The war began on January 17, 1991, and lasted forty-two days. The US and its partners hit Iraq with eighty-five thousand7 tons of bombs, Saddam’s army broke like a rotten reed, and his troops—mostly miserable draftees—fled back toward the city of Baghdad, with coalition jets shooting them from the air. The coalition sustained 358 casualties in that war, Iraq as many as 100,000.8 Bush then declared an abrupt cease-fire that left Saddam Hussein in place.
