Gulf War WI: Worst Case Scenario for Coalition

Yes, it is. A gag order or nondisclosure agreement has no time limit. The late Col. David Hackworth before he died said a few things about his Vietnam service that violated an NDA, and he got in some trouble over it. The service has to lift the gag order or NDA before the person can discuss the events that are covered.

A DOD instruction on returning POWs also mentions a NDA that returning POWs have to sign after they've been debriefed. Presumably it covers what about their captivity they can talk about, and what they can't.
 
Another thing that should be mentioned is that Melissa has said that she was forced to make a videotape (remember those?). That tape never aired on Iraqi TV. How would the image of a female POW in 1991 have affected public opinion? The image of one in 2003 (Shoshana Johnson) didn't, but that was 2003 and Melissa was in 1991.
 
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burmafrd

Banned
The Iraqi Air Force in no way had any real capability to do damage that would have been significant. Not against the hair trigger coalition air force that was A) itching to get started and B) had a lot of pilots looking for a chance to shoot something down. The coalition had better planes and better pilots and better communications, etc. More training, much higher standards. So superior in every way that for anyone to think the Iraqi Air Force had any shot at all was to be totally delusional.

As regards NDA it really depends on how it is worded. Frankly the Army would have gotten in real trouble if it tried to prevent any POW from describing in detail what they went through and suffered. I can imagine what the politicians would do. Best Not. The NDA really only has teeth in regards to intelligence areas and technical details of US weapons systems.
 
There may be other reasons why she and the other POWs signed NDAs, and not just the DOD instruction. The Army did conduct a war-crimes investigation on DOD's behalf after the POWs came home, and all of them gave depositions (I have the report's unclassified version thanks to one of my U.S. Senators). There may have been the intent to hold future war crimes trials of the...creatures responsible for their suffering, and so the NDAs. Whether or not any of them are still in-country, let alone alive and breathing, is another matter entirely.
 
IIRC Before Desert Storm, The US ran a war Game, and the officer in Charge of playing Iraq sank two Carriers in the first 12 Hours, along with other assorted Mayhem.

The referees declared His tactics were Cheating, and took Him out before restarting the Game.
 

burmafrd

Banned
I have heard about that particular war game andthe data it was based on was wildly innacurrate as we found out later on. We over estimated the Iraqi capabilities badly. The carrier sinkings were frankly a joke- basically not golden BB's but platinum/diamond studded BB's with every possible break going the Iraqi way. You cannot reasonably take anything like that seriously or no one would ever risk anything.
 
MUC, yeah that wargame occured prior to OIF in 2003. I was suprised by its effectivness. However I don't think Iraq could have pulled such a move, far easier for Iran in the Straight of Homruz.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Nah, worst case scenario would still be an Israeli attack on Iraq to respond to the Iraq bombardment of Israel. Because if the Israelis got involved, Saudi Arabia and Syria would probably have left the US alliance, making all operations very hard for the US.
 
Nah, worst case scenario would still be an Israeli attack on Iraq to respond to the Iraq bombardment of Israel. Because if the Israelis got involved, Saudi Arabia and Syria would probably have left the US alliance, making all operations very hard for the US.

I've read the exact opposite in "Crusade" by Rick Atkinson. Syria hated Saddam so much that they would have stayed in the coalition so long as Israel didn't attack them, and didn't really care if Israel attacked Iraq. The government of SA was more worried about Saddam's intentions in the gulf than they were about Israel at the moment. You might make a case that some of the less well read Arabs in the coalition might be shrieking for holy war with Israel, but the opinion of the average 'man in the streets' was that 'you don't free Palestine by attacking Kuwait'.
From what I've read, the actual 'greatest fear' of the coalition commanders was that Iraq would withdraw from most (but not all) of Kuwait, keeping just the small but oil rich section next to Iraq... would the coalition stay together and attack to free part of Kuwait?
 
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