POD
Last Days of the Gulf War
On February the 26th an infamous incident where to occur which would be remembered as the Highway of Death where fleeing Iraqi forces, alleged Kuwaiti hostages and refugees (collaborators with the Iraqi occupation, mainly PLO aligned militants and their families) where cut of by the cluster bombing of the front end of the mass boxing the remaining vehicles boxed in leaving them open to subsequent airstrikes (Turkey shoot) and the survivors of that came under the attack by coalition ground unites.
The end result was a long line of vehicles that covered the highway. The exact death toll remains a controversial topic as an exact figure has never been formally established with the most plausible estimated at around 500-600 (others claimed it was in the thousands thou it has never been prove either way) . The effect was to nearly lead to the Gulf War ending the next day due to the administration wanting good relations with the world media which portrayed this as an extreme over use of force of a defeated enemy, however some of the Generals namely Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. argued for a limited continuation (namely against the Republican guard). The end was results was that all ground offensives were halted on the 28th and a limited air offensive against which whilst was officially against special occupation unites was really the Republican Guard. The result was a continued air war until March the 2nd which saw the Republican guard lost approximately at least 90% of its forces which would prove a disaster for Saddam's regime in the days to come.
During this time negotiations for a cease-fire were under way so by March the 3rd a cease-fire was agreed upon*. However events were to take a turn for the unexpected when on that same day in the Iraq town of Basra a disgruntled Iraqi tank gunner returning from Kuwait fired upon a statue of Saddam to the applause of onlooking solders...
*However one of the conditions which would hinder the Government was that Iraqi Military was not to use fixed wing aircraft over Iraq which limited the regimes ability to fight the rebellion.
General Norman Schwarzkopf
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