The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

58 – War aims


Cairo and Dubai had each been considered as a possible location for what in the end became the Jeddah Summit. King Fahd said that he wouldn’t, couldn’t in fact, leave his nation at a time like this. The Iraqi invasion and the ongoing occupation of his capital meant that he needed to remain within Saudi Arabia. Going overseas wasn’t an option for him. He thus invited the leaders of his country’s wartime allies to the city which was serving as his de facto capital until Riyadh could be liberated. Arab leaders who had brought their nations into the Coalition attended and so too did Western ones. There had been the possibility that Reagan might not attend and instead he would send Bush – the US vice president had been in the Middle East much in the past few months – but, in the end, the American president came to Jeddah as well as Thatcher from the UK and France’s Mitterrand. There were important attendees too from countries not at war with Iraq but who came as observers. The Jeddah Summit was a gathering like no other. Security was extremely tight with the fears (admittedly unlikely) of an Iraqi commando attack being present; the Americans feared a missile attack more than that but the city was out of range of the weapons that the Iraqis were known to have. Security-wise, it passed off without incident. Diplomatically, things didn’t go without trouble.

The bringing together of such people came about because there was felt a need to have them talk about the future direction of Coalition activities as the war with Iraq progressed. The Coalition had been hastily formed last month in response to the invasions of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. It grew over time encompassing more nations which committed to sending troops to fight inside King Fahd’s nation. There was an almost forgetfulness about Kuwait during that, one which the Kuwaitis were constantly trying to make everyone remember. Their country too was suffering under foreign occupation just like parts of Saudi Arabia was. Iraqis armies had now been stopped and those not overcome had turned around and gone back north. Almost all of Saudi Arabia was now free of occupation; Kuwait was fully in Iraqi hands. Iraq’s armies were still active as well. They were now fighting from defensive positions not on their own sovereign soil. The possibility remained that a fresh attack could come to once more see Rashid send his tanks forward if he saw the chance.

Questions arose as what to do now.

Should the Coalition send its own armies into Kuwait, through all of those defences that the Iraqis had established? Should the Coalition attack into Iraq too, so as to support a liberation of Kuwait? Should the Coalition advance all the way to Baghdad to depose Rashid and lift the threat of any further conflict for good? War aims such as these needed to be considered.

The Gulf Arab Monarchies all committed themselves to seeing their neighbour Kuwait liberated with Emir Saad back on his throne. This would mean finishing off Iraq’s armies which remained inside Saudi Arabia blocking the way forward. On their own, their armies of these countries, small ones which had fought costly battles, couldn’t do this. The Saudis stood with them on this because Fahd wanted the rest of his country back and the key to eliminating the threat from Iraq for good was to defeat Rashid’s armies in fighting for Kuwait. He pushed for entry to be made through Iraqi territory to complete the liberation of Kuwait. On the question of marching on Baghdad, this was out of the question for Fahd and the emirs & sheikhs. They believed that doing so would see Iraq fracture. Iran would swoop in, Sheikh Saqr from the emirate of Ras al Khaimah declared with conviction, and the ayatollahs would take what they wanted leaving the rest of Iraq to fall into civil war. His comments brought agreement from his allies. Mubarak and King Hassan were in Jeddah and the two of them – each whose countries had been promised a significant sum from Fahd with Morocco now having troops in Saudi Arabia too – weren’t so sure of the wisdom of leaving Rashid in Baghdad. Egypt wanted Rashid deposed and pushed hard to change the mind of their allies with Morocco on-side in this attempt.

Saudi Arabia mattered more to the trio of Western countries whose leaders were present for the summit. America, Britain and France had all been acting to protect Kuwaiti interests before the war commenced though much of that was to oppose the Moscow-backed Iraq and support the Saudis rather than any love for Kuwait. The two presidents and the one prime minister each had been briefed by their military chiefs. They knew the strength of forces that the Iraqis had gathered to stablish their blocking positions. Fighting through these would be hard work and costly in terms of casualties: doing the same inside Kuwait would be even more. Mitterrand didn’t favour any attack through Iraq to aid in the liberation of Kuwait while Thatcher didn’t see that as being any worse than going into Kuwait directly. Neither of these two wanted to have their armies go all the way to Baghdad. Britain and France feared an Iraqi collapse too as that might bring down regimes further afield such as Jordan. All eyes turned towards Reagan and the position of the United States in all of this.

