Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War

On all counts Atkinson is fair and thorough. Probably the best example of this is his portrayal of Schwarzkopf. More critical of his methods than the man himself, Atkinson summarizes, "Even for men who had seen horrific bloodletting in Vietnam, no Asian jungle was more stressful than the endless weeks they spent in Norman Schwarzkopf's Riyadh basement."

Still, this is not a book about Schwarzkopf. Everyone and everything gets their due coverage - cruise missiles of all kinds, scuds, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, British special forces, the Israeli Defense Minister, Iraq's Republican Guard, and others. Again, the scope is impressive.

Except for any secrets that may be declassified in the future, "Crusade" is still the most comprehensive account of Desert Storm and Desert Shield. If you think you know everything there is to know about the Gulf War, you are guaranteed to learn something new from "Crusade."


Excellent history of Gulf War I reads like a novel......   December 16, 2003
Alex Diaz-Granados (Miami, FL United States)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful

13 years and two Administrations ago, the entire world watched as the first President Bush marshaled a global coalition to confront Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and gave him an ultimatum: leave Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991, or we'll force you out. Three months had passed since Iraq had invaded its tiny but rich neighbor, claiming the Kuwaitis were slant-drilling into Iraqi oil fields just across the border.

In reality, as Rick Atkinson points out in Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War, Saddam was strong-arming his way out of repaying loans made to Iraq by Kuwait and other moderate Arab countries during his disastrous war with Iran. He may have also been angered by OPEC's lowering of the price of crude oil, which reduced badly-needed hard currency for his moribund economy. In a classic case of what novelist Tom Clancy calls "armed robbery writ large," Saddam followed Hitler's example of trumping up claims on a neighboring country, massing a huge army on its borders, then invading.

While Atkinson (The Thin Gray Line, An Army At Dawn) focuses on the events of the war itself, he carefully explains the almost Byzantine turns of American foreign policy toward Iraq. In the mid-1980s, Washington, worried that Iran would defeat Iraq, provided Baghdad with limited intelligence assistance and looked the other way when other countries (such as France, Brazil, and the USSR) sold Saddam sophisticated weapons. Only after the 1987 USS Stark incident, when an Iraqi Mirage "accidentally" fired an Exocet missile at a U.S. frigate in the Gulf and killed and injured several sailors, did U.S. policymakers start looking at Saddam as a potential adversary. But until 1990, official policy in Washington was to try to coax Baghdad into joining the fold of civilized nations in the so-called post-Cold War "new order."

In fact, as Atkinson points out, Washington's desire to establish better trade and diplomatic relations may have given Saddam the "green light" to invade Kuwait. The White House, for instance, censured the Voice of America for airing reports about Iraq's repressive government, and Ambassador April Glaspie's comment in July 1990 that the U.S. had no intentions to intervene in "Arab-Arab" disputes further reinforced the Iraqi dictator's view that America was a post-Vietnam "paper tiger" and would not lift a finger to help the Sheik of Kuwait.

Crusade is intensely fascinating and detailed. It is incredibly well-written, enabling the reader to get both the Big Picture and see the war through the combatants' point of view. It's no exaggeration to say that it reads like a Clancy novel; we get not only personality sketches of H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the "CINC" of Central Command and overall commander of Desert Storm and his chief lieutenants (Charles Horner, "Buster" Glosson, Cal Waller, Fred Franks), but we also get vivid descriptions of the intense aerial and ground battles that became known as Operation Desert Storm.

Atkinson also deals with the unexpected aftermath of the Persian Gulf War -- the short period of national high-fiving after the liberation of Kuwait that gave way to disillusion. In a matter of months, President George Herbert Walker Bush went from being a popular wartime leader to being booted out of the Oval Office in the 1992 election. Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, crushed not one but two post-war revolts (encouraged but not supported by President Bush) and withstood nearly 12 years of sanctions and sporadic air and missile attacks as he defiantly thumbed his nose at three American Presidents. (Now that he's in U.S. custody, maybe he isn't feeling so cocky, but that's another story.)


Golden   April 24, 2002
Aaron M (Maine)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful

I ordered this book shortly after the 9/11 attack, anticipating another land battle in the Middle East. I wanted to know what to expect if our forces were moved in in any great numbers. Crusade provided exactly that information by providing me with a clear documentation of the Gulf War. Despite the differences between the two wars, I still found the book helpful. Rick Atkinson's style is a lot like Sebastian Junger's (The Perfect Storm). It's almost like reading a very long newspaper article, except that Atkinson keeps it interesting.

My only complaint is that he relies too heavily on what appears to be a list of crutch words. These should fairly pop out at you, but they do not really take away from the quality of his writing. Unless of course, you are looking for creative merit.

Creativity is not a part of the book. It is a complete record of the facts, as well as Atkinson's opinion's as they relate.

I give this book full marks.


My Highest Recommendation   May 5, 2003
Shane K. Bernard (New Iberia, LA USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful

In my opinion, Atkinson surpasses Stephen Ambrose as military historian extraordinaire, and I'm an Ambrose fan! From the moment I read the first paragraph of the first page of this book, I thought, "Wow, Atkinson can write!" The work was gripping throughout, and read like a novel. No wonder Atkinson won a Pulitzer for his previous work: he has an amazing gift for conveying historical fact in captivating prose. Equally amazing is the amount of research that went into this tome: a glance at the endnotes is sufficient to know that this book must have consumed Atkinson's life for several years. Along with Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" and Antony Beevor's "Fall of Berlin 1945," I would say this is the best work of military history that I have read . . . in fact, I would rank it first with Beevor's "Berlin" book. And you don't need to be a soldier to understand the book; it's clearly devised, with explanations for the layperson, and the maps are incredible. My only wish while reading the book was for a supplement that showed, for example, what an F-111 looked like, so that I wouldn't confuse it with an F-117; but this is my only criticism, and a minor one at that. You can always look up such weaponry on the Internet. Now I can't wait to read Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn," which I have waiting on my bookshelf!


I was in the air, over there, and this book is a shack!   May 19, 1999
8 out of 8 found this review helpful

I flew combat sorties in OPERATION DESERT STORM and this book correctly details the microcosism of my involvement in the conflict. While Mr. Atkinson does not detail all of the contributions of my weapons platform, he does go into as much detail as anyone else has. What he does write in this book, he is right on target.

He also is able to show some of the human side of the story, and not just the technical aspects of it.

Overall, the book is very easy to read, and I did not wish to put it down until I finished it. Adding the technical merit and accuracy of the volume makes it the best overall text on OPERATION DESERT STORM I know of. Other texts take a more technical view of portions of the campaign, but none top Crusade.