The First Gulf War (also known as the Persian Gulf War) sparked on August 2, 1990 when Iraq invaded its rival oil-exporting neighbour Kuwait, lead by Saddam Hussein. The invasion was alerted to the United Nations by surrounding neighbour Saudi Arabia and a trade embargo was put in place against Iraq. On 7 August 1990, Operation Desert Shield took place when US troops arrived in Saudi Arabia to defend a potential Iraqi attack on Saudi Arabia.
The UN announced on November 29 1990, that if Hussein didn't withdraw from Kuwait the US would be authorised to use military force on Iraq. Hussein disagreed with their demands to withdraw from Kuwait on 15 January 1991, and a full-scale war erupted when the Coalition (Troops from US, Kuwait, Britain, France, Germany, Soviet Union, Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Australia and other nations) began an air bombardment on Iraqi forces (Troops from Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, Sudan, Yemen, Tunisia and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation) on 16 January 1991, this was known as Operation Desert Storm. 17 January 1991, US air forces strike Iraq's air defences, moving along to Iraq's communication networks, weapons plants, oil refineries and more. By mid-February the US air forces focus their attacks towards Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
After 42 days of relentless attacks by the coalition from the air and ground, George H.W Bush announced a ceasefire on 28 February 1991. By then most Iraqi troops had surrendered or fled.
On March 3 1991 Iraq accepts conditions to ceasefire and a month later on April 3 1991, Saddam Hussein is allowed to stay in power if he destroys all weapons of mass destruction. Until he does, economic sanctions are to remain in place so Iraq officials decide to destroy and hide all weapons and data.
Its estimated that there were 148 casualties from the US and 569 coalition troops were killed overall. 190 deaths under Iraqi fire and 379 deaths from friendly fire or accidents, which was much lower than expected. The US estimated that more than 30,000 Iraqi soldiers died, 300,00 were injured, 150,000 were deserted and 60,000 were taken prisoner, based on Iraqi prisoner of war analysis'.