Gulf War personalities

Hafez Assad

Then: During the Gulf War, Assad was president of Syria, a nation the United States accused of sponsoring terrorists; he was also head of his country's Ba'ath Socialist Party, as Saddam Hussein was in Iraq. Still, Syria joined the ranks of Arab nations aligned with the Allies against Iraq. The move drew financial aid from Kuwait, some measure of goodwill from the West and a valuable distraction. While all eyes were on the Gulf, Syrian forces installed a new pro-Syrian president in Lebanon, where Syria and Israel had fought each other for a decade.

Now: After the Gulf War, Assad participated in the Madrid conference and subsequent peace talks with Israel. But while Assad remained engaged in talks, he was willing to make few concessions, and did not sign a treaty with Israel as many other Arab leaders did. Assad died in June 2000, and was replaced by his son Bashar, a 34-year-old British-educated opthalmologist.

Tariq Aziz

Then: As Iraq's foreign minister and a fluent English speaker, Aziz was the public spokesman for Iraq throughout the 1990-91 crisis. As a close Hussein associate since the 1960s, he survived coup attempts and at least one abortive assassination attempt.

Now: On March 24, 1991, Aziz became deputy prime minister in a Hussein cabinet shake-up. He remains a prominent spokesman for the Iraqi government.

James Addison Baker III

Then: Formerly undersecretary of commerce in the Ford administration, and secretary of the treasury and White House chief of staff under President Reagan, Baker was the secretary of state during the Gulf War. From August 1992 until the end of the Bush administration, Baker was once again Chief of Staff.

Now: Baker is a senior partner in the law firm of Baker Botts, practicing in Dallas and Washington. He is also a senior counselor to the Carlyle Group, a merchant banking firm, and the honorary chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. In November and December 2000, Baker was the point man for George W. Bush's legal team in the Florida election dispute.

George Herbert Walker Bush

Then: After time as a U.S. Representative, ambassador to the United Nations, head of the CIA and vice president under Ronald Reagan, Bush became the 41st president of the United States in 1989. Bush and his team of military and policy advisers marshalled the international coalition to oppose Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Immediately following the Gulf War, Bush, a former Navy combat pilot, enjoyed unprecedented popularity within the United States.

Now: Despite his popularity, Bush was unable to weather a faltering U.S. economy. In 1992, he lost his re-election bid to the Democratic governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. However, in November of 2000, a Bush again won the White House, as Bush's eldest son and Texas governor, George W. Bush, defeated Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, in a highly contested election.

Dick Cheney

Then: Cheney was the secretary of defense during the entire Bush administration, including the Gulf War. He previously served five terms in Congress as a representative from Wyoming. Cheney was one of President Bush's closest advisers, sometimes consulting on non-defense matters.

Now: Cheney was elected vice president in November 2000, and has been organizing the White House transition.

King Fahd

Then: As leader of Saudi Arabia, the country that is home to Islam's holiest sites, Fahd reversed a long-standing policy of not inviting Westerners into the country.

Now: Fahd suffered a stroke in 1995 and handed control of the government to his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, for less than two months in 1996. He resumed his official duties, but Abdullah continues to handle much of the day-to-day work.

Amb. April Glaspie

Then: As the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Glaspie was blamed by some for allegedly implying to Saddam Hussein that the U.S. would not react forcibly to an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Now: As of April 2000, Glaspie was the U.S. Consul General to South Africa.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

Then: As General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev brought drastic reforms inside the Soviet Union and better relations with the United States. When the USSR backed the Allies over Iraq, a former Soviet client, it was a sign that the old rules of Cold War politics no longer applied.

Now: Gorbachev survived a coup by Communist hard-liners in August 1991, but his power was on the wane. When Russia and the other member republics declared the Soviet Union defunct, Russian President Boris Yeltsin called U.S. President George Bush before he called Gorbachev. Leader of a country that no longer existed, Gorbachev resigned in December 1991. He founded the Gorbachev Foundation in 1992, and the Green Cross International. In 1996, Gorbachev ran for president of Russia, and drew a scant 1.5 percent of the vote.

Nizar Hamdoon

Then: During the Gulf War, Hamdoon was Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations. In that role, he fought an uphill battle with a body that developed a clear consensus against his country.

