19901776 Club
American troops touch down in Saudi Arabia; Bush moves to block Saddam
Three days after Iraqi tanks rolled into Kuwait, the first coalition boots hit the desert sand.
Iraqi forces overran Kuwait in twelve hours, chasing the royal family into exile and killing the Emir's youngest brother in the process. Baghdad had massed 30,000 troops on the border days earlier, and a Jeddah mediation attempt by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak collapsed on July 31. On August 2, 1990, the first American soldiers arrived in Saudi Arabia to defend the kingdom and begin building the coalition that would eventually push Saddam Hussein's army back out…
