Casualties
Coalition losses
The DoD reports that U.S. forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths, plus one pilot listed as MIA (further 145 Americans died in out-of-combat accidents). The UK suffered 24 combat deaths, France 2, and the Arab countries suffered 39 casualties.

The largest single loss of Coalition forces happened on February 25, 1991, when an Iraqi Al-Hussein missile hit an American military barrack in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia killing 28 U.S. Army Reservists from Pennsylvania.

The number of coalition wounded in combat seems to have been 776, including 467 Americans.

However, as of the year 2000, 183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War, more than a quarter of the U.S. troops who participated in War, have been declared permanently disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.  About 30% of the 700,000 men and women who served in U.S. forces during the Gulf War still suffer an array of serious symptoms whose causes are not fully understood.

Friendly fire
While the death toll among Coalition forces engaging Iraqi combatants was very low, a substantial number of deaths were caused by accidental attacks from other allied units. Of the 147 American troops who died in battle, 24% were killed by friendly fire, a total of 35 service personnel. A further 11 died in detonations of allied munitions. Nine British service personnel were also killed in a friendly fire incident when a USAF A-10A Thunderbolt-II attacked a group of two Warrior IFVs.

Pre-war estimates
Before the war Pentagon officials were estimating 30,000-40,000 coalition casualties.

The Dupuy Institute stood alone and in front of Congress predicted coalition casualties below 6,000. They used the TNDM model which makes use of historical data from previous wars to predict casualties (the model makes use of 'human' factors such as morale and they predicted that very few Iraqi divisions would put up resistance).

Iraqi deaths
Immediate estimates said up to 100,000 Iraqis were killed. Some now estimate that Iraq sustained between 20,000 and 35,000 fatalities. However other figures still maintain fatalities as high as 200,000.

A report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force, estimated 10,000-12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war.  This analysis is based on Iraqi prisoner of war reports.

The Iraqi government claimed that 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign, most of them during an F-117 Stealth Fighter strike on what was believed to be an Iraqi military communications center in Baghdad but was also serving as an air raid shelter.

According to the Project on Defense Alternatives study, 3,664 Iraqi civilians and between 20,000 and 26,000 military personnel were killed in the conflict.

Other losses
Several Scud missiles were fired by Iraq into Israel during the six weeks of the war. One Israeli person died due to these attacks, in addition to approximately 35 injured. The attacks caused damage to property, and demoralized the Israeli population.

Civilian deaths
The increased importance of air attacks from both warplanes and cruise missiles led to much controversy over the level of civilian deaths caused during the initial stages of the war. Within the first 24 hours of the war, more than 1,000 sorties were flown, many of them against targets in Baghdad. The city received heavy bombing due to being the seat of power for President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi forces' command and control. However, this also led to substantial civilian casualties.

During the long bombing campaign prior to the ground war, many aerial attacks led to civilian casualties. In one particularly notable event, stealth bombers attacked a bunker in Amirya, causing the deaths of between 200 and 400 civilians who were taking refuge there at the time. Subsequently, scenes of burned and mutilated bodies were broadcast and controversy raged over the status of the bunker, with some stating that it was a civilian shelter while others contended that it was a centre of Iraqi military operations and the civilians had been deliberately moved there to act as human shields. Some estimates 2,300 to 200,000 Iraqi civilians were killed during the war. Other research, such as an investigation by Beth Osborne Daponte, has speculated on civilian fatalities as high as 100,000.  Notably, the deaths of civilians and damage to civilian areas was expressly avoided by coalition forces, unlike previous campaigns such as the Bombing of Tokyo in World War II.

Gulf War controversies
Gulf War illness
Many returning coalition soldiers reported illnesses following their participation in the Gulf War, a phenomenon known as Gulf War syndrome or Gulf War illness. There has been widespread speculation and disagreement about the causes of the illness and reported birth defects. Some factors considered as possibly causal include exposure to depleted uranium, chemical weapons, anthrax vaccine given to deploying soldiers, and/or infectious diseases. Major Michael Donnelly, a former USAF officer during the Gulf War, helped publicize the syndrome and advocated for veterans' rights in this regard.

Effects of depleted uranium
Approximate area and major clashes in which DU rounds were used.
Depleted uranium (DU) was used in the Gulf War in tank kinetic energy penetrators and 20-30mm cannon ordnance. DU is a heavy metal with toxicity similar to other heavy metals such as lead and tungsten.   Its use during the First Gulf War has been cited by many as a contributing factor in a number of instances of health issues in both veterans of the conflict as well as the surrounding civilian populations, although scientific opinion on the risk is mixed.

The 'Highway of Death'
On the night of February 26-27, 1991, defeated Iraqi forces began leaving Kuwait on the main highway north of Al Jahra in a column of some 1400 vehicles, some military and some civilian and commandeered from the Kuwaiti population. United States Air Force and U.S. Navy jets pursued and destroyed the convoy in a controversial attack, subjecting it to sustained bombing for several hours. The convoy also contained some stolen vehicles loaded up with stolen 'loot' from Kuwait.

The Bulldozer assault
Another incident during the war highlighted the question of large-scale Iraqi combat deaths. This was the “bulldozer assault”, wherein two brigades from the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) used anti-mine plows mounted on tanks and combat earthmovers to bury Iraqi soldiers defending the fortified "Saddam Line." One newspaper story reported that the U.S. commanders estimated thousands of Iraqi soldiers surrendered, escaping burial during the two-day assault February 24-25, 1991. However, like all other troop estimates made during the war, the estimated 8,000 Iraqi defenders was probably greatly inflated. After the war, the Iraqi government claimed to have found 44 such bodies.

Abuse of coalition POWs
Iraq displayed POWs on TV with visible signs of abuse who were disavowing the coalition's warfare. It has also been alleged that coalition POWs were tortured and raped by the Iraqis.

Crossing Iraqi borders
Having driven Iraqi forces over the border from Kuwait, some coalition troops stood down, but forces from the USA, UK, and France continued to pursue the retreating remnants of the Iraq forces across into Iraqi territory. Disagreements arose over whether the UN mandate to eject Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait allowed the coalition to enter Iraqi sovereign territory or not, with some military officials arguing that it was necessary to prevent them from regrouping and attempting a counter-attack.

Gulf War oil spill
On January 23, Iraq was accused of dumping 400 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf, causing the largest oil spill in history.   It was reported as a deliberate natural resources attack to keep U.S. Marine forces from coming ashore. This was denied by the Iraqi government, who claimed that the allied bombing campaign had damaged and destroyed Iraqi oil tankers that were docked at the time.

Views on Saddam Hussein after the war
After the hostilities between Hussein's regime and the West, he was sometimes viewed as a hero by Arabs and Muslims. Until the invasion in 2003, he became an idol around the Arab World.   However, this view was always disputed by some Iraqis and Muslims because of his involvement in war crimes such as in Halabja.