The American president told them that he believed that Operation Desert Eagle shouldn’t take the Coalition all the way to Baghdad. Yes, that would rid the region of Rashid and Iraq’s leader had committed all sorts of war crimes including the use of chemical weapons in his quest to invade his neighbours. He’d allied himself with the Soviet Union and was acting on behalf of Moscow with his war against his neighbours. The Soviets wanted to see all of the nations in the Arabian Peninsula fall under their subjugation using their Iraqi proxies to do this. However, America was listening to the concerns of its friends here. Their fears were understood. Reagan didn’t wish to see Iraq collapse and regional conflict spread even further with Iran – also acting at the behest of Moscow – waiting in the wings. He proposed that the remainder of Saudi Arabia be liberated alongside Kuwait too with an inclusion of crossing Iraqi territory to be part of that. Mubarak urged him to invade Iraq and said that if others didn’t want to join in with going that far, Egypt would regardless. Reagan stood firm with his decision though and it was one which Mubarak wasn’t happy with but would have to live with. Iraq would be battered with Coalition air strikes to do as much damage as possible to the country’s military potential to launch another war, the American president affirmed, rather than a march be made on Baghdad. Doing this would mean addressing the issue of Soviet forces inside Iraq though.

The Secretary of State was to meet with the Soviet foreign minister in the coming days to deliver a formal communique. That would contain a demand that Moscow remove its forces from Kuwait and Iraq for their own safety. The Soviets were to be told that they were to become free-fire zones for Coalition forces and the United States wished to avoid another accident like which had been seen several months ago. With this aided by backchannel communications too, those in Moscow would understand American determination to no longer have their military operations curtailed. The fair warning would be followed soon enough by air strikes against Iraq. Efforts would be made to avoid any Soviet forces that remained but Reagan expected that the Soviets would withdraw or at least make strenuous efforts to get out of the way.

The American president’s about-turn on this issue surprised those at the Jeddah Summit. It had been frustrating for many to see the Americans self-imposing their own previous limits on what they would do with their aircraft. Now, they were going to unleash them. However, that previous position had long had its support. Mitterrand and Thatcher had backed it because they were concerned over an accidental clash leading to a Soviet reaction; their Middle Eastern partners had wanted to see Iraq blasted to bits and believed that the Soviets would pull out once America bared its teeth. Britain and France sought American assurances on how far they were going to go. Their leaders here in Jeddah spoke to Reagan on this while their diplomats struggled to understand what had changed the president’s mind. It became apparent that Reagan had caved into pressure back home – Congress, the State Department and the Pentagon –, with some of that influenced by Saudi lobbying too. The president had been convinced that bombing Iraq had to be done though if an invasion wasn’t going to happen: it would drive the Soviets out of Iraq because they would see how determined the United States was to wipe out Iraq as a regional threat. Reagan promised that care was going to be taken because, like his allies, he didn’t want to see World War Three erupt.

Reagan got his way. The Coalition agreed to do what the United States wanted. This was a middle ground between those who just wanted to go into Kuwait only and those who desired sending tanks to Baghdad. The Jeddah Summit broke with friendship on the surface though still with concerns among certain leaders at the wisdom of their allies. For the time being, they were sticking together though.

This is reminding me of Threads somewhat...

59 – Putting bombs into Baghdad


Bandit 18 and Bandit 31 flew missions from their temporary base at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus about forty minutes apart. Both of the F-117A Nighthawk strike aircraft went via the same route in and out though took different flight paths when over Iraq on their bombing missions against Baghdad. They went through Egyptian and Saudi airspace which made their flights longer than a more direct routing but avoided going over Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan for a variety of military and diplomatic reasons. There was the transfer of fuel in-flight by tankers above Saudi skies with several divert fields assigned too. Landing in Iraq, intact or not, wasn’t something desired so all necessary precautions were taken to avoid the danger of such a thing. The stealth aircraft carried only bombs for their Baghdad mission: no air-to-air nor anti-radar missiles. Their particular shape and the radar-absorbing material which they were covered with were meant to keep the F-117s safe. Iraqi long-range air defence radars didn’t see either aircraft. Nor did the Soviet A-50 airborne radar aircraft flying in Iranian airspace spot them too. However, there were search radars associated with mobile SAM systems which caught faint echoes of first Bandit 31 on the way in and then Bandit 18 on the way out close to an hour afterwards. No missiles were fired though because no fix was gained. Initial Iraqi reports would put these down to ‘ghosts’ before later intelligence from the GRU passed to the Iraqis provided information on some secretive aircraft that the British were letting the Americans base on Cyprus. The ghosts weren’t ghosts but near invisible jets. By that point, it long didn’t matter. Rashid’s capital had been bombed with more important damage done to Baghdad than King Fahd’s Chinese missiles had.

