Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led forces that crushed Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and became the nation’s most acclaimed military hero since the midcentury exploits of Gens. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, died on Thursday in Tampa, Fla. He was 78.The general, who retired soon after the Gulf War and lived in Tampa, died of complications arising from pneumonia, his sister Ruth Barenbaum said.
In Operation Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf orchestrated one of the most lopsided victories in modern warfare, a six-week blitzkrieg by a broad coalition of forces with overwhelming air superiority that liberated tiny Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, routed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and virtually destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure, all with relatively light allied losses.
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