The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Turning point in history as fears rose of Gulf massacre
T yearshe pursuit of defeated Iraqi troops in Operation Desert Storm 30 ago ended over fears that fleeing Iraqi troops were being “massacred”, according to former North East Fife MP Lord Menzies Campbell.
In an exclusive interview with The Courier to mark the 30th anniversary of Desert Storm, the 79-yearold, who is now Baron Campbell of Pittenweem, said debate raged over whether, after expelling Iraqi troops from Kuwait, a push should be made for Baghdad.
Lord Campbell – then Liberal Democrat defence spokesman – recalled there was also growing concern about the ill-equipped Iraqi conscripts making up the bulk of the forces on the ground and the morality of tackling them with the full force of Allied military might.
While the military side of Desert Storm was over in a matter of weeks, Saddam Hussein kept the Republican Guard close to his capital and put conscripts on the frontline. Lord Campbell said: “When the (Allied) tanks went in with the infantry, these were 18-year-old kids. A huge number of them were sacrificed.
“I think there was some anxiety from the point of view of the Allies that the opposition they were up against – in many cases they were desperate to put their hands up and surrender – weren’t supplied, didn’t have proper food and ammunition.
“Sympathetic is the wrong word, but the Allies had some reservations about how hard they could go against them once they discovered how poorly led and equipped they were.”
Operation Desert Storm began in the early hours of January 17 1991 when American, British, French, Saudi and Kuwaiti Allies launched an offensive to destroy Iraq’s military and civilian infrastructure.
The trigger for the Gulf War was Iraq’s invasion of
Kuwait on August 2 1990 when it attempted to seize Kuwait’s vast oil reserves and relieve Iraq of crippling debts accrued during the Iran-iraq War.
When Iraq refused to comply with a UN withdrawal ultimatum by January 15, the Allies launched a devastating and aerial bombardment. After a month of more than 2,250 coalition aircraft flying in excess of 1,000 sorties a day, the Allies launched a land offensive on February 24.
Within a day, the Iraqis began retreating and on February 27 American President George Bush declared victory. Lord Campbell recalled: “Someone coined the phrase ‘yes we can get to Baghdad but what will we do when we get there?’.”
The issue was revisited 12 years later when Allied
forces again entered Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein in what many still see as an illegal war. But one of the reasons George W’s father George Bush called a halt in 1991, said Lord Campbell, was that during the retreat from Kuwait to Iraq, Iraqi troops were being massacred by air strikes while using a single highway to escape.
“There were traffic jams on the road from Kuwait to Iraq and it was said, although it was never proved, that some of the American pilots who shot up these convoys came back and said they were never going to do it again because they were killing people in such a terrible way.
“There were terrible photographs of burnt-out lorries. It was a charnel house and Bush said I
won’t go. Bush came under a lot of criticism.
“But (British PM) John Major, who was party to that decision, mounted a very strong defence of that decision in his memoirs: “Of course we went back again 12 years later and look what happened.”
Few positives come from war but when Lord Campbell reflects on the conflict, he can raise a smile when he thinks about how the events gave him an unexpected introduction to international diplomacy.
As a “wet behind the ears” defence spokesman, he found himself touring the Allies’ military build-up in the Middle East and a highlight was an early morning summons to visit the Saudi Arabian king.
Lord Campbell, who was North East Fife MP from 1987 to 2015, did not sit on the Commons’ defence
committee at the time. However, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and before the launch of the Allied offensive, he was invited along as part of a delegation to visit British forces.
Shortly before they were due to fly back to the UK on a VC10, the group received the unexpected summons.
“We were driven through the deserted streets of the capital to the king’s palace, where the king and eight to 10 members of the royal family were sitting round a table.
“The king, through an interpreter, then spoke for around an hour about the issues raised by Saddam, about getting Kuwait back.
“Then we are all invited to make a contribution – including me wet behind the ears in defence. That was the most bizarre part of the trip and needless to say I’ve never had the opportunity of addressing the Saudi royal family again.”
During the trip, Lord Campbell visited the Allied air operations HQ in the desert.
The then station commander had asked Lord Campbell to bring his wife Elspeth with him to Leuchars for added moral support.
In an era before mobile phones and internet, he remembers families using thin blue air mail paper to write to their loved ones against a backdrop of uncertainty about how and when hostilities would end. He was pleased to offer any comfort that he could.
For more on the 30th anniversary of the first Gulf War, see today’s Courier Weekend magazine.