---
title: Desert Storm surrender leaflets (CIA museum display)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cia-desert-storm-surrender-leaflets-1991/
description: 'A framed CIA display of Desert Storm surrender leaflets: cartoon panels of aircraft bombing an airfield and a tank column, a bomb marked ''Warning,'' a…'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Desert Storm surrender leaflets (CIA museum display)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cia-desert-storm-surrender-leaflets-1991.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cia-desert-storm-surrender-leaflets-1991.jpg)

# Desert Storm surrender leaflets (CIA museum display)

A framed CIA display of Desert Storm surrender leaflets: cartoon panels of aircraft bombing an airfield and a tank column, a bomb marked 'Warning,' a 'this location will be bombed next' message and a two-frame scene of soldiers eating together, captioned in English on the display sheet. The tell is the paired structure: a staged picture of the coming attack next to a named exit ('leave your equipment, save yourselves') and an invitation to surrender.

- **Date:** 1991
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** Coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War (leaflets air-dropped over Iraqi positions), displayed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Leaflet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=leaflet)
- **Issuer type:** [Intelligence](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=intelligence)
- **Regime:** [George H. W. Bush Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=george-h-w-bush-administration)
- **Leader:** [George H. W. Bush](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=george-h-w-bush)
- **Audience:** [Enemy forces](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=enemy-forces)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Gulf War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=gulf-war)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (file originally posted to Flickr by the Central Intelligence Agency)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Persian_Gulf_War_Leaflets_-_Flickr_-_The_Central_Intelligence_Agency.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (U.S. government work, Central Intelligence Agency) The Central Intelligence Agency, public domain (work of the U.S. government), via Flickr and Wikimedia Commons.

## Text on the object

Original (Multiple) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Desert Storm
Surrender Leaflets

This location is subject to bombing
[Arabic on leaflet:] إن هذا الموقع معرض للقصف!

Your equipment will be bombed!
[Arabic on leaflet:] إن معداتكم عرضة للقصف!

Or defend it and die   Leave your equipment!
[Arabic on leaflet:] دافعوا عنها ولاقوا حتفكم   أو   اتركوا معداتكم
The choice is yours
[Arabic on leaflet:] فالخيار لكم!

Time is up!
[Arabic on leaflet:] لقد فات الأوان

Warning
[Arabic on leaflet:] تحذير!
This location will be bombed next
[Arabic on leaflet:] سيجري قصف هذا الموقع قريباً
Leave your equipment save yourselves
[Arabic on leaflet:] اتركوا معداتكم وانقذوا أنفسكم
Warning

Command Of The Joint Forces In The Theater Of Operation
An Invitation
As guests of the command of the Joint Forces in the Theater of Operation, you are invited to join the Joint Forces with the full benefit of Arab hospitality, security, safety, and medical care, and to return to your family as soon as the situation in which Saddam has put us in is ended.
Brother Iraqi Soldiers,
This is an open invitation to you and to your brother fighters. I hope you can accept it as soon as you get the chance.
Commander
Joint Forces in the Theater of Operation

[Small Arabic invitation card, headed بطاقة دعوة, is not legible at this resolution: [illegible]]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
The English lines are printed on the display sheet as the key to the Arabic. The Arabic on the leaflets reads, in order: 'This location is exposed to bombing!'; 'Your equipment is exposed to bombing!'; 'Defend it and meet your death' / 'or' / 'leave your equipment'; 'So the choice is yours!'; 'The time has come / it is too late'; 'Warning!'; 'This location will soon be bombed'; 'Leave your equipment and save yourselves'.
```

Read from a photograph of a framed display; the four single-leaflet panels at left of the frame repeat the panels on the sheet and are not transcribed separately. Arabic read from a mid-resolution photograph and machine-translated by Claude, not checked by a fluent reader.

[← President Bush holds up a bag of crack in the Oval Office](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bush-crack-bag-address-1989/) [ANC Western Cape Poster: "DP + NNP Stole Your Homes" (c. 2001) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anc-district-six-election-poster-2001/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)