[3]
Events in this story of the "Mother of All Battles," as Saddam designated the 1991 war, are drawn from primary Iraqi sources, including government documents, videos, audiotapes, maps, and photographs captured by U.S. forces in 2003 from the regime's archives and never intended for outsiders' eyes. The book is part of an official U.S. Joint Forces Command research project to examine contemporary warfare from the point of view of the adversary's archives and senior leader interviews. Its purpose is to stimulate thoughtful analyses of currently accepted lessons of the first Gulf War. While not a comprehensive history, the author's balanced Iraqi perspective of events between 1990 and 1991 takes full advantage of his unique access to material.
Kevin M. Woods is an analyst with the Institute for Defense Analyses. A resident of Northern Virginia, he is also the coauthor of a companion volume on the 2003 Gulf War.
Praise for The Mother of All Battles
“This is an important read in the current climate of attempting to understand the Arab way of conventional and guerilla warfare.”
— dcmilitary.com [5], May 24, 2012
"Using recently discovered official documents and materials; Kevin Woods has compiled an insightful, straight-forward account of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm from the Iraqi perspective. This inside view of Saddam Hussein's regime is unique and absolutely crucial reading for anyone who hopes to understand the course of that conflict."
—Paul Westermeyer, Historian, U.S.M.C. History Division, author of U.S. Marines in Battle: Al-Khafji
