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On this day in 1991, the US launched war against Iraq. The war began with a devastating air campaign, which directly targeted civilian infrastructure. The war killed over 100,000 people & included the use of napalm, cluster bombs, depleted uranium.
George H. W. Bush began the war by ordering 42 days of consecutive bombing of Iraq. US and coalition aircraft flew over 100,000 missions, dropping 85,000 lbs of bombs on Iraq, making it one of the most intensive aerial bombardments in military history.
During the air campaign, the US & its allies intentionally bombed & destroyed centers for civilian life like: commercial and business districts, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, shelters, residential areas, historical sites, private vehicles and government offices.
The US dropped cluster bombs on civilian evacuation routes like the highway between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan. US jets dove low and repeatedly fired machine gun rounds and rockets at hundreds of civilian vehicles including buses, killing thousands.
Despite lots of talk about “smart bombs”, some 90% of the weapons used were unguided “dumb bombs” with poor accuracy. The US also used 286,000kg of depleted uranium, poisoning vast ares of the country.
After the US destroyed all serious Iraqi military resistance in the first hours of bombing, the US moved on to systematically killing tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were incapable of defense or escape, cut off from their food, water and other supplies.
There were also many instances of US troops executing Iraqi troops attempting to surrender. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1991/06/12/navy-probes-alleged-shooting-of-surrendering-iraqi-troops/74cb7bb0-3989-42a0-8a7e-0e80d1ea6593/
The US also used napalm, cluster weapons, which are banned by more than 100 countries and in one particularly gruesome incident, the US military buried even thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1991-09-12-1991255203-story.html
The US bombing left Iraq in near apocalyptic conditions & as a result, 100,000 people died after the war from dehydration, dysentery, diseases, and malnutrition, inability to obtain effective medical assistance and debilitation from hunger, cold, shock and distress.
After launching the war, Bush's approval ratings jumped 18 points to 82%. The war was sold to the American public through a massive propaganda campaign launched by a public relations firm, hired by the Kuwaiti regime.
The campaign included false news articles & infamously the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador made fabricated claims of Iraqis tearing babies from incubators in testimony to congress. https://billmoyers.com/2014/06/27/the-first-iraq-war-was-also-sold-to-the-public-based-on-a-pack-of-lies/
Immediately following the war, the Bush Administration encouraged both Iraq's Kurdish and Shia communities to rise up against Saddam, then did nothing when Saddam’s forces predictably slaughtered them, killing tens of thousands of civilians.
