Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf with his troops in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in January 1991.
By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News
Retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the blunt commander of U.S.-led coalition forces in the first Persian Gulf War, died Friday in Florida, a senior defense official told NBC News. He was 78.
The cause of death wasn't immediately available.
Schwarzkopf, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran who rose quickly through the Army's ranks during the 1970s and '80s, drew up the initial plans for the successful U.S.-led ejection of President Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990.
He then became famous for his inventive language during his almost-daily televised press briefings as commander of Operation Desert Storm, in which he was always clad in desert camouflage.
Schwarzkopf dubbed the key maneuver that led to the end of the ground war in Iraq, a redeployment of forces into Iraq behind Iraqi lines, a "left hook." And he memorably dismissed one report he disagreed with as "bovine scatology."
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He emerged from the war with the nickname "Stormin' Norman" and a career in television, much of it as a military analyst for NBC News.
Colin Powell, who was Schwarzkopf's boss as chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff during Desert Storm, remembered Schwarzkopf Friday as "a great patriot and a great soldier."
"He was a good friend of mine, a close buddy," Powell said in a statement.. " I will miss him."
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