Now: Hamdoon was recalled by Saddam Hussein in January 1999, and honored by colleagues as having faced the most difficult job in the building. After returning to Iraq, Hamdoon was named deputy foreign minister.

King Hussein

Then: Hussein (no relation to the Iraqi leader) was one of the few world leaders to back the Iraqi side in the war. Traditionally allied with both the U.S. and Iraq, Hussein was also influenced by a large population of Palestinian refugees (the PLO also backed Iraq) and a pro-Iraq groundswell among his fellow Jordanians.

Now: Hussein was central to the Middle East peace process of the 1990s. He signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and was recognized as the custodian of Muslim holy sites in disputed East Jerusalem. In October 1998, Hussein left the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he was undergoing treatment for terminal cancer, to lend a hand to the Wye River Israel-PLO talks. That cancer claimed his life in February 1999.

Saddam Hussein

Then: With near-absolute control over his country and a huge army hardened by a brutal eight-year war against Iran, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (his first name means "he who confronts") invaded Kuwait against meager resistance and threatened Saudi Arabia.

Now: Hussein has continued to provoke the Allies who defeated him in 1991, and to survive efforts to depose him. A 1996 coup attempt, allegedly backed by the CIA, left Hussein unscathed. Rumors that he had died persisted throughout 2000, but he disproved them with public appearance in which he appeared alert and healthy.

Gen. Thomas W. Kelly

Then: Kelly was the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and responsible for much of the planning of Desert Storm. He also held press briefings, and is remembered for the witticism, at the end of the ground war, that "Iraq went from the fourth-largest army in the world to the second-largest army in Iraq in 100 hours."

Now: Kelly retired from the army in March 1991, and went on the lecture circuit. He spent four years at the Wing Group, a company that built natural gas power plants overseas, before retiring in 1999. He died of cancer June 6, 2000, at the age of 67.

Hosni Mubarak

Then: Mubarak took over as Egypt's third president after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, an incident in which Mubarak was slightly injured. As a prominent Arab leader, Mubarak's cooperation with the Allies -- or, at least, lack of opposition -- was crucial. He tried to mediate direct talks between Iraq and Kuwait, and when the Saudis invited U.S. and other troops into the country, Mubarak's Egypt led a coalition in support of the move.

Now: Re-elected in 1993 and 1999 (unopposed), Mubarak has survived a rising unrest among Islamic fundamentalists and two assassination attempts. He helped mediate the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. During the 1998 "Desert Fox" strikes against Iraq, Mubarak was non-committal.

Gen. Colin Powell

Then: Powell was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer, during the Gulf War. He was the youngest person and the first African American to hold the post. He remained in the post until September 30, 1993, through the first months of the Clinton administration.

Now: After his autobiography was published, Powell went on tour to promote the book, prompting rumors that he was considering a run for president or vice president. He declined both, served as a member of several corporate boards and was a prominent adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000. Bush picked him to be Secretary of State.

Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf

Then: As leader of the Allies in the Persian Gulf, Schwartzkopf displayed an ease in televised briefings that made him an overnight media celebrity. A Vietnam veteran and deputy commander of U.S. forces in Grenada, Schwartzkopf retired after the war in 1991.

Now: Schwartzkopf is a fixture on the lecture circuit, and was active in the presidential campaign of George W. Bush.

Yitzhak Shamir

Then: As the war proceeded, the Israeli prime minister assisted the allies by doing nothing. Specifically, he did not retaliate when Iraq fired Scud missiles at Israel, as Israeli involvement in the war would have driven a wedge between the U.S. and its Arab allies.

Now: In the wake of the Gulf War, Shamir attended the Madrid conference that led to direct talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors. After losing the 1992 election, Shamir resigned from the leadership of the Likkud party, of which he was a founder. He retired from the Knesset in 1996.

Pete Williams

Then: Williams, a Wyoming native, became Dick Cheney's congressional press secretary in 1986. When Cheney became secretary of defense, he took his spokesman with him to the Pentagon. As the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, Williams became a familiar face at Pentagon briefings during the Gulf War.

Now: After leaving the Defense Department, Williams joined NBC News. He now covers the Supreme Court and Justice Department for NBC and MSNBC.