You have mistaken a retreating army with a surrendering army.
If I have any sympathy for anyone, I'll save it for the Kuwaitis and our veterans who died.
No reason to have any sympathy for the Kuwaitis. Most of the stories about how they were treated by Iraq turned out to be absolutely false, and all of the military-age men fled the country and spent many long, agonizing months in exile, enjoying the night life in London or Cairo while the U.S. did the dirty work.
There was no difference between a retreating army and a surrendering army, since the U.S. had no intention of chasing them all the way back to Baghdad.