*

A smart, motivated force proved capable of maintaining and operating the most sophisticated military equipment in use.

*

The force did not place an excessive burden of the battle on racial minorities or the economically disadvantaged.

*

Realistic and demanding peacetime training of U.S. forces provided the foundation upon which victory was achieved.

(6)

No firm, accurate figures now exist for the number of Iraqi troops in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations, nor for the number killed during the war, but it may be that U.S. forces faced as few as 183,000 Iraqi troops the day the ground war began.

*

U.S. commanders were understandably and correctly more interested in counting equipment that could affect the ground battle, such as tanks and artillery pieces, than they were in enumerating Iraqi troops.

*

Early estimates of Iraqi troop strength were based on multiplying the number of Iraqi divisions known to be in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations by the number of troops a textbook Iraqi division was supposed to have. This number proved to be inflated.

*

Analysis of captured documents may be the only way to arrive at firmer estimates of the actual Iraqi order of battle and indirectly of Iraqi casualties.

(7)

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 assured that all the services were fighting the same war.

*

There was a single chain of command with a clear-cut distinction between military and civilian roles with the theater commander in chief in unmistakable control over combat forces.

*

Despite the progress made, problems of joint operation were still experienced; for instance, in the withholding of some combat air assets from the overall plan of the air campaign.