In the volatile and controversial
relationship between Iraq and the United States, criticism from both sides
often suggests that the path of least intervention is best. Citing military
involvement in the Gulf War of 1990-1991 and the ongoing Iraq War, critics list
extensive violence, American lack of follow-through, and few constructive
operations as reasons for the US to avoid military intervention in Iraq
whenever possible.[1] In light of such
criticisms, it is worth analyzing a 1991 humanitarian operation that is often
identified as a successful case of US military intervention in the country.
Operation Provide Comfort, lasting from April to July of 1991, provided
humanitarian assistance to Kurds in northern Iraq after a violent attack
sanctioned by Saddam Hussein. In many ways, this fit the ideal of many US
foreign policy operations: an efficient intervention to save a group of people
oppressed by a brutal dictator, and then a quick exit once all parties are safe
and provided for. While the operation itself was more complex than that, both
Americans and Iraqi Kurds have cited it as a case of impressive military
intervention in an international relationship that so often sees fruitless
violence.
Background:
Kurdish Genocide
In 1987, Ali Hassan al-Majid, the
secretary-general of Iraq’s Northern Bureau, forced all Kurds in the region out
of their houses and into government-created housing centers for “monitoring.”
In part of what has been known as the Anfal campaign, or the Kurdish Genocide,
the Iraqi government sanctioned the killing of nearly 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in
the following year alone.[2]
Those who could fled to Turkey, but Turkish resources for Iraqi refugees were
low and many of 
those
who did make it to the Turkish refugee camps found themselves unemployed, malnourished,
and without clean water, sufficient shelter, or decent sanitation.[3] On
February 15, 1991, nine days before the ground phase of the re-invasion of
Kuwait, after four years of continued chemical weapons attacks, mass
executions, and mistreatment in concentration camps, US President George H.W.
Bush gave a speech suggesting that the Kurdish people rise up against the Iraqi
government to call for their own rights and ethical treatment. While Bush’s
speech did not provide any guarantee of US support in such an uprising, Iraqi
Kurds took it as a group call to action and rose up for three weeks,
celebrating their perceived self-determination and success in rebellion.[4][EEB1] In the first days of April, however, the
Iraqi national government crushed the insurgency, and without any support from
the international community almost two million Kurds fled to the mountains of
northern Iraq. Journalist Kevin McKiernan quotes Kurdish-American translator
Qazi Atrushi in describing a common opinion of Kurds on the issue: "America
is just not committed to the Kurds. After the war, President Bush encouraged us
to rise up, but he allowed Saddam to fly his helicopters—which he used to
massacre us!"[5] Criticisms
of Bush’s role in the revolt came from both sides and with the severe
mistreatment of Iraqi Kurds by their government and dire circumstances of those
who fled came an opportunity for potentially positive US intervention.
those
who did make it to the Turkish refugee camps found themselves unemployed, malnourished,
and without clean water, sufficient shelter, or decent sanitation.[3] On
February 15, 1991, nine days before the ground phase of the re-invasion of
Kuwait, after four years of continued chemical weapons attacks, mass
executions, and mistreatment in concentration camps, US President George H.W.
Bush gave a speech suggesting that the Kurdish people rise up against the Iraqi
government to call for their own rights and ethical treatment. While Bush’s
speech did not provide any guarantee of US support in such an uprising, Iraqi
Kurds took it as a group call to action and rose up for three weeks,
celebrating their perceived self-determination and success in rebellion.[4][EEB1] In the first days of April, however, the
Iraqi national government crushed the insurgency, and without any support from
the international community almost two million Kurds fled to the mountains of
northern Iraq. Journalist Kevin McKiernan quotes Kurdish-American translator
Qazi Atrushi in describing a common opinion of Kurds on the issue: "America
is just not committed to the Kurds. After the war, President Bush encouraged us
to rise up, but he allowed Saddam to fly his helicopters—which he used to
massacre us!"[5] Criticisms
of Bush’s role in the revolt came from both sides and with the severe
mistreatment of Iraqi Kurds by their government and dire circumstances of those
who fled came an opportunity for potentially positive US intervention.
