After an attritional eight-year war against Iran, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein invaded neighbouring Kuwait in August 1990. When he refused to withdraw his troops, a 32-nation coalition under the leadership of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf launched Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. Although the brief war ended in a decisive victory for the allied forces, Saddam remained in power, brutally suppressing internal Shiite and Kurdish revolts. Despite accepting UN peace terms, Saddam has repeatedly sought to renege on these. In 1993, and again in 1998, the U.S., France and Britain launched air and cruise missile strikes after Iraq’s repeated failure to comply with UN weapons inspections

The Gulf War, the most technically advanced the world had yet seen, was watched by millions as the conflict unfolded live on television. Aircraft such as the U.S. F-117 Stealth fighter, practically undetectable by radar, bombed strategic targets in central Baghdad with state of the art “smart bombs”