I'm not talking about their missiles or air force, but the Integrated Air Defense System. The French built KARI IADS system was a very much modern at the time,

I'm not talking about their missiles or air force, but the Integrated Air Defense System. The French built KARI IADS system was a very much modern at the time, having been first operationalized in 1987 and was linked with fiber optic cable, with wireless communication as a backup [0]. While the Iraqi's did not have the latest SAM systems themselves, their integrated air defense system allowed them to keep the radars of SAM batteries turned off, keeping them hidden to avoid detection. Their missiles were very potent, and it had a lot of them at 16,000 in total [1]: "The U.S. Government estimated before the war that the most critical Iraqi targets were more heavily defended than any in Eastern Europe even during the height of the Cold War." S-125 missiles had victories against coalition aircraft. They would have had many more victories were it not for the fact that coalition air strikes severed the centralized air command communications in the starting minutes of the war thanks to the Stealthy F-117's which were already above Baghdad at the time of H hour. The combination of stealth aircraft taking out key crucial infrastructure, severing of fiber optics communication, jamming of wireless communications, electronic warfare, and decoy drones proved to be too much for the Iraqi IAD's. But without those technologies and strategies, the Gulf War could have been a blood bath much more akin to Vietnam. [0]: https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/27/2001329817/-1/-1/0/AFD-100927-066.pdf https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/27/2001329817/-1/-1/0/AFD... [1]: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2009/P7837.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2009/P7837...