The Gulf War ground war ends in 100 hours
On this day · 27 February 1991
Four days after coalition tanks rolled into Kuwait, President Bush declared the emirate liberated and called a halt.
On February 27, 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced that Kuwait was liberated and ordered coalition forces to suspend offensive operations, ending the ground phase of the Gulf War after roughly 100 hours of combat.
The ground campaign had begun on February 24, when a vast coalition led by the United States swept into Iraqi-occupied Kuwait and southern Iraq. Armored columns advanced with startling speed; one British division alone covered some 180 miles in under three days. Kuwait City was retaken on February 26, and Iraqi forces were soon in headlong retreat.
They had destroyed over 3,000 Iraqi tanks for the loss of just a handful of their own.
Bush set the formal cease-fire for the following day. The lightning ground war ejected Iraq from Kuwait but deliberately stopped short of Baghdad, leaving Saddam Hussein in power and unresolved tensions that would shape the region for years.
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