Firing blind into the skies above their capital, the crews of Iraqi anti-aircraft guns and SAM units lofted projectiles following the explosions on the ground. Those aircraft were already on their way out each time though. It was a pointless waste of ordnance. Moreover, it only exposed their positions to a distant American reconnaissance aircraft – a SR-71A Blackbird flying some distance away – which would pass that final confirmation on for the targets of an early morning cruise missile strike. Long before then, there were the first smoking holes in the ground where the Americans attacked Baghdad. The first F-117 strike hit the Iraqi’s main air defence reporting centre. Those Paveway laser-guided bombs employed did as advertised and hit that facility on target. They blew the bunker it was inside to pieces. The Soviets had long suggested that Rashid move this elsewhere, to a better-protected place, but it was still where it had always been and survived previous Iranian attacks. No longer did the place exist nor those who were working there live after Bandit 31 paid a visit. Bandit 18 came in afterwards, once the impotent air defences had fallen silent. The target for this aircraft’s bombs was the Iraqi ministry of defence building. It was night-time but there were people working there. The building was hit multiple times and most of it ruined. One bomb went astray and hit a neighbouring office complex for civilian use. If it had been daytime, hundreds of innocents would have been killed there. Thankfully, the only lives were lost at the government facility instead. The Americans hit the first of many ‘regime targets’ which they intended to blast to smithereens inside Rashid’s capital.


Putting bombs into Baghdad was only a distraction though. CENTCOM still had its long-established air tasking list for targets through both Iraq and occupied Kuwait. Targets at the top of the list weren’t those inside the Iraqi capital. Using F-117s there was a political statement too which Washington wanted to have made to impress upon not just Iraq its air power but the Soviet Union as well. Alongside the political impact, the Americans used the Baghdad bombings to light up Iraqi air defence efforts elsewhere. Across central and western Iraq, their fighters climbed into the sky aiming to go after expected further bombers. They were thus absent from the south of their country and over Kuwait too. It was here that they could have found enemy aircraft, ones which weren’t invisible either. Through the early hours of July 21st – two days after the Jeddah Summit had concluded – the Coalition sent dozens of air missions forward with multiple aircraft involved in each. Their impact was hoped to make a major difference to the fighting occurring further south, back over in Saudi Arabia, and allow for the next stage of the Desert Eagle ground offensive to meet success by hitting the Iraqis hard here behind the frontlines. Further cruise missile strikes, those not targeted on Baghdad, came as well: Tomahawks launched by multiple US Navy warships & submarines flew in alongside all of those Coalition jets.

Airfields were bombed. Air defences were attacked. Command posts were struck. Long-range artillery was targeted. Military traffic along several main roads was shot-up. Radars were blasted. Troop concentrations were under fire.

American, British, Egyptian, Emirati, French, Omani & Saudi aircraft were involved either with the strikes themselves or providing support for them with fighter sweeps and hitting air defences. There were recon flights before and afterwards. Armed & unarmed jamming aircraft ventured forward or stayed in the rear. A pair of US Air Force E-3 aircraft were far back over Saudi Arabia to coordinate the air missions as well as an E-2 flying over the Gulf too: the airborne radar aircraft had battle staffs aboard them who kept things in order. CENTCOM was able to do what it long wanted to do and throw such a major strike against the Iraqis to do them serious damage.

