald Rumsfeld claimed in an interview broadcast last night.

Anti-mine groups call for ban on cluster bombs
More than 10 years after the end of the 1991 Gulf war, cluster bombs, grenades and shells left over from the conflict remain a threat to daily life in Kuwait, according to a coalition of anti-landmine charities.

Oil Prices Shoot Up to Gulf War Levels
Oil prices shot to their highest level since the Gulf war yesterday as fears of an imminent conflict in Iraq intensified, and investors sought to rebuild stocks depleted by freezing weather in the US. With the UN deadline for Iraq to begin destroying illicit missiles looming, the cost of...

The Face of Reality
The readers' editor on... a considered view of conflict over Iraq. On Friday last week the Guardian cleared 16 pages of G2, its tabloid second section, to present pictures that revealed, to quote from its cover line, "the true horror of the Gulf war" of 1991. Friday was chosen because it was the day before the anti-war marches and demonstrations in London and elsewhere.

US Ready to Use Blix Report As Launchpad for Gulf War
The US and Britain will next week begin a push for a UN security council resolution authorising war against Iraq after the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, delivers his report today.

Iraq's vital services balance on a knife edge ... even without a war
The first US missiles slammed into al-Taji electricity station in the opening hours of the war, on January 16 1991, setting the giant fuel tanks ablaze and plunging a large swath of Baghdad into darkness.

Killing - An Excerpt from the New Novel by Vic Fortezza
Dante Gentile, a carpenter, is proud to have served in Vietnam. 20 years later he faces psychological warfare on the homefront. His son, Junior, is off fighting the Gulf War. He suspects his wife, Deanna, of infidelity. His daughter is a mystery to him. One night he has a dream...

Study highlights health dangers of pills being given to departing troops
A cocktail of chemicals given to protect Gulf war soldiers in 1991 - and which are being used in the current deployment plans - could explain veterans' complaints about sexual problems and infertility, according to a new American study.

Americans Shot Near Kuwait City
One American was shot dead today and another was injured on a road leading to Camp Doha, a warehouse complex north of Kuwait City which has been a major US military base since the Gulf war. Both men were civilian contractors for the US military, according to John Moran, a spokesman for...

Russian warships on standby to sail to Gulf
Russia has put three warships on standby to go to the Persian Gulf within the next month to protect its "national interests" in the event of an American invasion of Iraq.

British troops bound for Iraq conflict to be given suspect Gulf war syndrome drugs
British troops preparing for deployment to the Gulf will be exposed to vaccines and anti-chemical and biological medicines similar to those that many scientists believe have caused unexplained illnesses for up to 9,000 veterans of the last Gulf war in 1991.

Mystery surrounds secret 1991 vaccines
Britain sent more than 53,000 troops to the Gulf war 12 years ago. They faced the threat of chemical and biological attacks and a series of medical counter measures were hurredly introduced.

Maggie O'Kane: War in Iraq
US propaganda fuelled the first Gulf war. It will fuel this one too - and the risks are even greater. I have a picture from the last Gulf war. It was taken in the basement of the Al Rashid hotel, the night the war started.

US sets up Iraq battle HQ in Gulf
The United States is preparing to install a new command centre in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar to act as its headquarters in the war against Iraq. It is the first time a major military HQ has been based outside the US.

The return of inspectors will solve nothing
Saddam will never be honest about his weapons programmes. In her diary of the Gulf war, Nuha al-Radi wrote of meeting a relative some months afterwards in Baghdad who told her "she'd like a catastrophe to envelop the US and swallow the whole continent.

Iraq expels CNN from Baghdad
CNN, the broadcaster that made its reputation covering the Gulf War from Baghdad, has been expelled from the country by the Iraqi government along with two other US TV news broadcasters.

Martyrs' heirs await the assault
There is no memorial at Safwan. None in Saddam Hussein's regime likes to remember the humiliating ceasefire signed here on the Kuwaiti border in 1991 ending the Gulf war and crushing the Iraqi president's imperial ambitions.

War is Only Feasible Because Iraq Isn't a Threat to the Us
A diplomatic fix will only be acceptable if it humiliates Saddam. Two images from northern Iraq in 1991 seem to me to bracket the possibilities of a new war to bring down Saddam Hussein.

Israeli missile defences beefed up
Israel is better equipped to handle any Iraqi counter-attack than it was in the Gulf war when some 39 Scud missiles landed on the country, the army chief, Moshe Yaalon, assured Israelis yesterday.

Timothy Garden: This war can't be left to the politicians
Almost any outcome of an assault on Iraq would make us less secure. Speculation about an imminent American operation to finish the Gulf war is rife. Yet the strategic aims remain uncertain. President Bush focuses on a change of regime.

Saudis will not aid US war effort
Saudi Arabia, the main launch pad for the 1991 war against Iraq, has made clear to Washington, publicly and privately, that it will not allow US forces to use its territory in any way for a new attack, the foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said yesterday.

How the inspections broke down
April 3 1991 UN security council passes resolution 687, dictating terms of Gulf war ceasefire. Requires Iraq to declare and destroy weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile delivery systems. Also establishes UN special commission (Unscom) to monitor and verify elimination of weapons

US congressmen told of Gulf war veterans' plight
A Gulf war widow pleaded before an unprecedented US congressional hearing in Westminster yesterday for Tony Blair's government to have the " honesty" to set up a public inquiry into the spate of illnesses that have hit over 5,000 troops who took part in Operation Desert Storm 11 years ago.

US Moves Gulf War Hearing to London
Health inquiry to be held as Bush prepares to renew Iraq conflict.

UN Agrees Long-awaited Smart Sanctions for Iraq
The United Nations security council yesterday finally agreed to an overhaul of sanctions that were imposed against Iraq 11 years ago at the end of the Gulf War.

The Road of Death Remembered
Abdul Maaunaim Abdul Wahab, a former Iraqi commando sergeant, still has nightmares about the Road of Death, the route from Kuwait to the Iraqi port of Basra along which Saddam Hussein's army retreated during the Gulf war 11 years ago, and the scene of its worst carnage "We left at one, in...

A quarter of US bombs missed target in Afghan conflict
One in four bombs and missiles dropped by the US on Afghanistan may have missed its target, but the 75% success rate was higher than those achieved during the Kosovo and Gulf wars, according to the first assessments made by the American military.

Marines Seize Al-qaida Caves As Afghan Violence Escalates
Royal Marine commandos have seized an al-Qaida cave complex in Afghanistan in a covert mission to minimise risks for American troops, marking Britain's first overseas combat deployment since the Gulf war a decade ago. A unit of 50 men infiltrated the Zawar valley on the border with...

The panel
Rear Admiral Stephen Baker is an analyst at the Centre for Defence Information in Washington. He served in the Gulf war and helped impose sanctions on Iraq