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The Persian Gulf War

Can you answer these questions about the Gulf War, fought between Iraq and a U.S. coalition in 1990-1991?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: November 23, 2019
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First submittedNovember 21, 2019
Times taken6,478
Average score68.8%
Rating3.82
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Question
Answer
What country did Iraq invade in 1990, starting the war?
Kuwait
What other country did Iraq attempt to invade, briefly capturing one city?
Saudi Arabia
Who was the dictator of Iraq at the time?
Saddam Hussein
What political party did he lead?
Ba'ath Party
Who was the President of the U.S.?
George H. W. Bush
What group of people did Iraq attack with chemical weapons and commit genocide
against in the late 1980s?
The Kurds
What American cable news network gained prominence during the conflict?
CNN
What was the U.S. codename for the defensive phase of the war?
Desert Shield
What was the codename for the offensive phase of the war?
Desert Storm
Who was the top U.S. commander?
Norman Schwarzkopf
What nearby country did Iraq attack with 42 ballistic missiles?
Israel
What type of Soviet missiles did they use?
Scud
What type of missile did the U.S. use to intercept those missiles, with mixed results?
MIM-104 Patriot
Who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense?
(Hint: He had a large role in the next Iraq War)
Dick Cheney
Only 146 U.S. troops died during the war. What killed 24% of them?
Friendly Fire
What environmental crime did the Iraqis commit during their retreat?
Oil Fires / Oil Spill
+11
Level 77
Nov 21, 2019
The environmental crime one was hard. Setting fire to oil wells, oil burning... Nope. Didn't find your wording.
+8
Level 72
Nov 21, 2019
Agreed. I tried "burnt oil wells", "burnt oil fields", "set fire to oil wells", "set fire to oil fields", "flooded oil fields" etc. all to no avail. You either need a heck of a lot more type ins or you need to reword the question so people have more idea what specific answer you are looking for.

Annoying when that was all I needed for the clean sweep as well.

+5
Level 90
Nov 21, 2019
Yeah, it's very frustrating to know exactly what the act was without knowing what specific type-in is required. Needs work - "environmental crime" does not sufficiently convey what you're looking for.
+3
Level 79
Nov 21, 2019
Yup, this clue is poorly worded. By asking for a crime, the clue implies that a verb is needed (e.g. burn, set fire), yet the answer doesn't contain a verb. The answer is a noun, so the question should ask for a noun rather than a verb. Suggestion: What did the Iraqis set fire to during their retreat? That would actually fit the answer.
+1
Level ∞
Nov 21, 2019
I've added a bunch more type-ins.
+3
Level 69
Nov 21, 2019
how about "arson"?
+2
Level ∞
Nov 21, 2019
Arson will work now.
+1
Level 74
Nov 23, 2019
What is the source of the 74 deaths in Israel? I was there during the entire period and I only remember about 3 deaths attributed to scud attacks, due to heart attacks. I don't recall any deaths directly from scud missiles. The only major casualty I remember is the scud missile that hit an army base in Saudi Arabia that had a significant number of dead and wounded.

See this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10332169#:~:targetText=Author%20information%3A,Group%20in%20Dhahran%2C%20Saudi%20Arabia.

and this:

https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/history/pages/the%20gulf%20war%20-%201991.aspx

+1
Level ∞
Nov 23, 2019
Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
+3
Level ∞
Nov 23, 2019
But it strikes me that perhaps the Jewish Virtual Library, the source listed in the Wikipedia article, is taking a too expansive view of deaths "caused by" the missiles. I've changed the question to remove the number of deaths.
+4
Level 77
Nov 25, 2019
I kept hoping that typing in "General" for Schwarzkopf would work. Not that it should...
+1
Level 73
Mar 21, 2020
xD
+2
Level 75
Mar 23, 2020
Stormin' Norman.
+4
Level ∞
Jan 14, 2020
I just read that the U.S. was expecting 20,000 - 30,000 casualties (dead and wounded), with worst case scenarios of 100,000. In the end, the U.S. only suffered 292 killed and 776 wounded.
+7
Level 82
Mar 21, 2020
I remember vividly the first news reports of the US bombings on Iraqi targets, and the realization that for the first time in my lifetime, the country was at war. And how scary and surreal that felt.

My nieces and nephews, on the other hand, have grown up in a world where to *not* be in war would be what seemed strange.

+1
Level 75
Mar 23, 2020
It wasn't nearly as scary to me as growing up during the Vietnam War when the body counts were displayed every night on the six o'clock news. War coverage seemed much more brutal then, or maybe it just seemed so because I was a young girl.
+1
Level 82
Mar 24, 2020
I'm sure that was worse. My mother often recalls her daily nuclear holocaust nightmares which lasted for years after the Cuban missile crisis. But being in elementary school at the time the Gulf War started I never got to see anything like that before. I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War, when the bad taste of Vietnam was still in the mouths of my parents' generation, when hot wars were rare and we were taught as children that they were something to be avoided at all costs, as any flare up of violence threatened to escalate into something unthinkable. And for all of my childhood we had avoided them, apart from tiny excursions in Panama and Grenada. In that context it was kind of scary to an 11 year old.
+1
Level 19
Mar 21, 2020
Serving in Desert Shield/Storm should do well on this
+1
Level 66
Aug 29, 2021
I tried "setting the oil on fire" for the last one!
+1
Level 64
Sep 25, 2021
Unbelievably US-centric. You'd think no other nations had been involved or suffered losses
+1
Level 87
Nov 18, 2021
Yep, and which group of people supplied Saddam with the technology and know-how to produce said chemical weapons? You guessed it folks, the good old US of A - yeehaw!!!!

(Check YouTube for old footage of Rumsfeld meeting Saddam in the 1980’s to agree the sale of weapons to use against Iran. This included chemical weapon capabilities)

Land of the Free…