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On November 8, 1990, the FBI turned over the 16 boxes of files confiscated from Egyptian Islamist/assassin El Sayyid Nosair’s house to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. “The bulk of the material remained untranslated and unread for nearly three years. Many officials…have since claimed that the files provided a virtual roadmap to future terrorist acts, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing… the Nosair papers contained a manifesto exhorting his associates to topple the ‘tall buildings of which Americans are so proud.’ ”

 – John Miller, Michael Stone, and Chris Mitchell, The Cell, Page 46

“On November 8, 1990, FBI and Jersey State Police troopers raided [Egyptian Islamist/assassin El Sayyid] Nosair’s New Jersey home. …Reams and reams of classified material, sensitive military documents from the U.S. Army’s Special Operation Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were uncovered. …More ominously, though, investigators found the actual plans for the destruction of skyscrapers in New York City.”

 – Samuel M. Katz, Relentless Pursuit, Pages 36-37

On November 13, 1990, "A week after the [Rabbi Meier] Kahane killing, Detective Lou Napoli of the FBI-NYPD Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF) follows up on a document seized at [Egyptian Islamist/assassin El Sayyid] Nosair's house linking him to Raymond Murteza, an ex-cop who engaged in weapons training with [al Qaeda agent/FBI informant] Ali Mohamed's cell members at a Connecticut gun range."

 – Peter Lance, Triple Cross, (Timeline) 4

According to information in the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry staff report dated October 8, 2002, “In [November] 1990, FBI agents carted away forty-seven boxes of documents and training manuals from the home of [Egyptian Islamist] El Sayyid Nosair, Rabbi Meir Kahane’s assassin. The FBI did not translate the material from Arabic into English for two years, and even then it did not share with the CIA crucial evidence about the terrorists’ international network. The documents provided rich details about Afghan training camps and the growth of al Qaeda along the Afghan border and throughout the Middle East. Osama bin Laden’s name surfaced in this initial FBI investigation because a relative of Nosair traveled to Saudi Arabia and received money from bin Laden to pay for Nosair’s defense lawyers. The CIA was not told.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 255

Former Iraqi general Georges Sada wrote: “In November 1990 I made a frightening discovery: Saddam had ordered the [Iraqi] air force to begin planning for a major aerial assault against Israel. If the Americans were going to attack and force him to give up Kuwait, he said, then our pilots would be ready to attack Israel as soon as the first rockets hit, and they would extract a heavy price. They would attack in two massive, back-to-back assaults with three types of chemical weapons: the nerve gas Tabun, as well as Sarin 1 and Sarin 2.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Georges Sada with Jim Nelson Black, Saddam’s Secrets, Page 1

“In November 1990, the UN passed a resolution demanding that Iraqi forces withdraw from Kuwait by January 15, 1991. If Saddam refused, the UN would give authority to its members to “use all necessary means” to force the Iraqis out. This would mean war.”  [The 15th of the month for date sorting purpose only]

 – Andrew Langley, Bush, Blair, and Iraq: Days of Decision, Page 7

Secretary of Defense Dick "Cheney had discussed Saddam's weapons programs in an appearance on CBS's Face The Nation on November 25, 1990: 'We've known for a long time from public sources that he was trying to acquire nuclear weapons. The British intercepted devices intended to trigger a nuclear weapon in shipments to Iraq just last spring. We also know from intelligence sources that he's working on this problem very hard. The president [George H.W. Bush] made reference to it, but it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. This man has developed ballistic missiles and used them, developed chemical weapons and used them, is trying to develop biological and nuclear weapons, has tested missiles at longer ranges than just the short-range SCUD. It's only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them. And that has to be, I think, an element of concern and–as we decide how to deal with the problem.' "

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, 240-241

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney discussed Saddam's weapons programs on CBS's Face The Nation on November 25, 1990. "Asked specifically about the status of Iraq's nuclear program, Cheney shared the assessments he'd gotten, including the one provided by the Israelis: 'There are a lot of estimates. They range through worst-case assumption–a matter of a year or less to having some kind of a crude device–to one to five to ten years in terms of having a deliverable weapon. The experts are all over the lot. What we do know is, he's doing everything he can to acquire the capability.' "

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, 241

"…on November 29 [1990], the [UN] Security Council authorized the use of force to eject Saddam's army [from Kuwait]."

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, 20

On November 29, 1990, “the United Nations authorized the use of ‘all necessary means’ to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait if they failed to withdraw by January 15 [1991] and to ‘restore international peace and security in that area.’ Security Council resolution 678 passed by a vote of 12-2, with China abstaining and Cuba and Yemen voting no.”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 201

U.N. Security Council Resolution 678, passed on November 29, 1990, “authorized U.N. member states…to use ‘all necessary means’ to oust Iraqi forces from Kuwait if all Iraqi forces were not withdrawn and Kuwait’s government restored by January 15, 1991.”

 – Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Page 103

In a speech at the National Defense University on November 30, 1990, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell said: ” ‘I am very supportive of the United Nations… And I think that as a part of moving into this new era, we should align ourselves more and more closely with [its] activities.’ ”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 201

According to The Riegle Report, which was delivered to the Senate on February 9, 1994, regarding the health of Gulf War veterans, in December 1990, “A month before the [first Gulf] war began, then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Webster estimated that Iraq possessed 1,000 tons of poisonous chemical agents, much of it capable of being loaded into two types of missiles: the FROG (Free Rocket Over Ground) and the SCUD B(SS-1). Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems lists warhead capabilities for the FROG-7 as high explosive (HE), chemical, or nuclear, and for the Iraqi versions of the SCUD as probably HE or chemical.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Donald Wayne Riegle, Jr. and Alfonse M. D’Amato, The Riegle Report, May 25, 1994, Page 10

“At a December 1990 White House meeting, according to [then-national security advisor] Brent Scowcroft, the [George H.W.] Bush administration decided not to aim for Saddam’s removal. As the national security advisor recounts in the memoir he co-authored with the president, A World Transformed, ‘We would be committing ourselves–alone–to removing one regime and installing another and if the Iraqis themselves didn’t take matters into their own hands, we would be facing…some dubious *nation-building* ‘ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 44

According to a Los Angeles Times article on December 21, 1990, when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell visited troops in Saudi Arabia prior to Operation Desert Storm, he said, regarding the upcoming attack: ” ‘When we launch it, we will launch it violently. We will launch it in a way that will make it decisive so we can get it over with as quickly as possible and there’s no question who won.’ ”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 202

“In January 1991, during the runup to Operation Desert Storm, Secretary of State James Baker had sent Saddam a message. In a meeting in Geneva [Switzerland] with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz [on January 9, 1991], Baker said bluntly: ‘If the conflict involves your use of chemical or biological weapons against our forces…the American people will demand vengeance. We have the means to exact it…this is not a threat, it is a promise. If there is any use of weapons like that, our objective won’t just be the liberation of Kuwait, but the elimination of the current Iraqi regime, and anyone responsible for using those weapons would be held accountable.’ ”

 – Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack, Page 155

On Jan. 9, 1991, Cyrus R. Vance, former U.S. Secretary of State, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was quoted in The New York Times: “If the U.S. attacks Iraq, it will find itself virtually alone in a bitter and bloody war that will not be won quickly or without heavy casualties.”

 – Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 74

“After a long and rancorous debate, Congress on January 12 [1991] narrowly authorized the president [George H.W. Bush] to go to war [with Iraq] under the terms of the U.N. resolution.”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 203

“On January 12, 1991, Congress voted to authorize President [George H.W.] Bush to use force in Iraq. The Democratic House of Representatives voted 250 to 183. The Senate vote was 52 to 47, with Tennessee senator Al Gore [D] casting one of the decisive votes at the final hour.”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 239

“In [January 12] 1991 the resolution authorizing [President] George H. W. Bush to use ‘all necessary means’ to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait passed by 52 to 47 in the [U.S.] Senate and 250 to 183 in the House.”

 – Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Page 61

“Not only had the [CIA’s] Clandestine Service withered in size, for many years, its performance had also been rapidly spiraling downward. …it also had no useful spies in Iraq prior to or during the first Gulf War [in January 1991].” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – James Bamford, A Pretext for War, Page 129

“On January 15, 1991, the day before the United States launched attacks against Iraq, President Bush signed National Security Directive 54. The first line states, ‘Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security. …The U.S. remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through use of military force, against any power with interests inimical to our own.’ ”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Page 172

On January 15, 1991, “The day before he launched the U.S. attack against Iraq, President [H.W.] Bush signed National Security Directive 54. The first line states, ‘Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security.’ ”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Tyranny of Oil, Page 328

“Mr. bin Laden was indignant with corruption in the government and became enraged when [Saudi] King Fahd let American forces, with their rock music and Christian and Jewish troops, wage the Persian Gulf war from Saudi soil in early [January] 1991.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Robert D. McFadden, “Bin Laden’s Journey from Rich, Pious Boy to the Mask of Evil,” The New York Times, Sep. 30, 2001

“…the United Nations had given Iraq a deadline of January 15, 1991, to withdraw peacefully from Kuwait. The [H.W.] Bush administration had also built a strong coalition of thirty-five nations that had agreed to participate in removing Iraqi forces by military force, if necessary. Approximately 660,000 troops had been assembled (74 percent, or 500,000, were American) and $56 billion had been pledged to finance the war (most coming from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Persian Gulf countries).”

 – Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 72

President George H.W. Bush in White House National Security Directive 54: “Access to Persian Gulf oil and the security of key friendly states in the area are vital to U.S. national security. Consistent with NSD 26 of October 2, 1989, and NSO 45 of August 20, 1990, and as a matter of long-standing policy, the United States remains committed to defending its vital interests in the region, if necessary through the use of military force, against any power with int erests inimical to our own. Iraq, by virtue of its unprovoked invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and its subsequent brutal occupation, is clearly a power with interests inimical to our own.”

 – George Bush Presidential Library and Museum – 41, “White House National Security Directive 54 – Subject: Responding to Iraqi Aggression in the Gulf,” Jan. 15, 1991, Accessed online 3/10/2016

“The [first Gulf] war began on January 16, 1991. …To many Saudis, the presence of the foreign ‘crusaders,’ as bin Laden characterized the coalition troops, in the sanctuary of Islam posed a greater calamity than the one that Saddam was already inflicting on Kuwait.”

 – Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, Page 182

“When the Gulf War began on January 16, 1991, much of the country stood behind President [George H.W.] Bush. Night after night, millions of people were spellbound by the high-tech spectacle on CNN, unaware that Osama bin Laden’s jihad against America had begun. In [the assassination of Rabbi] Meir Kahane, Al Qaeda had already claimed its first casualty on American soil.”

 – Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 148

Operation Desert Storm began “At 7 p.m. Wednesday [January 16, 1991]–3 a.m. Thursday in Baghdad–the Iraqi night exploded on television screens at the Pentagon with the unleashed force of more than seven hundred U.S. and allied combat aircraft and the impact of dozens of cruise missiles launched from ships in the Persian Gulf.”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 204

Following his order that launched Operation Desert Storm the previous day, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney spoke at a Pentagon briefing on January 16, 1991. ” ‘At seven tonight, as you all know by now, Eastern Time, three Thursday morning in the Gulf, the armed forces of the United States began an operation at the direction of the president [George H.W. Bush] to force Saddam Hussein to withdraw his troops from Kuwait and to end his occupation of that country.’ ”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 242

“On January 17, 1991, Operation Desert Storm officially began with massive air strikes on Baghdad and other key military positions across Iraq. More than 1,000 sorties per day were flown, and thousands of Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched from Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. The destruction that rained down on Iraq was astonishing–and it led Saddam Hussein to declare that ‘the mother of all wars’ had begun.”

 – Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 73

“The air campaign against Iraq began at 0400 on January 17, 1991. Operation Desert Shield became Desert Storm. And around the clock for weeks, American, British, French, Italian, and Arab planes pounded the Iraqi army and Command and Control targets in and near Baghdad.”

 – Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, Page 151

In The Iraq War Reader, Kenneth Pollack wrote: “Starting on January 17, 1991, the U.S.-led coalition unleashed the forty-three days of Operation Desert Storm.”

 – Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 81

“On January 17, 1991, soon after the UN deadline [for Iraq to leave Kuwait] expired, U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq and Kuwait. Most troops were American, with support from Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and Egypt. More than 30 countries took part in the coalition. The operation was called Desert Storm. It was the beginning of the [1991] Gulf War.”

 – Andrew Langley, Bush, Blair, and Iraq: Days of Decision, Page 7

“On January 18 [1991], the day after the U.S. air campaign began [in Operation Desert Storm], the Iraqi missile batteries began lobbing Scud [missiles] at Israel and later at Saudi Arabia. While none hit any military targets, public anxiety in the United States and Israel about these attacks forced the White House to order NSA [National Security Agency] and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to dedicate a significant amount of their SIGINT [signals intelligence] collection resources to locating the missiles so that they could be destroyed by air strikes. This proved to be virtually impossible. A study written by a U.S. Army intelligence officer who served in Operation Desert Storm notes, ‘The quick nature of Iraqi *shoot and scoot* tactics made detection extremely difficult, if not near impossible. The Iraqi missile units maintained excellent radio security, only infrequently communicating target data and fire commands with higher headquarters.’ The net result was that SIGINT, despite intensive efforts, did not find a single Scud missile launcher during the entire Persian Gulf War.”

 – Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Page 194

“In January [19] 1991 a bomb exploded prematurely near the US-sponsored Thomas Jefferson Library in a suburb of Manila [Philippines]… Two sons of Hikmat Abdul Sattar, the Iraqi ambassador to Somalia, were arrested by the Philippines police and deported.”

 – Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, Page 247

” ‘Saddam enjoys wide support among fundamentalists in the Arab world who perceive the Western presence in the region as a threat to their society and culture,’ Salah Nasrawi, a reporter with the Associated Press, wrote that same day [January 19, 1991].”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection, Page 37

“Concerned in 1991 that the American military would be portrayed by the media as piling on in a one-sided rout, the Bush administration halted the ground war [of Operation Desert Storm] at 100 hours [on January 21, 1991], a move that allowed much of the Republican Guard in Iraq, the most effective and loyal force in Mr. Hussein’s military, to escape.”

