The Saddam Line consisted of defensive
fortification
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
s constructed by
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
's
Iraqi Army
The Iraqi Ground Forces ( Arabic: القوات البرية العراقية), or the Iraqi Army ( Arabic: الجيش العراقي), is the ground force component of the Iraqi Armed Forces. It was known as the Royal Iraqi Army up until the co ...
on
Kuwait
Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the no ...
's border with
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia ...
after Iraq had
invaded and occupied Kuwait in August 1990.
The Western media presented fears that it would present a formidable obstacle to the
liberation of Kuwait
The Liberation of Kuwait was a U.S.-led military operation to retake Kuwait from Iraq after the massive air campaign, between 24–28 February 1991. U.S. troops and the Coalition entered to find the Iraqis surrendering en masse; however, pocket ...
, consisting of "flame trenches" (ditches filled with oil to be ignited in case of attack)
and "sand berms, trench works, tank ditches, barbed wire and minefields", backed by the threat of chemical and biological weapons. The objective of Hussein was to force the coalition to engage in costly
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artille ...
.
However, those fears turned out to be unwarranted. The
coalition assault, beginning at 4 a.m. on February 24, 1991, met "only sporadic resistance", and by 6:45 a.m., troops had broken through the Saddam Line.
The US forces charged the Iraqi lines with
M1 Abrams
The M1 Abrams is a List of main battle tanks by generation, third-generation American main battle tank designed by Chrysler Defense (now General Dynamics Land Systems) and named for General Creighton Abrams. Conceived for modern Armoured warfa ...
tanks modified with
minesweeping plows and
M728 Combat Engineer Vehicles which buried the trenchlines, and in many cases, buried Iraqi troops alive, the number of which has been estimated to be "in the thousands".
See also
*
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artille ...
*
Maginot Line
The Maginot Line (french: Ligne Maginot, ), named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, is a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force the ...
*
Mannerheim Line
The Mannerheim Line ( fi, Mannerheim-linja, sv, Mannerheimlinjen) was a defensive fortification line on the Karelian Isthmus built by Finland against the Soviet Union. While this was never an officially designated name, during the Winter War it ...
References
Fortification lines
Gulf War
1990 establishments in Kuwait
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