Yeah, well it one of those things. I think Persian Gulf War, Saddam had several things to worry about.
1st off he always wanted to appear to be much stronger than he forces really were.
2nd off there was alway exposing himself from attack from his other neighbors. Iran had grudge, of course they were still in rebuilding phase after their battles with the Iraqis. Then there was always fear of Turkish Troops in the north who would of course been in pursuit of those troublesome Kurds. Syria even though both were ruled by Parties with the same name, they weren't on the most friendly of terms, as was proven with a Syrian units in the coalition troops. Jordan wasn't much of friend.
3rd the further he moved from his supply depots the more exposed his forward units would of been. Saudi is big country with lot of nothing. It like places out between the Mississippi River and Rockies Mountain in the US, but much more barren.
4th I think the resistance movement that was put up in his newly acquired province even took him by surprised and didn't want make run into Saudi to have to tie down units doing the same.
5th if he taking out Saudi, he may as well take the other City-State that populate the southern Persian Gulf coast to eliminate places where the coalition to gain foot holds to attack him.
6th possibility he wasn't totally acting on his own. Strangely enough Russia or China didn't veto the UN actions against him. I think much like Korea and Vietnam there were still people in the Russia who wanted to see what the Americans and her allies would respond. It also gave them chance to test some of their equipment even though it wasn't as good as they had for themselves and see how it performed. Russia was still trying to find out how strong NATO was, and was objecting to so many of their former client States and Republic in their efforts in joining the Alliance. After seeing it took 6 month for the US and the coalition to get enough ground forces to take eject the Iraqis, along with the fact that National Guard round-brigade would still out of the game too. Then that little Battle of Kafji (sp?) was little too set up to test the Marines and the coalition forces with them.
The trouble thing is if you look at the list. It seems like he had all the card in his hands for at least the first week after his initial movement. After that he had another two weeks of freedom of moving at his own choosing, yet he allow the US and the coalition to build up a strong defensive position before he even sent a 'Recon-en-force' into Saudi. There were plenty of things, that don't make sense. The one thing he had with Kuwait and Kuwait City was a decent port to the Gulf. Maybe he figure trying to take much more would be waste of time effort, more so than trying to build up his defenses. In the end this was part of the downfall, because instead of dispersing his force out of much larger are, they were concentrated in very limited area, which in turn made it just that easier for the Coalition Air unit to pound the crap out his ground troops and take the fight out of them, before the ground fighting had even started.
The thing is he had several things to worry about if he pushed on, the further he push the further away the Republican Guard would have to be removed from areas where his regime needed them more for control.
Just some thought on that.
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