Operation
Goals
In early April, amidst reports that
1,000 to 2,000 Kurds were dying each day in the mountains of northern Iraq, US
and European leaders worked together to outline a humanitarian operation that
became known as Operation Provide Comfort.[6] Colonel
David Goff lists the goals of the operation, as agreed by President Bush and
European leaders on April 12, 1991, as: “(1) Assist the survival of the Kurdish
displaced civilians. (2) Provide protection and shelter to the Kurds. (3)
Establish a "Safe Haven" inside Iraq. (4) Assimilate the Kurds back
into their home areas. (5) Transfer relief operations to civilian agencies. (6)
Withdraw coalition military forces.” The US, Canada, Australia, Turkey, and
nine other European countries provided military forces for the operation, with
eighteen additional countries giving supplies and non-military aid. US
commanders were in charge of the operation and forces were based in Incirlik
Air Base in Turkey.[7]
The established goals sought to
create an effective long-term solution to the Kurdish displacement while giving
them the short-term relief required in order to make such a solution possible.
The first goal, a generic aim to help displaced Kurds in Iraq, was interpreted
to mean the bringing of food and medical aid to displaced Kurds while they were
still in the mountains—a vital first step considering the severity of their
situation. The second goal, providing shelter and protection, was twofold with
good reason. In providing shelter, the joint task forces were faced with the
enormous assignment of creating temporary housing in the form of tent cities
for the nearly two million displaced Kurds. However, in this objective the task
forces also had the responsibility of protecting the Kurdish people from the
oppressive Iraqi national government and ensuring that Iraqi forces stayed out
of Kurdish territories. The third and
fourth goals go together; establishing an area inside of Iraq where the Kurdish
people could live safe from government persecution in the long term, and returning
the displaced Kurdish people to their homes, presumably within that area. Especially
noteworthy was the fifth goal, which gave self-government back to the Kurdish
people once their basic needs were provided for. President Bush reiterated the sixth and
final goal in an April 16th press conference, saying “this new
effort, despite its scale and scope, is not intended as a permanent solution to
the plight of the Iraqi Kurds[EEB2] . To the contrary, it is an interim measure
designed to meet an immediate penetrating humanitarian need. Our long-term
objective remains the same: for Iraqi Kurds and indeed, for all Iraqi refugees,
wherever they are, to return home and to live in peace.”[8]
Again, such a model fits the goal of many US military interventions in that it
sought to provide necessary humanitarian intervention at a crucial time while
also transferring power to those involved and getting the US out of the region
in a timely fashion, as the sixth goal planned[EEB3] .
Implementation
Before troops got on the ground in
Northern Iraq, and just days after reports came out about Saddam Hussein’s
violent response to Kurdish uprisings, forces based in Incirlik began
airdropping supplies to Kurds in the mountains. Starting April 7, and with the
help of international media attention and relief organizations across the
world, combined task forces airdropped various necessities to the Kurds in the
mountains; food, clean water, clothing, and blankets. With little advance
notice and minimal knowledge of the situation, the troops airdropping supplies
also received minimal feedback on the success of their airdrops.[9]
This problem took place throughout military forces: Colonel David G. Goff
writes that when Joint Task Force B officers arrived in Incirlik on April 18th,
they had two maps of the region and a set of photos taken by carrier USS Teddy
Roosevelt, who was taking daily photos from above.[10]
With limited prior information, specialists in the region, or feedback on the
success of airdrops, forces were left largely to their own devices in finding a
way to bring efficient and effective aid to the displaced Kurds.
