THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 16, 1996 TAG: 9601160381
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: THE GULF WAR: FIVE YEARS LATER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
The Virginian-Pilot
Sailors aboard the battleship Wisconsin man the rails of the ship,
right, and smoke belches from the ship's engines s it leaves Norfolk
Naval Base on Aug. 8, 1990. The ship would cross the Atlantic in a
record-setting 17 days.
Associated Press file
A Tomahawk cruise missile, below, is launched from the Wisconsin on
Jan. 18, 1991, two days into the air assault on Iraq.
GRAPHIC
Time Line
Aug. 2, 1990: Iraq's army enters Kuwait. President George Bush
orders an economic embargo.
Aug. 7: Bush orders U.S. combat troops and warplanes sent to
protect Saudi Arabia. A Navy task force sets sail for the region,
including the Norfolk-based amphibious assault ship Inchon. Pilots
at Oceana Naval Air Station prepare to deploy to the region with the
carrier Saratoga.
Aug. 11: The carrier John F. Kennedy prepares to deploy to the
Mideast. Shipyard workers begin to reactivate cargo ships in the
James River mothball fleet.
Aug. 15: Portsmouth Regional Medical Center sends a medical team
abroad for the first time since the Korean War.
Aug. 22: Bush calls up 40,000 reservists, the first such call-up
since the Tet offensive in the Vietnam War in 1968.
Aug. 24: Iraqi troops surround the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait. U.S.
Ambassador W. Nathaniel Howell, a Portsmouth native, refuses to
surrender the embassy.
Sept. 1: The Norfolk-based battleship Wisconsin makes a record
Atlantic crossing in 17 days.
Nov. 8: Demanding an unconditional Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait,
Bush orders an additional 200,000 troops to the region. The
deployment includes two more carriers and 15,000 more sailors from
Norfolk.
Nov. 29: The U.N. Security Council gives Iraq six weeks to pull out
of Kuwait or face an assault by the United States and its allies.
Jan. 12, 1991: Congress gives Bush authority to wage war.
Jan. 15: The U.N.-imposed deadline for an Iraqi pullout passes.
Jan. 16: The United States and its allies strike Baghdad and other
targets in Iraq and Kuwait with waves of air attacks.
Jan. 17: Iraq attacks Israel with 10 Scud missiles. Israel, under
U.S. pressure, does not retaliate.
Jan. 18: An Oceana-based jet is downed in Iraq.
Jan. 22: Iraq sets Kuwaiti oil wells ablaze.
Jan. 23: U.S. warplanes start bombing Iraqi ground forces in
Kuwait. An Oceana pilot, Lt. Devon Jones, is rescued in a daring
mission in the Iraqi desert.
Jan. 25: Iraq sabotages Kuwait's main oil-loading pier, dumping
millions of gallons of crude into the Persian Gulf.
Feb. 22: Bush rejects a last-ditch Iraqi-Soviet peace plan and
delivers an ultimatum, ordering Iraq to begin pulling out of Kuwait
within 24 hours.
Feb. 24: The allies storm Kuwait in a lighting assault, taking
5,000 Iraqi POWs.
Feb. 25: An Iraqi Scud missile strikes a U.S. barracks in Saudi
Arabia, killing 28 troops and injuring 100. Among the dead is
Jonathan Matthew Williams, a 23-year-old Army corporal from
Portsmouth.
Feb. 26: Iraq announces its unconditional withdrawal. Allied forces
conduct bombing raids on retreating Iraqis.
Feb. 27: The allies declare a tentative cease-fire, 100 hours after
the ground war began. ``Kuwait is liberated,'' Bush tells the
nation.
KEYWORDS: GULF WAR ANNIVERSARY by CNB