Desert storms, deadly connections

Abstract

The destruction of Iraq's technological infrastructure with the fusillades of Tomahawk cruise missiles and the brutal devastation of Iraqi troop concentrations with fuel‐air explosives have focused attention on the use of sophisticated conventional weapons in future warfare. Far less consideration has been given to how the United States and Britain used their nuclear arsenals during the 1990—1991 war and what this means for the future. The most obvious nuclear dimensions of the Gulf War are President Bush's manipulation of popular fears in the United States of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program and the subsequent destruction of the Iraqi nuclear weapons development infrastructure. It was the Bush administration—and to a lesser extent the Major government in Britain—that repeatedly used their nuclear arsenals during the war.