Customer Reviews

THE GULF WAR CHRONICLES: A Military History of the First War with Iraq

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My boss recently asked me to research the first war with Iraq as background for an article. I found that this book, unlike the others I read, was well researched. In addition, the tone was not condescending, which was refreshing. Richard Lowry went beyond the story as told by CNN or CBS, digging deeper and uncovering the real story. Excellent book!

It is now over 13 years since Operation Desert Storm began on January 16, 1991. Given the length of time that has passed, one startling fact is evident in the Desert-Storm Community, there is no single work that provides an accurate day-by-day, hour-by-hour account of Operation Desert-Storm, from the onset of hostilities until the cease-fire declared at Safwan (extensively covered in Ally to Adversary: An Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace by Rick Francona), until now.

Richard Lowry's The Gulf War Chronicles strives to fill this void and to do so in detail, yet still provides a fast-paced read.

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This book is drawn almost entirely from US sources with no attempt to find any Iraqi sources to confirm or refute the assertions made. At one point the book asserts that the Gulf War was "the largest armor battle of all time" (p.172 and x). BIG MISTAKE!. Somebody forgot (or ignored?) the battle of Kursk (with 3 times the number of vehicles and twice the number of men). The battle of 73rd Easting is well reported except for the obvious omission that all of the M1 tanks knocked out were hit by friendly fire (this omission appears to have been an explicit choice). And that's just scratching the surface.

Also the order of battle at the back of the book only records Coalition forces, a bias which pretty much sums up the book.

On the plus side it's the only book that covers the war in any detail, and establishes a firm timeline of events. However, if you want more than 50% of the story, you are going to have to wait for someone to write a more balanced account.

To begin I found this book by recommendation of a good friend of mine, and as a favor to her I read it.
after the first chapter I realized that this author has done an immense amount of research. the book is well informed and highly accurate. in addition to the attention to truth, this book has some of the most compelling stories from this conflict with Iraq. It presents stories that were not well known, but also sheds light on some that stories in the public view that were obscure. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about what we did in Iraq in the early nineties as well as a precursor to studies about our present situation in Iraq. I also say it is a great documentation of the strategies and real world processes of war.

Written by Richard S. Lowry (a veteran of the United States Nuclear Submarine Service during the Vietnam War), The Gulf War Chronicles: A Military History Of The First War With Iraq offers a minute-by-minute chronological description of Operation Desert Storm. Drawing upon information, interviews, and diversely informative resources ranging from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August of 1990 to the September 11th attacks upon the United States, The Gulf War Chronicles is a solidly presented historical account and offers great insight into the complex interplay of events upon a world stage -- events that continue to have a reverberating impact in the current global war against international fundamentalist Islamic terrorism.

As a previous reviewer already mentioned, The Gulf War Chronicles isn't entirely an all-encompassing account of the 1991 Gulf War - with material mostly coming from U.S. sources and from the U.S. perspective - but it's probably the best book that attempts to be that at the moment. Although the author's intent was to make the book a "factual military history", I sensed pretty much right off the bat a skewing of facts to give readers an even more favorable impression of the U.S. effort. In the first chapter, the reason given for the first U.S. casualty of Desert Storm, LCDR Michael Speicher (who I admire as a hero), was one of several things that hinted to me that this might be a big U.S. Military propaganda piece.

The book makes the claim that the aircraft he was in was downed by a surface to air missile when almost all real evidence that exists - the wreckage that was found, accounts from members in his flight, and an account from the intel officer charged with determining the cause for the downed aircraft - has indicated that LCDR Speicher's plane was shot down by another aircraft. I got the feeling the account given in the book was an attempt to perpetuate the idea of U.S. invisibility in air combat, which made me wonder if I was going to get a lot more propaganda than a pure and balanced history of the war. Gladly, I didn't get that feeling as much as I thought would happen as I continued to read through.

Overall, it's a great overview and military account of Operation Desert Storm, especially from the Coalition perspective. I purchased this book, however, thinking it was a completely comprehensive and balanced analysis of the war which is why it didn't quite fit the bill for me.