The Marine ground forces still faced a dug-in and armored enemy. Though a massive air bombing campaign preceded the ground assault, the Iraqi Army was still a formidable force. Meanwhile, a large coalition force pushed north into Iraq through the lightly defended Saudi-Iraq border, then swung to the east to cut off fleeing Iraqi troops leaving Kuwait in a maneuver called the “Hail Mary” or the "Left Hook." Army Gen Norman Schwarzkopf planned for the Marines, flanked on either side by a multinational Arab force, to push the Iraqis out of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein, who thought a coalition assault would unfold in Kuwait, believed he could grind the war into a bloody stalemate in the same way the Iran-Iraq War unfolded. These belts were comprised of barbed wire, mines, tank traps, and ditches designed to slow an army, making them vulnerable to artillery attack. Beyond the berm, the Iraqi military built two obstacle belts in Kuwait. Though not constructed as an impediment for a military force, it would still need to be breached by the Marines. The berm was constructed before Operation Desert Shield as a method to limit the wanderings of the Bedouin tribes. Ī large berm stood on the Saudi-Kuwait border. Much of the U.S.-led coalition shifted west while the looming threat of the Marines held the Iraqi Army in place. Marines stationed on amphibious assault ships in the Persian Gulf threatened to perform an amphibious assault and kept the Iraqis on the Kuwaiti coast from reinforcing the obstacle belt. During Operation Desert Shield, the leadup to Operation Desert Storm, the Marines prepared to oppose the Iraqi Army, who had dug-in in southern Kuwait.
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