Despite the lack of information, coalition
forces moved in quickly and by April 9th Special Forces were ordered
to begin on-the-ground efforts in Iraq. The combined task force was divided
into two forces: Joint Task Force Alpha (hereafter referred to as JTF-A), which
was tasked with the immediate assignment of providing supplies for displaced
Kurds, and Joint Task Force Bravo (hereafter called JTF-B), tasked with the
longer-term project of creating temporary camps, ensuring safety from Iraqi
government forces, returning the Kurds to their hometowns, and facilitating US
and international withdrawal from the region.[11] The
need for camps rather than just airdropped supplies became especially clear as
correspondence from the displaced Kurds came back with reports of supplies that
had missed their destination, broken or unusable food packages, and even deaths
by supply bundles that hit the people they were meant to save.[12]
Initially focusing on Zakho, a town on the Iraqi northern border with
Syria and Turkey originally holding 150,000 Kurds, JTF-B set out to make
previous Kurdish towns ready for resettlement. After US Army Lieutenant John Shalikashvilli
ordered an April 19th
demarche calling for all Iraqi government forces out of the area, Hussein’s 300
policemen in the town were found to be threatening the 2000 remaining residents
not to accept any humanitarian aid, on penalty of death.[13]
Five days later, US Colonel Richard Naab issued a second demarche creating a
security zone around Zakho, forbidding arms beyond those of coalition forces,
monitoring the 50 Iraqi policemen allowed to remain in the area, and allowing
international forces to enter and patrol Zakho for the purpose of returning
many of the displaced Kurds to their hometown.[14]
Both in the temporary camps and in the cities where the Kurds were
returning, international forces provided aid in the form of new infrastructure,
medical assistance, and detonation of arms that had been left by both Kurdish
and Iraqi national forces. After US Army General Richard W. Potter saw the dire
circumstances of Kurdish refugee camps that had been operating for the previous
few years in southern Turkey, the extent and type of international aid required
to rebuild and repopulate cities in northern Iraq became clearer.[15]
Engineers served to improve electricity, water, lighting, and sanitation
systems as well as fix larger infrastructure, especially the often-unusable
road systems. Medical care was badly needed, and given, in the form of clinics
for everything from measles shots to surgeries, and in this case organizations
such as the Turkish Red Crescent society and, later, medical units of various
international militaries and nongovernmental organizations such as Doctors
Without Borders provided critical assistance.[16]
Resettling the Kurds in their former homes was a serious undertaking and
an exercise in negotiation with the Iraqi central government. After
resettlement was secured in Zakho, the Combined Task Force had to find a way to
resettle the 350,000 Kurds who had lived in Dihok before the operation. Unlike
Zakho, Dihok was a provincial capital so coalition forces could not stop Iraqi
government officials from operating in the city. Because so many of the Kurds
who were displaced in the mountains were from Dihok, it was necessary to find a
solution that allowed coalition military forces to operate, thereby ensuring
the safety of the displaced Kurds who refused to return for fear of the violent
government forces that had forced them out in the first place, but also allowed
the city to continue operating as a provincial capital. It was not until the
end of May, a month after combined forces began returning displaced people to
Zakho, that an agreement was reached allowing for 81 military and 81 civilian
personnel to work with Iraqi officials and make the city livable for the
thousands who planned to return there.[17]
While certainly a setback at the time, the eventual agreement between the
allied military forces and the Iraqi government in the case of Dihok is
one-of-a-kind in that most of their previous interactions had consisted of
forcing the Iraqi government out of places to ensure the safety of the
returning Kurds. This cooperation and the recreation of the city with the help
of the Iraqi government officials operating there parallels much of the
multinational collaboration and military-NGO collaboration in the mission, but
is unique in that the allied militaries were willing and able to work not only
with the Kurds themselves but with the government that had previously been
operating in the region. This is also significant in showing that the point of
the operation was not a complete takeover of northern Iraq; while it
established de facto autonomy, Operation Provide Comfort kept previous
governments in place and supported them in ensuring the safety of the Kurdish
people rather than destroying what had existed in favor of creating a
completely new, western-led government.
