25 years ago...'The Highway Of Death'

Iraqi Forces Were Annihilated While Retreating On 'The Highway Of Death' 25 Years Ago

...The cluster munitions did their job. Both ends of escape were cut off, and vehicles at the head of the convoy careened into one another if they were not destroyed by the crescendo of sub-munitions.

What happened next remains highly controversial to this day. Wave after wave of coalition aircraft had their turn attacking the trapped vehicles. Flights of A-10 Warthogs were especially deadly, flying below the weather and expending all their munitions and cannon ammunition during multiple attack runs. The stretch of highway was worked over by coalition aircraft for 10 straight hours. Aboard carriers in the Gulf, any munitions ready for loading were being ordered onto fighter and attack jets with haste. Many of the vehicles that attempted to flee by driving off the highway were hunted down and destroyed.

It was a feeding frenzy...

Images from this military action were by far the most gruesome of Desert Storm. Although commanders state that the assault was justworthy in order to neuter Hussein’s war-fighting capabilities, many others have called it a massacre...





http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/iraqi-forces-were-annihilated-while-retreating-on-the-1754611524

The Iraqi's had refused to pull out of Kuwait and were absolutely destroyed along several major routes into Iraq. We weren't dropping warning leaflets like Obama is today with ISIS, but I think the Iraqi's figured it out.

As for it being called a massacre-I disagree. I think the convoy was a legitimate military target. Its frightening what a furious American military can do, and its not lost on me that we are probably fighting some of these people still today.

 

A lot of the more gruesome images from the Highway of Death were censored by the media. The most famous of which, I won't post, but it's a close-up of a burned corpse, an Iraqi soldier, still sitting at the wheel of his vehicle.

It was the equivalent to shooting fish in a barrel after both ends of the convoy were effectively blocked. Many of the vehicles were bogged down in the sand as they tried to escape and became stationary targets.

Regarding the moral issue, there's an important distinction between the fighting and the surrendering soldiers, and what we had in this situation, fleeing soldiers.

Facing defeat, what was left of the Iraqi army in Kuwait tried to flee back to Iraq with their stolen goods. Every vehicle that could be found was loaded with stolen items from Kuwait. The convoy moved north, coalition air forces found them and well, the rest is as they say...history.

A controversy ensued with many in the media arguing this was a massacre, that the option to surrender should have been given. There are two distinct ways of looking at war from a moral perspective, the reasons you fight and how you fight.

Jus ad Bellum / Jus in Bello

This incident concerns Jus in Bello, or how a war is fought. Although there is no clear definition on what is a morally proper way to wage war, this concerns the laws and customs of armed conflict, or simply the laws of war. The goal in waging war should be limiting the excesses and protecting civilians and other noncombatants. If indeed these retreating Iraqi soldiers were surrendering, there would be a strong argument that indeed the Highway of Death went too far,and thus violated the laws of war. A distinction must be made that these were fleeing soldiers, and therefore engaging them and taking them out of the fight was within the boundaries of the laws of war. It was a justifiable action, in other words.

 

Zoom to the present day, with Obamanation tactics. Daesh has been out in the open, perfectly vulnerable to similar attack, and nothing happened. Whether or not Bush did it wrong, what we have now is "wronger" than that.

 

I have long felt that the Invasion of Kuwait was primarily nothing but an international bank robbery.

Iraq owed a lot of money to Kuwait. When Kuwait called in their loans, instead of paying them back they took over the bank.

Then when it came time to go, they not only tried to take everything including the vault door in their attempt to flee, they tried to burn down the bank at the same time.

The thing most people do not think about is that the vehicles were primarily filled with loot and military equipment, trying to return to Iraq before their new state fell. And as for the casualties, they did not have to stay inside of the vehicles.

Going a couple of hundred meters off of the road and displaying a white flag, and unless they opened fire themselves they would have been left alone. But they were the ones that chose to stay in their vehicles and try to escape with all of their loot. So I do not feel very sorry for them.

No more then I feel sorry for a bank robber who beats and rapes the employees of the bank, then gets shot while trying to run away with the cash.

And if people think I am exagerating, I am not. There were over 600 Kuwaiti citizens missing after the war was over. A great many of those were POWs, senior government and military leaders. While most are still missing to this day, almost 400 were found in mass graves after the fall of the Saddam government.

And of course, there were very few actual "Kuwaiti POWs". Most actions during the invasion were similar to that against Ali Al Salem Air Base.

Basically the "Command Central" for the Kuwaiti defense, it was the last base taken by the Iraqis. Once the iraqis captured the base, they hung all of the Kuwaiti Gnereals from the flagpole. All of the rest were rounded up in the Officers club and shot.

So forgive me if I do not feel any pity for them.

 

I've read that the majority of the Iraqis fled the convoy into the desert after the vehicles were halted and thus survived

 

Many did survive as the attack was over hours, and if the Iraqi's didn't very quickly get the picture-they were toast.

Some decided to risk it because they had loot.

 

It isn't a video game for sure. And it had to be done.

 

I talked to a few Marine fighter jocks who participated in the first Gulf war (Desert Storm)

They said they were having a hell of a time blowing (*)(*)(*)(*) up that their ground crews couldn't refuel and rearm their aircraft fast enough. They wanted to get back in the air to blow more (*)(*)(*)(*) up.

