secretary. and all of a sudden saddam hussein invaded kuwait. it was august 1st, august 2nd, 1990 and there was enormous uncertainty what was going to happen next. with the iraqis, they were moving through kuwait like a knife through butter. there was nothing stoppy the iraqis through kuwait, and president bush, he had to make some critically important decisions. and he made very important decisions to send a very strong signal through the defense secretary, through the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general colin powell at the time, the u.s. was going to respond militarily. eventually as we all know in january of 1991 the u.s. did respond in operation desert shield became operation desert storm. and within a few weeks the air war had done its mission and then the ground war.