Vale Norman Schwarzkopf

Retired US General Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded Desert Storm, the American-led coalition that drove Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait in 1991, died on Thursday. He was 78.

Schwarzkopf died in Tampa, Florida, according to a US official, who was not authorised to release the information publicly, the Associated Press reported.

When Iraqi leader Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, Schwarzkopf commanded Operation Desert Storm, the coalition of some 30 countries built the preceding year by former US President George H.W. Bush.

Schwarzkopf was less certain about developments in the Gulf 12 years later when George Bush, as president, began his invasion into Baghdad in March 2003.

In early 2003, he was interviewed by the The Washington Post and was quoted as saying: “What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That’s a huge question, to my mind. It really should be part of the overall campaign plan.

Schwarzkopf was born on August 24, 1934, in Trenton, New Jersey, where his father, also called Norman, had founded and then was commander of the New Jersey State Police.

As a youth, he accompanied his father to Iran where the elder Schwarzkopf trained the country’s national police force and was an adviser to Reza Pahlavi, the young Shah of Iran, the AP reported. Schwarzkopf studied there and in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and then at West Point, the US military academy two hours drive north of New York City.

He served two tours in Vietnam and then remained in the US army after that campaign ended in the 1970s.

He retired from the US Army in 1992 and wrote his autobiography, It Doesn’t Take A Hero. He and his wife, Brenda, had two daughters and one son.

Click to expand...