 – Michael R. Gordon, “A Decade Beyond the Gulf War,” The New York Times, Feb. 18, 2001

According to The Riegle Report, which was delivered to the Senate on February 9, 1994, regarding the health of Gulf War veterans, “The British Sunday Times reported on January 27, 1991, that American intelligence detected greatly increased activity at Iraq’s main chemical plant at Samarra in the last week of December [1990], and the British Ministry of Defense said that the Allies believe that Iraq ‘may have as many as 100,000 artillery shells filled with chemicals and several tons (of bulk agent) stored near the front line.’ According to the Times report, a British Ministry of Defense official said: ‘The plant was at peak activity and the chemicals were distributed to the troops in Kuwait and elsewhere in theatre.’ The Times reported that an unnamed Pentagon source said that Hussein had given front-line commanders permission to use these weapons at their discretion, and that ‘it was no longer a question of if, but when.’ ”

 – Donald Wayne Riegle, Jr. and Alfonse M. D’Amato, The Riegle Report, May 25, 1994, Page 12

From The Riegle Report, which was delivered to the Senate on February 9, 1994, regarding the health of Gulf War veterans, “On February 4, 1991, media sources reported that General Raymond Germanos, a spokesperson for the French Ministry of Defense, confirmed that chemical fallout–‘probably neurotoxins’–had been detected in small quantities, ‘a little bit everywhere,’ from allied air attacks of Iraqi chemical weapons facilities and the depots that stored them.”

 – Donald Wayne Riegle, Jr. and Alfonse M. D’Amato, The Riegle Report, May 25, 1994, Page 61

Former Middle East Envoy Donald “Rumsfeld helped facilitate Iraq’s buying spree from American firms [in the late 1980s]. As the Los Angeles Times reported [on February 13, 1991], the U.S. government approved the sale of  ‘a whopping $1.5 billion worth’ of high technology to Iraq between [March] 1985 and 1990. There was ample evidence that the equipment had dual military applications.”

 – Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Page 30

“On February 14 [1991], two weeks before the end of the [first Gulf] war, President [George H.W.] Bush had encouraged Iraqis to overthrow Saddam Hussein. ‘There’s another way for the bloodshed to stop,’ Bush had said, ‘and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands,’ and remove their despotic leader. His words were broadcast into Iraq.”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 245

“After the 1991 Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush signed a presidential finding authorizing the CIA to topple Saddam [on February 15, 1991]…The president publicly called on Iraqis to ‘take matters into their own hands’ to remove Saddam. When the Kurds in the north and the Shiite Muslims in the south rebelled against Saddam, Bush declined US military support. The result was another slaughter.”

 – Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack, Page 70

“By February 1991, American and Allied forces were victorious in liberating Kuwait. But American forces stayed on in Saudi Arabia to patrol the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq and to preserve the peace. To bin Laden, the continued American presence on Saudi soil felt like betrayal and he became increasingly vocal and hostile in his opposition to the Saudi royal family as 1991 wore on.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 14

“According to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency, Saddam Hussein systematically ignited or otherwise crippled 749 oil wells during Iraq’s retreat from Kuwait in February 1991, causing 610 well blazes. By June, those fires were emitting roughly two million tons of carbon dioxide daily into the atmosphere.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 21

Speaking at the Raytheon Corporation plant in Andover, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1991, President George H.W. Bush said, regarding the situation in Iraq: ” ‘There’s another way for the bloodshed to stop, and this is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside.’ ”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 39

On Feb. 15, 1991, in an address to assembly-line workers at Raytheon, manufacturer of the Patriot missile, President George H.W. Bush said: “42 Scuds engaged, 41 intercepted. Thank God for the Patriot missile!”

 – Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 138

From The Riegle Report, which was delivered to the Senate on February 9, 1994, regarding the health of Gulf War veterans: “With the initiation of the ‘ground war’ on February 24, 1991, Iraqi forces set fire to over 600 oil wells located inside Kuwait. The contamination from these fires had a dramatic impact on the environment and the smoke was so thick that often there was darkness.”

 – Donald Wayne Riegle, Jr. and Alfonse M. D’Amato, The Riegle Report, May 25, 1994, Page 106

In Operation Desert Storm, “The major Coalition ground attack began before dawn on G-Day, February 24, 1991.”

 – Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, Page 161

“By late February 1991, the United States and its allies were in a very strong position. They could have gone on to conquer Iraq, seize control of the capital city of Baghdad, and overthrow Saddam Hussein. But the coalition armies halted near the Iraqi border.” [The 25th of the month for date sorting purpose only]

 – Andrew Langley, Bush, Blair, and Iraq: Days of Decision, Page 8

“By day four [of the Operation Desert Storm ground war, on February 27, 1991], with more than 70,000 Iraqi prisoners of war in multinational custody and most of Kuwait liberated, Saddam ordered what was left of his army to withdraw. His troops were nearly surrounded, with only one avenue of escape. Fleeing Iraqis clogged the main highway north, where they became easy pickings for American helicopters and jets.”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 204

“The [first] Gulf War ended on February 27, 1991…”

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 23

In Operation Desert Storm, on February 27, 1991, “After only four days of fighting [the ground war in Kuwait], when American units had yet to encircle Iraqi forces, [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin] Powell convinced President [George H.W.] Bush to halt ground operations. ‘The vaunted Republican Guard formations are no longer,’ the general announced. He was wrong. Their escape routes clear, three largely intact Republican Guard divisions escaped back to Iraq–where some of them began massacring Iraqi civilians whom the United States had encouraged to revolt. At the White House, Secretary of State [James] Baker, too, argued for a halt to the American advance. ‘We have done the job. We can stop. We have achieved our aims. We have gotten them out of Kuwait.’ ”

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Pages 44-45

In an Oval Office address on February 27, 1991, President George H.W. Bush said: ” ‘Kuwait is liberated. Iraq’s army is defeated. Our military objectives are met. Kuwait is once more in the hands of Kuwaitis, in control of their own destiny.’ ”

 – Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Pages 131-132

“By February 27, [1991]  Kuwait had been liberated.”

 – Andrew Langley, Bush, Blair, and Iraq: Days of Decision, Page 8

With the approval of General Norman Schwarzkopf, “they [President George H.W. Bush and members of his Administration] decided to declare a cease-fire [in Operation Desert Storm] at midnight [at the end of February 28, 1991], Washington time, ending the ground war exactly one hundred hours after it had begun. ‘There was a general consensus that we had, in fact, achieved our objectives,’ [Secretary of Defense Dick] Cheney later recalled. The Iraqis were out of Kuwait. ‘We’d done what we said we were going to do.’ ”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 208

Operation Desert Storm, which ended on February 28, 1991, had a “low number of casualties: 148 American combat deaths and 467 wounded. Of 116,000 coalition sorties flown, they had lost 75 aircraft, none of them in air-to-air combat.”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 396

“The [first] Gulf War lasted six weeks [January 16-February 28, 1991]–a sustained aerial bombardment followed by an overwhelming application of ground force. The campaign would go down as one of the most successful military operations in American history. American casualties were low–only 148 combat deaths–and contributions from members of the broad coalition of countries that had supported the war largely covered the cost of the conflict.”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 244

“Operation Desert Storm was a military victory of historic proportions… In the span of only forty-three days [from January 17-February 28, 1991], forty-two Iraqi combat divisions were destroyed and 82,000 prisoners taken, the entire Iraqi navy was sunk, and 50 percent of Iraq’s combat aircraft were destroyed or fled to Iran to avoid destruction. …despite the annihilation of Iraq’s navy and combat aircraft, significant remnants of its military, including the Republican Guard, were never destroyed.”

 – Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Page 192

In The Iraq War Reader, Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn wrote: “On the day that the allied forces ceased fire, February 28, 1991, the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani tried to enter the State Department, intending to brief officials on the imminent uprising in northern Iraq. Thanks to the bar on contacts, no official dared speak with him, and he and his party never got beyond the department’s lobby. The following day, Richard Haass, director for Middle East Affairs on the National Security Council staff, phoned Galbraith to complain about the Senate staffer’s sponsorship of the unwelcome Kurds.”

 – Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 95

“By March 3 [1991], the first Gulf War was over. The Iraqi army was successfully expelled from Kuwait, while Saddam Hussein remained in power in Iraq.”

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Page 172

In Operation Desert Storm, “President George H.W. Bush, who had no intention of ‘driving on to Baghdad,’ declared a cease-fire on February 27 [1991], and the Iraqi forces signed a formal agreement for cessation of hostilities on March 3.”

 – Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Page 192

“…the ceasefire negotiated between General [Norman] Schwarzkopf, overall commander of the allied forces, and an Iraqi military team led by General Sultan Hashim, in the border town of Safwan [Iraq] on 3 March, 1991… basically allowed the unhindered retreat of elite Republican Guard forces into Iraq, with no control over their redeployment, and the unrestricted use of helicopters, including helicopter gunships, over Iraqi territory that was not controlled directly by allied forces.”

 – Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 48

“The Persian Gulf War officially ended on March 3, 1991…when Iraq formally agreed to accept all the terms laid out by the United Nations–including a pledge to dismantle and not pursue weapons of mass destruction. Kuwait had been liberated and the United Nations, the United States, and the coalition had realized all goals.”

 – Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 82

"A lot has been said and written about why the United States did not do more to stop Saddam's crackdowns [on Kurdish and Shia rebellions] in the north and south of Iraq [in March 1991]. Many point to [General Norman] Schwarzkopf's decision at Safwan [Iraq, on March 3, 1991] to allow the Iraqis to resume helicopter flights for administrative purposes such as supplying troops–only to have the Iraqis use helicopters instead to crush the rebellions."

 – Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 135

“Soon after the March [1, 1991] ceasefire [for Operation Desert Storm], Shiites in southern Iraq rebelled against the Baathist government that had repressed them for decades. And Kurdish tribes in the north followed suit. But as the Coalition forces withdrew, Saddam’s military savagely crushed these revolts, massacring thousands and creating tens of thousands of refugees.” [The 5th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, Page 170

” ‘Tonight in Iraq, Saddam walks amidst ruin,’ President George H. W. Bush was able to boast on March 6 [1991]. ‘His war machine is crushed. His ability to threaten mass destruction is itself destroyed.’ ”

 – Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, Page 182

“…during the closing days of Operation Desert Storm, the Shiites of southern Iraq took a cue from the first President [George H.W.] Bush and rose up against Saddam’s rule. ‘By March 7 [1991], a little over a week after the rebellion had exploded,’ [author] Sandra Mackey recounts in The Reckoning, ‘Basra, Najaf, and Karbala as well as other Shia towns in the south were prime to become killing fields.’ As the American military stood on the sidelines, Saddam dispatched his special forces to crush the revolt. …While the Iraqi media branded the Shiites part of ‘a dirty, foreign conspiracy,’ the Iraqi army pillaged, raped and murdered its way through town after town, killing thousands in the space of a few months.”

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 11

“By March 1991 his [Saddam Hussein’s] regime was so worried about losing its grip [on power due to the post-Gulf War Shiite uprising in the south of Iraq] that it ordered helicopters to drop bombs full of Sarin nerve gas on Shiite rebels in Karbala and Najaf. It was a rash step given that the U.S. forces that had evicted the Iraqis from Kuwait were still sitting on Iraqi territory south of the Euphrates. It was Saddam’s good fortune that the bombs malfunctioned and that the episode was not publicly confirmed until after the fall of Baghdad twelve years later.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II, Pages 63-64

“The Shaaban Intifada (Uprising) started in March 1991 as defeated Iraqi troops fled back to southern Iraq after US-led forces took control of Kuwait. Galvanised by a message by US President George [H.W.] Bush to ‘take matters into their own hands,’ the Shia strongholds of Najaf and Karbala rose in revolt in an attempt to topple Saddam Hussein. Soon, thousands of rebel troops seized control of the city of Basra and 14 of Iraq’s provinces, and advanced to within 60 miles of Baghdad. But despite these early successes, the rebellion was swiftly crushed by government forces. Mass reprisals followed in which tens of thousands of people are believed to have died. Many Shia blame President [George H.W.] Bush for the uprising’s failure, as the US came to a ceasefire agreement that allowed forces loyal to Saddam to crush the rebellion by using helicopter gunships.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – “Saddam Aides Go on Trial in Iraq,” BBC News, Aug. 21, 2007

In The Iraq War Reader, Faleh A. Jabar wrote: “In March 1991, following Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf War, the Kurds of northern Iraq and Arabs of the south rose up against the Baath regime. For two brief weeks, the uprisings were phenomenally successful. Government administration in the towns was overthrown and local army garrisons were left in disarray. Yet by the end of the month the rebellions had been crushed and the rebels scattered, fleeing across the nearest borders or into Iraq’s southern marshes. Those who could not flee did not survive summary executions.”  [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 103

“U.N. Security Council Resolution 687, passed on April 3, 1991… called for the elimination of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and most of its missile programs, intrusive international inspections, a ban on military imports, a secure and recognized border between Iraq and Kuwait, and compensation for Kuwait and others. It seemed to take care of most of our remaining problems but one, namely, the fact that Saddam remained ensconced.”

 – Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Page 142

“The [First Gulf] war ended with a cease-fire, which was confirmed by [UN] Security Council Resolution 687, adopted on April 3, 1991. The resolution established an inspection regime under which Iraq was to declare all its holdings of weapons of mass destruction as well as facilities and programs for their manufacture. The declarations were to be verified by the newly created UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in the spheres of biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles, while the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] would be responsible for the nuclear sphere. Iraq was given a strong incentive to cooperate: No state would be allowed to import oil from Iraq until the Security Council, upon the reports of the inspectors, had concluded that all prohibited items and programs were eradicated.”

 – Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq, Page 20

“As a condition for ending hostilities in the [first] Gulf War, UN Resolution 687 [adopted by the Security Council on April 3, 1991] required Saddam to destroy his weapons of mass destruction and missiles with a range of more than ninety miles. The resolution banned Iraq from possessing biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons or the means to produce them. To ensure compliance, Saddam was required to submit to a UN monitoring and verification system.”

 – George W. Bush, Decision Points, Page 226

U.N. Security Council Resolution 688, adopted on April 5, 1991, “demanded that Iraq end all internal repression and established a basis for the international community to intervene to protect Iraq’s population from its government.”

 – Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Page 150

“In an interview with New York Times columnist Patrick Tyler published on April 13, 1991, [Secretary of Defense Dick] Cheney declared: ‘If you’re going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you’ve got Baghdad, it’s not clear what you do with it. It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that’s currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it’s set up by the United States military when it’s there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?’ ”

 – Jeffrey Record, Wanting War, Pages 154-155

“Why did Bush ‘leave’ Hussein in power rather than remove him during the first Gulf War?…Dick Cheney, Bush Sr.’s defense secretary, explained the administration’s reasoning in April 1991: ‘Once you’ve got Baghdad, it’s not clear what you do with it. It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that’s currently there. …How much credibility is that government going to have if its set up by the U.S. military when its there [sic]? …I think to have American military engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit the definition of a quagmire, and we have absolutely no desire to get bogged down in that fashion.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Pages 173-174

“To mitigate that danger [of Iraq’s confident military apparatus], the UN Security Council adopted a resolution in April 1991 ordering Iraq to destroy its chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles and stop pursuing nuclear weapons. That resolution created the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) to monitor Iraqi disarmament; it demanded that Iraq renounce terrorism; and it reaffirmed economic sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions banned all commerce other than for humanitarian needs (mainly food and medicine).” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Douglas Feith, War and Decision, Page 186

In April 1991, “Bin Laden flees Saudi Arabia, after being confined to Jiddah for his opposition to the Saudi alliance with the United States.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – “Hunting Bin Laden; Who is Bin Laden & What Does He Want? A Chronology of His Political Life,” PBS Frontline, accessed on April 24, 2018

“Bin Laden fled Saudi Arabia in April 1991. He arrived in Khartoum, Sudan, where the new Islamic regime welcomed him with a small reception at the separate VIP terminal at the Khartoum airport… Within days, bin Laden was sipping tea at the world’s largest convention of international terrorists, formally known as the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 14

“When, in April 1991, bin Laden hurriedly packed up his belongings, his wives, and his children and fled [from Saudi Arabia] to Sudan, Saudi authorities were alarmed. He was now completely outside their control.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 107

“Coalition forces had destroyed some stockpiles of chemical weapons before withdrawing from southern Iraq in April 1991.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, Page 170

In April 1991, “Saddam’s regime systematically slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites and buried them in mass graves, while the United States stood by. ‘They drove busloads of people in, they dug ditches with bulldozers, and then machine-gunned them in industrial fashion,’ [Coalition Provisional Authority regional coordinator Michael] Gfoeller said. ‘Others had their arms tied behind their back and were just buried alive. Many of the bodies we saw in these mass graves had no obvious bullet wounds.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory, Page 5

“After being warned that the government was planning to arrest him, Osama left Saudi Arabia for Pakistan in April 1991, where he launched a campaign against the land of his birth. In addition to re-establishing communication with, and lending support to, the dissidents he had cultivated in Saudi Arabia, Osama dispatched Al Qaeda cadres to build cells within the kingdom, where they have a significant presence.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al Qaeda, Page 29

“In the north [of Iraq], six weeks after the [first Gulf] war ended [mid-April 1991], the United States joined the British and French in establishing a no-fly zone and creating a secure Kurdish enclave to prevent Saddam from slaughtering the Kurds and to stop the significant flow of Kurdish refugees across the border into Turkey.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Dick Cheney, In My Time, Page 224

“On April 18, 1991, as part of the Gulf War ceasefire agreement, Iraq delivered to UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission on Iraq] details about the quantity and type of its missile and biological and chemical weapons programs. By its own admission, Iraq possessed nearly 10,000 nerve gas warheads, 1,500 chemical weapons, 412 tons of chemical weapon agents, 25 long-range missiles and numerous aircraft drop-tanks filled with biological agents and much else besides. Yet during nearly a decade of U.N. weapons inspections, Iraq would routinely declare that it only had a fraction of the nuclear, biological or chemical material it was later revealed to possess.”

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 29

“In late April [1991] an emergency committee was set up under [Iraqi Foreign Minister] Tariq Aziz to decide how best to defy the UN, with orders from Saddam to save as much of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability as possible.” [The 25th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 283

“From April 25 to 28, 1991, a congress of terror organizations met in Khartoum [Sudan]. The result was the creation of the Popular International Organization (PIO), a council of fifty members, one representative from each of the countries where an Islamic struggle against infidels was considered necessary.”

 – Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 53

” ‘If in the end war becomes necessary, as it clearly did in Operation Desert Storm, you must do it right,’ he [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell] said in a speech to veterans at the Vietnam War Memorial [on May 27, 1991]. ‘You’ve got to be decisive. You’ve got to go in massively. You’ve got to be wise and fight in a way that keeps casualties to a minimum. And you’ve got to go in to win.’ ”

 – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 210

“In June 1991 a [UN weapons inspections] team led by David Kay, the chief inspector, which was surveying Iraq’s declared nuclear facilities, visited the Abu Ghraib military camp west of Baghdad [Iraq]. Although the Iraqis had admitted that part of the camp was used for nuclear research, another part of the camp had been commandeered by [Saddam’s son] Qusay to conceal key equipment from Iraq’s nuclear research program. In the course of inspecting the camp Kay discovered Iraqi soldiers attempting to move a number of huge electromagnetic isotope separators, known as Calutrons, which were being transported on heavy tractor trailers. When Kay tried to intervene, the Iraqi soldiers reacted by firing shots over his head. The Iraqis then drove the Calutrons away to another location in full view of the inspectors, who filmed the entire proceedings.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Pages 284-285

According to Saad Tawfiq, an engineer who worked on a uranium-enrichment program under scientist Ja’afar Dia Jafar in Iraq, in June 1991, “Saad and other members of Jafar’s team were called in to the presidential palace and told by Jafar that the [nuclear] program was over and that they must now get rid of all of the evidence of its existence. ‘My orders were to destroy or hide all incriminating evidence, and leave only the equipment that could be shown to be dual-use technology.’ In the space of seventy-two frantic hours, Saad and other scientists loaded equipment onto 150 tractor-trailers and escorted them out into the western desert. …the truckloads were turned over to Saddam’s Special Security force to conceal and bury.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – James Risen, State of War, Page 101

“Armed with U.N. Resolution 687, which allowed them ‘unconditional and unrestricted’ access to every corner of Iraq’s missile, chemical, biological and nuclear programs, the U.N.’s weapons inspectors arrived in Baghdad in June 1991.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq, Page 29

“…in July [7] 1991, after confrontations, the Iraqis had sent the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] a note admitting that they had tried several methods of enriching uranium.”

 – Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq, Page 5

According to The Riegle Report, which was delivered to the Senate on February 9, 1994, regarding the health of Gulf War veterans, "On July 30, 1991, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, director of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), charged with overseeing the elimination of Iraq's chemical and nuclear arsenals, told the Security Council that the U.N. inspectors had found chemical warheads armed with nerve gas. Mr. Ekeus claimed that some warheads found were already fitted onto the SCUD missiles."

 – Donald Wayne Riegle, Jr. and Alfonse M. D’Amato, The Riegle Report, May 25, 1994, Page 10,

Les Aspin (D-WI), “chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, appeared on ABC’s This Week [on August 4, 1991] and disparaged the intelligence on Iraq that preceded the [first] Gulf War. Asked about the quality of intelligence on Saddam Hussein and Iraq, Aspin described it as ‘not very good, not very good. We missed a whole different program he had there. He had a program that was developing a much more crude, more primitive way of developing nuclear weapons that we missed entirely. This was a much bigger program than we thought at the time, and in fact, as the polls showed at the time, the one really rallying call to the American public for war was the nuclear threat. If the public had really known that, there probably would have been a lot more support for the war, if they’d really known what was really going on a year ago, in August [1990], if they’d have known the extent of the Iraqi program, I think there would have been a lot more support for the use of force.’ ”

 – Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 380

UN weapons inspector David “Kay returned to Baghdad and in mid-September [1991] his team arrived unannounced at the Iraqi nuclear headquarters in Baghdad, scaled the fence, and burst into the building. To their amazement they discovered millions of pages of documents detailing all of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 285

” ‘An extremist seizure of Kabul would plunge Afghanistan into a fresh round of warfare, which could affect areas adjoining Afghanistan,’ [U.S. Special Envoy to the Afghan resistance] Peter Tomsen warned in a Secret cable to Washington that September 1991. ‘Should [radical Afghan Islamist guerrilla leader Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar or [Saudi-backed Afghan guerrilla leader Abdurrab Rasul] Sayyaf get to Kabul, extremists in the Arab world would support them in stoking Islamic radicalism in the region, including the Soviet Central Asian republics, but also in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Arab world.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Pages 232-233

“…scientists had completed the Petrochemical-3 Centre, which housed the Iraqi nuclear weapons design team. When inspectors examined this facility in September 1991, they recovered thousands of files and documents that described in detail the scope and nature of Saddam’s nuclear weapons programs.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Georges Sada with Jim Nelson Black, Saddam’s Secrets, Page 257

“…it was not until the sixth IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency][Iraqi weapons inspection] mission that, through daring, skill and intelligence, a team, again with David Kay as chief inspector, succeeded on September 23 [1991] in finding a paper describing the planned Iraqi weapons program, and took it out of Iraq. This proved conclusively that Iraq was pursuing such a program.”

 – Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq, Page 25

In a news conference at the International Atomic Energy Agency on October 5, 1991, chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq David Kay said he “believed it would have been only twelve to eighteen months until the [Saddam Hussein] regime reached ‘regular industrial-scale production of fissile material,’ or enriched uranium, that could be used in an atomic bomb.”

 – Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 431