Once Kurds were returned to their long-term homes, work to turn the
mission over to the United Nations and return self-governance to the people
themselves went underway. This was a struggle in part because the 2,000 total
worldwide employees of the UN Refugee Agency were nothing compared to the
21,500 international military personnel in the region at the time, and the
volunteers and NGO personnel who came to their aid further complicated the
UNHCR’s organizational process, despite the much-needed knowledge and
experience that they brought to the field. Operation Provide Comfort I ended on
July 15, 1991, and on that day was transitioned to Operation Provide Comfort
II, a much smaller mission performed by a multinational Combined Brigade Task
Force led by US Colonel Erwin E. Whitehead.[18] The
turning over of the operation to a smaller task force that was still multinational
in nature served to prove the commitment of Operation Provide Comfort forces to
maintaining stability in Iraqi Kurdistan without maintaining a strong
international presence in the region, and to easing the Kurdish people into an
autonomy that could not be undermined by the Iraqi national government.[19]
Obstacles to
Implementation
In the aftermath of Operation
Desert Storm, US interactions with Iraq were rocky at best. Forced to work out
of Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, about 400 miles from the mountain camps in
northern Iraq, US forces made agreements with the Turkish government allowing
for the creation of airfields in the cities of Diyarbakir, Batman, Yuksekova,
and most significantly Silopi, but Incirlik was still the main base for both US
and international forces, meaning that the planning for ground operations was
physically far removed from the operations themselves. However, the efficiency
with which military and airfields were created in the four other cities is a
testament to the speed and effectiveness of the operation itself; within 4 days
of the announcement that special forces would be sent into the mountains of
northern Iraq, Silopi was opened for operation as a Humanitarian Service
Support Base, or the headquarters for the 10th Special Force Group.[20]
The use of nearer cities as air bases and quick and effective opening of such
bases demonstrates the productivity of the operation from the very beginning,
but the fact that the operation would remain based in Incirlik did contribute
to some inefficiency and difficulty in distributing information about the needs
of people on the ground in Iraq.
Disagreements with the Iraqi
national government were frequent and pronounced, and definitely contributed to
inefficiency in the operation. As previously mentioned, on April 19th
US Army Lieutenant John Shalikashvilli
issued a demarche for all Iraqi
forces in the security zone, 300 Iraqi secret police were found threatening the
people of Zakho.[21] In the creation of both
the April 19th and April 24th demarches, the Iraqi
national government put up significant resistance,[22]
and this was exacerbated by the conflict over Dihok. Whereas Iraqi forces were
kept completely out of Zakho, the agreement to allow Iraqi government officials
to continue working in Dihok as a regional capital while giving military power
in the city to Operation Provide Comfort for the safety of the returning Kurds
demonstrates that the operation was not entirely based in running Iraqi for
Iraqis, but in finding ways to compromise in light of the critical situation of
the Kurds at that point.
As can be imagined in an operation
based on multinational collaboration, the militaries of the countries involved
had very different frameworks and levels of experience. Because these forces
were operating together under the same commanders rather than simply in
separate groups for a shared cause, militaries had to learn to work together
quickly and effectively. Many of the thirteen countries sending military
support had not been trained for use of the same weapons, and only some of them
had units prepared for work in the humanitarian relief that was so significant
to the mission of Operation Provide Comfort. This split both created the
necessity for multinational units and required trainings and team building exercises
in as little time as possible. Units operated under the structure best
understood by the commander, but were created with an eye to combining the
skill sets in of different nations’ militaries in order to maximize
productivity. US Army Major General Jay M. Garner created Rules of Engagement
to be followed by all participating forces as a means of unifying their
interests and clarifying the combined goal, but the skills of each unit from
different countries were used in a way that best fitted the operation as a
whole.[23]
This ingenious framework made use of the assets provided by each nation’s
forces and contributed to a productivity and combination of knowledge and
skills that would not have been possible of any one country working
independently, thus turning what presented itself as a problem into an
effective combined task force.
Successes of
the Operation
Operation Provide Comfort was
successful in that it provided over a million displaced Iraqi Kurds with the
materials, infrastructure, and safety they needed to return to their homes and
to survive during the time required to do so. It accomplished all six of the
goals stated on page 3 and fixed many of the water, electric, sanitation, and
transportation systems that had been ruined during the war. The improvement of
this infrastructure provided long-term gain for those the operation sought to
help. The operation was carried out quickly and wasted no time setting up the
military bases or international military cooperation that became so vital to
its success.
