Of all of Delta Force’s countless missions, one of their most important took place during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when U.S. forces invaded Iraq to stop their occupation of neighboring Kuwait. While the Gulf War is a pretty well-studied event, most people don’t realize that Delta Force played an important role in stopping the war from expanding.
Beginning just days after the U.S. began their invasion, the leader of Iraq Saddam Hussein authorized the launching of SCUD ballistic missiles into Israel and Saudi Arabia. This resulted in the death of at least 13 Israelis and injuries to 77 Saudis, and almost brought Israel into the war to take on Hussein. Hussein likely theorized that bringing the Israelis into the conflict would have likely fractured the international coalition which also consisted of some Arab states, allowing himself an easier time surviving. At first, the U.S. was unable to knock out the SCUDs, and Hussein kept firing them into Israel. This threatened to drastically change the war, but President George Bush diplomatically kept persuading Israel to stay out. Finally, on February 27, 1991, Hussein planned one final barrage of 26 SCUDs to finally tip Israel’s hand.
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Luckily, however, Delta operators located all of the 26 SCUDs and neutralized them before they could be activated. Like most of their accomplishments, the public never knew or realized their massive contribution, but without Delta, the Middle East might be drastically different today.
