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instant thunder It is now 20 years since Operation Desert Storm.
Strategic airpower
USAF fighter pilot Colonel John Warden was the architect of the most successful air campaign in history. Initially code-named ‘Instant Thunder’, the campaign was the centre-piece of Operation Desert Storm, the US-led war against Iraq from 17 January to 28 February 1991.
So effective was the air phase of the war that the ground invasion of Iraq lasted only 100 hours before Saddam Hussein’s once-powerful army collapsed. Five weeks of precision air strikes had left the Iraqi political apparatus and its army stunned, severely weakened, and unable to coordinate their activities.
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