In the five years since the guns were silenced in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq, revisionist journalists, intent on fostering careers and selling newspapers, lacking in knowledge, and with axes to grind, have attempted to tarnish that victory by creating myths that just simply are not true. These same "experts" on the war to liberate Kuwait spent the period from August 2nd to January 17 arguing against the war. They reported how Saddam's army would unleash weapons of mass destruction to kill hundreds of thousands, how untested weapons systems would not work and how the battle hardened Iraqis would make the sands run red with American and Allied blood. When the war started they were uncharacteristically silent as the vaunted Iraqi Air Force hid or fled,and its army yielded when it encountered the force assembled against it. The war is now over. To save face these "experts" fill papers and the airwaves with a series of "exposes" that fall apart upon examination. There is little question that the achievment of arms was flawed in some respects. The unexpected collapse of the Iraqi army moved the war from breakout to pursuit faster than anyone anticipated. The grand sweep encountered an army well prepared but facing the wrong direction. Haste to end the battle before the press moaned about the "Road of Death" any more meant the Basra pocket was not closed. But the Iraqi army was, for the time, crushed. Kuwait was liberated and against the back drop of burning oil wells the country restored to those who had the right to claim it. In the wake of Desert Storm, Saddam found himself subject to the most intrusive inspections a sovreign nation has ever had to endure. The northern third of the country is no longer in his control and the southern third is subjected to daily overflights by the armed aircraft of his enemies. Yet still the myths continue -- one of the more persistent involves the "real" cause Gulf War Syndrome. Evidence, or rather its lack, for the GWS is discussed in detail in another part of this newsletter. Illness occurred in the troops but there was no single cause. Along the way however the press claimed that Iraq had used chemical or biological weapons in low dosages intended to serve as a warning to the Coalition of what they could do. The corollary is that the military knew the Iraqis were using these weapons but kept it secret. To support the argument the "experts" cite the alarms of the Czech chemcial warfare unit. Acceptance of the above requires belief that the military high command deliberately suppressed, in time of war, information by which they could have significantly loosened the rules of engagement. The military, of course, loves restrictions on its freedom of action in combat and would have wanted to continue them even when presented a a way of being rid of them. We will have to ignore the fact that the only case of known chemical weapon exposure occurred when a soldier leaned against a leaking crate in a bunker. And of course we will have to have confidence in the quality and engineering of an East European produced detector. It would be nice if the press would examine its reports with more emphasis on logic and less on sensationalism. It would be even nicer if the general public did the same. The world would probably be a lot happier place. Back to Cry Havoc #13 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com