In addition, the collaboration
between militaries of different countries, fifty nongovernmental and private
volunteer organizations, the United Nations, and the Iraqi Kurds themselves
that took place from April to July of 1991 is truly impressive. The
organizations provided an incredible amount of experience in dealing with
humanitarian crises that the other groups could not match, but the militaries
had the financial and logistical resources to carry out the operation. These
organizations brought on-the-ground support, but were most significant in their
knowledge of the needs of the Kurds and the most effective ways of dealing with
those needs.[24] Furthermore, the
multinational military collaboration was a crucial element in the operation’s
success. Lieutenant Colonel John P. Cavanaugh
points out the impact of NATO in this collaboration: many of the forces sent by
countries to participate in Operation Provide Comfort had also participated in
NATO operations and this gave many of them a shared framework under which to
work, as well as previous experience in multinational collaboration.[25]
The UN was especially important to the end of the operation and transition into
Operation Provide Comfort II, but this, too, required effective organization
and cooperation, and in that aspect the mission was very successful.
The
significant long-term outcome of this operation was the establishment of
long-term safety and autonomy for Kurds in northern Iraq. The operation created
an Iraqi No-Fly Zone north of the 36th parallel, one that lasted
until 2003.[26] While
Kurdish autonomy had been established in a 1970 agreement between KDP leader
Masoud Barzani and the Iraqi government,[27]
it had fallen through quickly and for the next two decades the clashes between
the Kurdish regional government and Iraqi national government had continued.
The operation gave the Kurdistan region a new level of autonomy and the
security zone it created helped the transition into a safe and relatively
stable self-governing Kurdistan.[28]
Criticisms
of the Operation
The main criticism of Operation
Provide Comfort is that, regardless of how effective it may have been, the
operation existed mainly for the good press it would bring and not out of an
interest in supporting the Kurds. Bill Frelick points out the incredible
numbers of Iraqi Kurds who were killed or fled to Turkey from 1987 to 1990 with
no support from the US or any other government.[29]
While not officially labelling them refugees, Turkey accepted many fleeing
Iraqi Kurds during those years, but they were kept in camps with minimal
shelter, food, clean water, medical facilities, and even bathrooms.[30]
While the awful conditions of these camps helped US General Potter to
understand the support necessary for humanitarian aid in Operation Provide
Comfort, the fact that the US ignored these people for the three years prior to
Operation Provide Comfort certainly contributed to the dire condition of the
Kurds by the time of their 1991 rebellion, and to the fact that Turkey had
closed its borders to the displaced Iraqi Kurds by that point. Similarly, the
1.3 million Iraqi Kurds displaced on the border with Iran received only half as
much aid as those on the border with Turkey, leading to the criticism that Operation
Provide Comfort existed mostly to secure US ties with Turkey and not to support
the concept of Kurdish self-determination.[31]
In related events, 1992 was an election year in the US and a successful
humanitarian operation could bring support for President Bush while a lack of
media attention to the plights of Kurds in other parts of the region did little
to tarnish public opinion of the same operations.
The criticism of the US
government’s discounting of Kurds beyond the three-month period in 1991 is
extended by its similar treatment of the issue after the operation. While
Operation Provide Comfort II remained in Iraq for months afterwards and Iraqi
Kurdistan gained some independence, the Turkish mistreatment of their own
Kurdish population is reminiscent of Hussein’s violent reaction to the
uprisings in northern Iraq that provoked Operation Provide Comfort in the first
place. The positive international response to the Iraqi uprisings inspired many
Turkish Kurds to rise up against their own oppressive government, but this time
the US and the international community as a whole turned a blind eye to the
violent response of the Turkish government.[32]
While it is valid to point out the
US disregard for the situation of the Kurds in the period before and after
Operation Provide Comfort, this argument does not undermine the credibility of
the operation itself. It is true that the US and international news media shed
an unquestioning positive light on the operation and that the position of an
effective US-led humanitarian mission immediately preceding an election year
shed a positive light on the Bush administration, Operation Provide Comfort was
generally successful to its stated ends. US and international aid could
certainly have gone further in support of Kurds in Iraq and elsewhere, but
especially in light of the perceived US cynicism about interventions in other
countries, the need to contribute more to similar relief efforts is a separate
argument. Whatever its motives, the operation was successful in accomplishing
its goals.
