American-History-The-Presidency-of-George-HW-Bush(3)

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wait is burning."

The coalition had the long and difficult task of putting those fires out.

On February twenty-fourth, the allied ground war began as part of the operation known as Desert Storm. That ground war lasted just one hundred hours.

(SOUND: Battle)

Saddam Hussein withdrew his forces from Kuwait. But he was still in control of his own country. Years later, some Americans continued to criticize the Bush administration for not trying to oust the Iraqi leader. They believed that Bush should have sent forces to capture Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.

After the war ended, Kurds in northern Iraq rebelled against Saddam Hussein. So did Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq. The Iraqi government crushed both uprisings.

The defeated Kurds fled to Iran and Turkey and into the mountains of northern Iraq. President Bush ordered American troops to help give humanitarian aid to the refugees. The troops established refugee camps for the Kurds.

As time passed, Iraqi soldiers and aircraft continued to attack the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south. Coalition forces led by the United States established "no-fly" zones barring Iraqi aircraft over northern and southern Iraq. Coalition planes enforced these no-fly zones in the years that followed.

(MUSIC)

By late nineteen ninety-two, drought and conflict had caused widespread suffering in Somalia.

GEORGE BUSH: "I want to talk to you today about the tragedy in Somalia, and about a mission that can ease suffering and save lives. Every American has seen the shocking images from Somalia. The scope of suffering there is hard to imagine.

"Already, over a quarter million people have died in the Somali famine. In the months ahead, five times that number, one and a half million people, could starve to death."

The violence and the collapse of the government were keeping many Somalis from receiving food and other aid.

GEORGE BUSH: "The security situation has grown worse. The U.N. has been prevented from deploying its initial commitment of troops. In many cases, food from relief flights is being looted upon landing. Food convoys have been hijacked, aid workers assaulted. Ships with food have been subjected to artillery attacks that have prevented them from docking.

"There is no government in Somalia. Law and order have broken down. Anarchy prevails. One image tells the story – Imagine seven thousand tons of food aid, literally bursting out of a warehouse on a dock in Mogadishu, while Somalis starve, less than a kilometer away, because relief workers cannot run the gauntlet of armed gangs roving the city."

President Bush -- in the last year of his term -- sent American troops to Somalia to assist in the aid efforts.

But the following year, in October of nineteen ninety-three, eighteen American soldiers on a raid were killed in a b
attle in Mogadishu. More than eighty were wounded. The failed operation would haunt the American military for years to come. The events of that

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