It wasn’t uncontested though. The Iraqis did manage to get some fighters into the sky to the south and they were able to operate better over friendly skies than they had been when going down over the Arabian Peninsula. Several Coalition aircraft were hit and brought down despite the best efforts of AWACS operators to stop Iraqi fighters from doing that. It cost the Iraqis dear when they came off worse even with their successes yet showed that the Iraqi Air Force wasn’t finished. More opposition came from ground defences than fighters too. The Iraqis came under sustained with electronic warfare used against them in addition to direct attack. Nonetheless, they were able to direct the fire of anti-aircraft guns and aim their SAMs. Coalition aircraft were hit and either survived with damage or were brought down / blown up in the sky. Cruise missile strikes hadn’t been as effective as hoped (the Iraqis were rather deceptive with their decoys and dummies) and neither was all of that jamming at times too. It was their tactical, mobile air defences which the Iraqis were able to make much use of rather than the fixed and strategic facilities. They also had some shiny new equipment too, air defence assets which the Coalition was unprepared for. A lone battery of Soviet-supplied SA-15 Gauntlet SAMs was responsible for the loss of a trio of Coalition jets – an Egyptian F-4, an Omani Jaguar and a US Navy A-6 – show down. Such a weapon was brand new in Soviet service with a full roll-out across their own forces nowhere near complete but here in southern Iraq these missiles were in action. The battery crew weren’t Iraqis either. RAF Tornados had a bad time in making low-level attacks against a couple of Iraqi airfields. They came in fast with wings swept back and aimed to scatter area-denial weapons across them. Radar-guided anti-aircraft guns and also shoulder-mounted SAMs – again the very best Soviet gear – engaged them causing the loss of two aircraft and the damaging of three more. Other aircraft were hit by ground defences as well but it was the use of those SA-15s and the RAF loses on such bomb runs which would gain all the post-strike attention.

The Coalition made these air attacks following their witnessing of the withdrawal of the majority of Soviet forces away from the targeted areas. Distant monitoring saw the Soviets pull out most of their aircraft and a lot of their people. This came following communication at the highest level between Washington & Moscow in person and once more over the Hotline too. Confirmation was sought that that this was done following what was in many ways an ultimatum from Reagan to Ligachev to see this happen. The American president had the message delivered that those who stayed faced the ‘high chance’ of ‘accidental engagement’ which would ‘threaten the peace’. Not everyone thought that the new Soviet general secretary would back down and there were discussions underway as to what to do should Ligachev call Reagan’s bluff, but then the pull out began. They didn’t go far though. There was no cutting and running to leave Iraq high and dry. Instead, there was a redeployment within Iraq of those Soviet forces which had spent months putting themselves in the way of things. What was going on behind the scenes in Moscow and also with Iraqi-Soviet relations over this wasn’t known. All that could be seen was the redeployment. It wasn’t from everywhere though. CENTCOM targeteers had Ar Rumaylah Airbase long in their sights and had been planning to bomb it for a while. This facility was located near to Basra and was quite the airbase. The Iraqis had made much use of it during their invasion of Kuwait. The Soviets had showed up there too. They were using Ar Rumaylah to support their naval air activities out over the Gulf. From here, the Soviets didn’t depart when comrades operating from elsewhere redeployed away to the north. In addition, the Iraqi naval base at Umm Qasr was also still home to several Soviet ships including that amphibious group of theirs, presumably still with the hundreds of naval infantrymen and their vehicles (no satellite images had seen the men nor tanks come off) aboard. Ar Rumaylah and Umm Qasr were thus for now no-go zones for Coalition air strikes. There were too many Soviets at them and, despite much bluster, the Coalition’s leaders – those from the Western countries especially – were not prepared to purposely kill them and see the consequences that that would entail.

Once the morning came, the big air attacks ceased. No longer were multi-aircraft strike packages flying those heavy bomb runs. However, this wasn’t the end of Coalition air attacks. There was fighting on the ground in the hours of darkness and some of that continued into the day. Smaller strikes, those with a more tactical focus, went on in response to that and to aid the planned engagements taking place in the desert which would happen once darkness fell once more. The big strike packages would be back again too. Reconnaissance efforts would be made to determine what needed to be hit again and there too would be attack missions flown looking for targets of opportunity: military convoys and any of those suspected Scud launchers. The Coalition never had any intention of just making this the one night of air attacks.