On the other side of the spectrum,
criticisms have surfaced that rather than contributing too little aid, the US’s
contributions in Operation Provide Comfort were an assertion of their belief in
American exceptionalism and an imperialist prerogative to help people
throughout the world. The US media gave much positive attention to the mission,
and their credibility may be undermined by the omission of news about the
plight of Kurds in neighboring Turkey and Iran.[33] However
multiple authors point out 
that
in this media attention was largely beneficial; the support of worldwide news
media spurred many of the humanitarian organizations who were not directly
involved in the operation to create both fund and supply drives for materials
that were given to the displaced Kurds.[34]
McKiernan points out the central role of Turkish forces in making the operation
possible via their military facilities and their knowledge of the terrain and
culture, and asserts that despite the US’s role as the nominal head of Operation
Provide Comfort, Turkish forces were the most significant in ensuring that it
was carried out.[35] While Turkey certainly
played a critical role and US news media did focus on US efforts above all
others, US generals were almost exclusively in the leading roles within the
operation and more than half of the forces involved were American. While it was
a multinational effort, the role of the US cannot be discounted.
that
in this media attention was largely beneficial; the support of worldwide news
media spurred many of the humanitarian organizations who were not directly
involved in the operation to create both fund and supply drives for materials
that were given to the displaced Kurds.[34]
McKiernan points out the central role of Turkish forces in making the operation
possible via their military facilities and their knowledge of the terrain and
culture, and asserts that despite the US’s role as the nominal head of Operation
Provide Comfort, Turkish forces were the most significant in ensuring that it
was carried out.[35] While Turkey certainly
played a critical role and US news media did focus on US efforts above all
others, US generals were almost exclusively in the leading roles within the
operation and more than half of the forces involved were American. While it was
a multinational effort, the role of the US cannot be discounted.
Moral bases of Operation Provide
Comfort
As US society becomes more and more
reluctant to engage in foreign wars, the US government has been forced to find
justifications that appeal to the Pathos of the American people. These appeals
include rhetoric on conflicts in these regions as representative of national
security threats to the US, and discussions based in the perceived obligation
of developed nations to help developing ones, particularly in cases of human
rights abuses. Of course, American justifications for Operation Provide Comfort
were based upon the latter. Even from the operation’s name it can be seen that
the events were meant to gain the emotional support of the American people on
the grounds of their sympathy for a mistreated minority oppressed by a
government that was already perceived as an enemy.
Each international intervention is
different and the general success of Operation Provide Comfort cannot be taken
as indicative of any larger trend among international aid abroad. It is not
necessarily a model for future interventions and does not prove the inherent
effectiveness of any specific kind of international aid or intervention. On the
other hand, it does contradict dominant discourses of US interventions abroad
as being consistently costly and ineffective. Adam Roberts calls the operation
a special case in international relations because it a) was sanctioned by the
United Nations, b) calmed a threat to international peace, and c) was incited
by US actions.[36] However, previously
mentioned sources call into question all three of these justifications. The
United Nations is generally understood to have supported the effort\ from afar,
but it did little as far as specific interactions with the Operation before
June 1991. The claim of Hussein’s interaction with Kurdistan as a threat to
international peace not only reinforces vague definitions of political terms
but also ignores that this Kurdish uprising, and subsequent responsive violent,
bore little comparison to the bloody anfal campaign against Iraqi Kurds
that immediately preceded the Gulf War and entailed much more violence that
risked an international growth. His last claim is similarly vague; not only was
the Kurdish uprising a response to an unofficial and unpromising call to arms,
uprisings nearly anywhere in the world can be construed as the faults of
specific dominant powers, should that explanation behoove those in power.
