Gulf War they set fire to nearly 700 oil wells and placed land mines around the wells to make extinguishing the fires more difficult. The war's ground phase was officially designated Operation Desert Saber. The first units to move into Iraq were three patrols of the British Special Air Service's B squadron, call signs Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero, and Bravo Three Zero, in late January. These eight-man patrols landed behind Iraqi lines to gather intelligence on the movements of Scud mobile missile launchers, which could not be detected from the air, as they were hidden under bridges and camouflage netting
Lead-up to the Iraq War in a NIE that was completely wrong in almost every respect. Lead-up to the Iraq War The lead-up to the Iraq War (i.e., the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent hostilities) began with United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 and subsequent UN weapons inspectors inside Iraq. This period also saw low-level hostilities between Iraq and the United States-led coalition from 1991–2003. Following the 1991 Gulf War, as part of the ceasefire agreement, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 mandated that Iraqi chemical, biological, nuclear, and long range missile programs be halted and all such weapons destroyed under United Nations