 

Thats our highly trained military doing what they train for. Thats how I like it.

 

That was Reagan's military, bought and paid for during the 1980's.

 

Reagan was a wise POTUS. He knew the devastation our military was capable of.

Now we have a cuckold for POTUS.

 

Desert Shield gave way to Desert Storm and the fighting began on January 17, 1991, I was assigned to crew a
C-21A. Basically a military version of the civilian Lear jet. We carried follow-up copies of the daily ATO (Air Tasking Order) from the “Black Hole” in Riyadh to USAF fighter units in the field. I can tell you what transpired in the evening of February 27, 1991.

Beginning on January 27, USAF F-15Es were teamed with Joint STARS (E-8 ) for direct targeting missions in the KTO. KTO = Kuwait Theater of Operations. These missions continued through February 3. From February 4-12, F-15Es were not tasked for missions in the KTO. After February 12, F-15Es were used for a variety of tasks in the KTO: As examples...tank plinking, Joint STARS targeting missions, attacking artillery positions , a few bridge attacks, and convoy/road and river reconnaissance to cut the flow of supplies.

Eventually, F-15Es were the lead flights used to cut the escape of Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. The reason for this was the avionics of the F 15E. The image produced from the APG-70 synthetic aperture radar on the F-15E matches, very closely, to that on the Joint STARS aircraft. They could coummunicate to each other by referring to a common picture. After a target is initiatlly identified, aircrews could shift to the LANTIRN navigation/targeting pod for acquiring the target visually and identifying Iraqi ground force targets.

The interdiction of the fleeing Iraqi forces began with a Joint STARS detection of the columns of Iraqi vehicles
coming out of Kuwait City in the evening of February 27. The F-15E squadrons were called directly by the TACC (tactical air command center) and tasked to stop the column.

The F-15Es had just recovered from their planned mission and had to be prepared quickly and launched. That particular evening there was a a fairly low layer of clouds over the retreating Iraqi vehicles. This complicated the task. With the assistance of Joint STARS the F-15Es penetrated the clouds and delivered CBU-87s on the leading and trailing elements of the retreating Iraqi vehicles, stopping the movement out of Kuwait. A steady stream of aircraft of all types finished the job.

 

So it was a night attack...

 

The War Photo No One Would Publish

When Kenneth Jarecke photographed an Iraqi man burned alive, he thought it would change the way Americans saw the Gulf War. But the media wouldn’t run the picture.


http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/the-war-photo-no-one-would-publish/375762/

 

The attack did take place, predominantly, at night. Primarily cluster and incendiary type bombs were delivered. I'm sure the area was illuminated to some degree from that, however the targeting pods on some of the fighter aircraft included Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN). "Seeing" the target was never a problem once the attacking aircraft dipped below the cloud layer.

 

Outstanding so from the perspective the the enemy the attack probably seemed to come out of nowhere. I wonder if they thought the cloud cover would protect them, or maybe they didn't care or had been ordered.

I have heard lefties whine that this was an illegal attack, or that the convoy wasn't a legitimate military target. I see no evidence of that.
Was that ever a thought or concern during or after the attack?

I figure since I have a primary source present, I should ask.

 

I'd like to make it clear I played no role in the attack, I was deployed at the time. My knowledge is from after-action reports, I was privy to at the time, that are since unclassified.

It's 25 years ago, my personal memory of events are probably blurry, but I vividly recall the night of February 26-27, and what the meida would later refer to as the Highway of Death. There were actually two attacking points, but of course the Mile of Death and the bottleneck of burned out vehicles is what reporters focused on.

War is an ugly business, this is not something I would describe as humanity's best moment. However I strongly believe this was a justifiable action.

 

From what I've read, there was some provocation on the part of the Kuwaitis in that they were drilling horizontally into Iraqi oil fields. I doubt we'd allow Mexico to do that to us. And I doubt we are ever going to know the truth about U.S. attempts to keep Iraqi oil OFF the market. Saddam was making money at the expense of our drillers so who knows?

 

It was a powerful picture. I remember seeing it in a magazine. It was not on CNN.

 

Thirty-four nations contributed military forces to the coalition, along with economic support from a handful of other nations. Even the Arab League, which Iraq was a member of, condemned Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. You need to try harder to convince me the Gulf War was unjust. Meanwhile Iraq used exaggerated claims of slant drilling and oil overproduction to justify its invasion of Kuwait.

 

I remember seeing the Syrian's Goose Stepping into the Foray as an Ally against Iraq back then.

AboveAlpha

 

Agreed. I appreciate your service btw.

Does Herkdriver mean you are a pilot? Flew the C-130?

 

Your appreciation is appreciated. I was fortunate to serve in an era wherein military service was respected for the most part. There are numerous military veterans who inhabit this board. I did crew a C-130H2 for the U.S. Air Force Reserves after active duty. It's flew as in past tense, affirmative. I'm strictly a desk jockey for the most part now. I resigned my commission in late 2006 for medical reasons. I haven't flown since other than as a private pilot in small single engine planes.

 

Were you in Saudi when the first Alarm went off to put o Bio-Chem Protection went off?

It was a debacle!!!

AboveAlpha