THE UNITED STAThS NAVY
            IN "DESERT SHIELD" 1 "DESERT STORM"

                         EPILOGUE

         "From the moment OPERATION DESERT STORM
  commenced on January 16th, until the time the guns fell silent at
  midnight one week ago, this nation has watched its sons and
  daughters with pride; watched over them with prayer. As Com-
  mander in Chi4, I can report to you: Our armed forces fought
  with honor and valor. As President, I can report to the nation:
  Aggression is defeated. The war is over."

         --  President George Bush before Congress,
             6 March1991


         "Already we sense that there is a growing disinclination in
  some places to give George Bush and his government and the
  military who were involved the credit due them for the prosecution
  and outcome of the war. Increasingly one reads of how mere
  "technology" defeated Saddam Hussein or how the administration
  must have stupidly and grossly (or knowingly and cynically)
  overestimated the size and strength of the Iraqi military forces or
  how the result was clearly foreordained since we didn't pick on
  someone our own size, etc.

         But there was nothing foreordained about what happened,
  and many of those now implying that there was should go back and
  * quietly reconsider their own warnings throughout this episode as
  to how dangerous and unpredictable, if not downright disastrous, a
  military encounter would be, some even recommending that
  Saddam Hussein be given those Kuwaiti islands and oil fields he so
  coveted. No, it was not foreordained, and it was not a merefttnc-
      of automatic pilot and vastly superior firepower either. The
  people who did it did it."

         --  Editorial, 1 March 1991


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