In commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, Air Force Magazine is posting daily recollections from the six-week war, which expelled Iraq from occupied Kuwait.
Feb. 12:
- An air attack destroys three downtown Baghdad bridges—the Martyr’s Bridge, Republic Bridge, and July 14 Bridge.
- Soviet envoy Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov stops in Tehran en route to Baghdad, carrying a Soviet peace plan.
- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein tells Primakov that Iraq would cooperate with efforts to arrange a cease-fire in the Gulf War.
Feb. 13:
- F-117 fighters bomb a building in Baghdad that coalition forces believe to be a military command bunker but which is being used as civilian air-raid shelter, and 200-400 civilians are killed.
- An Iraqi armored division, caught moving at night, is destroyed by air power.
Feb. 14:
- An RAF Tornado is shot down by a missile over Baghdad.
- Two U.S. Air Force crewmen are killed when an EF-111A is lost in Saudi Arabia after a mission over Iraq.
- Back in the U.S., anti-war demonstrators splash blood and oil on a Pentagon doorway.
Feb. 15:
- Hussein’s five-man Revolutionary Command Council announces that Iraq is ready “to deal” with a UN resolution requiring withdrawal from Kuwait.
- U.S. officials estimate three months of war against Iraq will cost $56 billion, of which the U.S. would pay $15 billion, and other coalition members would pay $41 billion.
Check out our complete chronology of the Gulf War, starting with Iraq’s July 1990 invasion of Kuwait and running through Iraq’s April 1991 acceptance of peace terms.