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On January 16, 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced the start of what would be called Operation Desert Storm—a military operation to expel occupying Iraqi forces from Kuwait, which Iraq had invaded and annexed months earlier.

For weeks, a U.S.-led coalition of two dozen nations had positioned more than 900,000 troops in the region, most stationed on the Saudi-Iraq border. A U.N.-declared deadline for withdrawal passed on January 15, with no action from Iraq, so coalition forces began a five-week bombardment of Iraqi command and control targets from air and sea.

Despite widespread fears that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein might order the use of chemical weapons, a ground invasion followed in February. Coalition forces swiftly drove Iraq from Kuwait, advancing into Iraq, and reaching a cease-fire within 100 hours—controversially leaving Saddam Hussein in power. While coalition casualties were in the hundreds, Iraqi losses numbered in the tens of thousands.

French soldiers from the Foreign Legion Infantry regiment in the Saudi desert near Hafr al-Batin, wear full chemical warfare equipment during a training session before the Gulf War on October 26, 1990.

Responding to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, troops of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division deploy across the Saudi desert on November 4, 1990, during preparations prior to the Gulf War.

President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office on January 16, 1991 in Washington following his statement concerning the U.S. attack of Iraq. The president said, “The world could wait no longer,” for U.S. action.

Sergeant Rachel Forehand, rests her head on a stuffed bear as the U.N. deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait passed on January 16, 1991.

People read a bulletin edition of the New York Post reporting the outbreak of hostilities in the Persian Gulf in New York’s Times Square on January 17.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney appears with Gen. Colin Powell at a war briefing at the Pentagon on January 17, 1991 announcing loss of an American warplane in the attack on Iraq.

Anti-aircraft fire following an air attack by allied aircraft enforcing the U.N. resolution early on January 18, 1991, in Baghdad, Iraq.

Soldiers, hotel workers and others, some wearing gas masks, kneel for morning prayers on January 18, 1991, in a basement used as a bomb shelter at a hotel in eastern Saudi Arabia.

A crowd estimated in the tens of thousands makes its way down Market Street in San Francisco, on January 19, 1991, while protesting the United States attack on Iraq and Kuwait.

A U.S. soldier and Saudi police officers examine the wreckage of a scud missile, which landed in downtown Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on January 22, 1991 when Iraq launched a missile attack on the Saudi capital.

A column of U.S. Marine Amphibious Tracked Vehicles moves north across the desert in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War on February 17, 1991.

A young Iraqi boy carried a plate of sausage in the ruins of houses in an area west of Al-Ahrar Bridge, Baghdad, on February 20, 1991, after a recent allied bombing raid.

A Kuwaiti helicopter herds Iraqi prisoners of war, arms in the air, across a stream in southeastern Kuwait, on February 25, 1991.

Somewhere in Iraqi desert, U.S soldiers guard captured Iraqi prisoners of war on February 25, 1991.

French special-forces commandos capture Iraqi soldiers somewhere in Iraqi desert on February 26, 1991.

Three British soldiers in full combat and gas gear wait for the all-clear signal in a hotel lobby in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, during a Scud attack on February 26, 1991.

A U.S. soldier stands night guard as oil wells burn in the distance in Kuwait, just south of the Iraqi border on February 26, 1991.

An Iraqi tank goes up in flames after being hit by a TOW missile fired form the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, in Iraq on February 27, 1991.

The body of an Iraqi soldier lies in a sandy ditch on the outskirts of Kuwait City on February 27, 1991, after being killed as coalition forces moved in to liberate the city.

A wounded US soldier left, cries after being given the dog tags and learning of the death of a fellow tank crewman, in the body bag at right, in this February 28, 1991 photo.

Residents of Tanuma in the Iraqi province of Basra stand guard over captured Iraqi military personnel in March of 1991.

A long line of vehicles, including destroyed Iraqi Army Russian-made T-62 tanks and trucks stand abandoned by fleeing Iraqi troops on the outskirts of Kuwait City, on March 1, 1991, after the liberation of Kuwait.

A devastated convoy of vehicles on a highway north of Kuwait City is visible in this aerial photo made on March 1, 1991, during the Gulf War.

U.S. General Schwarzkopf, left, escorts Iraqi military leaders to a tent to set the terms for a permanent ceasefire. The meeting took place at an airbase in Safwan, Iraq, on March 3, 1991.

A destroyed Iraqi tank rests near a series of oil-well fires during the Gulf War, on March 9, 1991, in northern Kuwait.

The bodies of dead Iraqi soldiers hang from a truck abandoned by fleeing Iraqi army on March 11, 1991.

A satellite communications antenna destroyed during Operation Desert Storm.

An Iraqi sits huddled in a barbed wire holding area at a U.S. checkpoint some 25 miles south of Basra, on March 28, 1991 in Iraq, after he and four others were arrested by U.S. soldiers for allegedly robbing and murdering refugees.

Several blown-out wells damaged by retreating Iraqi soldiers in Al-Ahmadi oil-field burn on April 1, 1991, in southern Kuwait.

A Fighter Squadron 114 (VF-114) F-14A Tomcat aircraft flies over an oil well set ablaze by Iraqi troops during Operation Desert Storm.

The effects of Iraqi troops setting fire to the oil wells in Kuwait during February 1991, is captured in this photograph of the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf taken on April 7, 1991.

Geysers of flame and thick, toxic smoke spew forth from just a few of the hundreds of Kuwaiti oil wells set afire by fleeing Iraqi troops.

Red Adair’s fire-fighting crews at work beside a blown-out well damaged by retreating Iraqi soldiers in Al-Ahmadi oil field in southern Kuwait.

Several blown-out wells damaged by retreating Iraqi soldiers in Al-Ahmadi oil field burn on June 5, 1991, in southern Kuwait.