Peter W. Galbraith

About the Author: Peter W. Galbraith is a senior adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During March and April of 1991 he traveled to Iraq and surrounding regions to report on events following the Persian Gulf War.

On February 27, 1991, at midnight e.s.t. [Eastern Standard Time], President Bush halted Operation Desert Storm after 100 spectacularly successful hours of a ground campaign. American forces had not only liberated Kuwait but were in occupation of 15 percent of southern Iraq and located adjacent to such southern Iraqi cities as Basra, Nasiryah, and Suq al-shuyukh.

The Iraqi army was decimated. Of a prewar size of 1 million, as many as 100,000 were dead. Most of its tanks, armor, and artillery had been either destroyed by coalition bombing or abandoned and captured during...