Battle of 73 Easting

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Introduction The Battle of 73 Easting was fought during the Gulf War, also known as the First Persian Gulf War, which start on August 1990 and end on February 1991. The Gulf War started because of Saddam Hussein invasion of Kuwait. The 73 Easting battle took place on Iraqi territory near the border with Kuwait. This region of Iraq is a flat, trackless desert with no terrain features, so such a grid coordinates and Global Positioning System technology was necessary for navigation. The battle took place on the afternoon on February 26, 1991, also known as the Last Great Tank Battle of the 20th Century, because it was an armored warfare. The U.S. Army VII Corps, led by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment and along with British Army forces, were heading due east toward the Iraqi Republican Guard Tawakalna Mechanized Division. The Republican Guard (IRG) was the cream of Saddam army and the Tawakalna Division was known to be the best and most aggressive of the various IRG formations. Historical Setting On July 1990 the Iran-Iraq war had left Iraq in bankruptcy, at that time. At that time, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein accused Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates of flooding the world oil market. Specifically, he accused Kuwait for stealing oil from a disputed supply, the Rumaila oil field which ran beneath both countries, and thus waging an "economic war" against Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and led the 4th larger Army on the world, with 650,000 soldiers. On August 2nd, 1990, Iraqi military forces invaded and occupied Kuwait, gaining power over 20 percent of world fossil oil fields. Within hours of the invasion, Kuwait and U.S. delegations requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, which passed Resolution 660, condemning the invasion and demanding a withdrawal of Iraqi troops. From the beginning, U.S. officials insisted on a total Iraqi pullout
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