While it is certainly accurate to
claim that the principles of efficiency and multilevel cooperation governing
Operation Provide Comfort serve as a positive example for future organizers of
international interventions, humanitarian or otherwise, the specifics of each
intervention as governed by geography and culture differ enough that Operation
Provide Comfort cannot be seen as a
shining singular example of successful international aid without other cases
being considered on a much more nuanced basis of the particular aspects of
those conflicts and what is appropriate. That said, some of the arguments of
Operation Provide Comfort’s role as an exception to more common international
interactions ignore the frequency of arguments about specific area-based issues
as threats to larger efforts towards world peace, or as existing in response to
US policy.
Conclusion
The mission was successful in
achieving its established goals of efficient humanitarian assistance to the displaced
and mistreated Kurds of northern Iraq. While clearly biased both because of the
positive US relationship with Turkey at that time and with an American desire
to combat atrocities committed by Hussein rather than all atrocities against
the Kurds, the fact that the US could have done more to help prior to the
operation or created a similar operation in other areas does not negate the
value of Operation Provide Comfort in itself. The operation was also successful
in the long term: in cementing the identity of Iraqi Kurdistan as a region that
was completely autonomous and safe from violence by the Iraqi national
government, it worked for the long-term good of its beneficiaries. While
Kurdistan itself has not been free of sectarian violence, most notably in a
1994-1997 civil war, it has been mostly free of violent clashes with the Iraqi
national government since 1991, and in that sense the operation was successful.
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[2]
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[4]
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[5]
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[6]
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[7]
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[10]
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[11]
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[12]
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[13]
Goff, Operation Provide Comfort, 27.
[14]
James L. Jones. "Operation PROVIDE COMFORT: Humanitarian and Security
Assistance in Northern Iraq." Marine Corps Gazette, November 1991:
101.
[15]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 49-50.
[16]
Goff, Operation Provide Comfort, 29.
[17]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 177-184 and Goff, Operation Provide
Comfort, 36-37 and 41.
[18]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 201-220 and Cavanaugh. Operation
Provide Comfort: A Model for Future NATO Operations, 34.
[19]
The events of Operation Provide Comfort II and future US interventions in Iraq
are beyond the scope of this essay, but Colonel Whitehead’s forces were out of
Iraq by October 10, 1991.
[20]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 47-51.
[21]
Goff, Operation Provide Comfort, 27.
[22]
Jones. "Operation Provide Comfort: Humanitarian and Security Assistance in
Northern Iraq." 101.
[23]
Goff, Operation Provide Comfort, 30-35.
[24]
Goff, Operation Provide Comfort, 42-44.
[25]
Cavanaugh. Operation Provide Comfort: A Model for Future NATO Operations,
32-41.
[26]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 230.
[27]
Hassanpour, Amir. "The Kurdish Experience." Middle East Report,
July 1994.
[28]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 15, 219, 245.
[29] Bill Frelick.
"The False Promise of Operation Provide Comfort: Protecting Refugees or
Protecting State Power?" Middle East Report, May-Jun 1992, 26, and Power.
‘A Problem from Hell,’ 186-206
[30]
Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention, 49-50.
[31]
Frelick. "The False Promise of Operation Provide Comfort," 26.
[32]
Kevin McKiernan. The Kurds, 63-64.
[33]
Ibid.
[34] Cavanaugh. Operation Provide Comfort: A Model for
Future NATO Operations, 3, and Goff, Operation Provide Comfort,
42, and Jones. "Operation PROVIDE COMFORT:
Humanitarian and Security Assistance in Northern Iraq,” 48.
[35]
Kevin McKiernan. The Kurds, 65.
[36] Adam Roberts, “Humanitarian
War: Military Intervention and Human Rights,” International Affairs, Jul.
1993: 437
[EEB1][Put this into the
greater context of the Gulf War: by 28 February, a ceasefire was called,
ignoring the uprisings by the Kurds and the Iraqi Shi’ites.]
[EEB2]Note
this in my analysis
[EEB3].<Actually,
from my reading of history, this intervention was special and did not “fit the
goal” of previous, or subsequent, military interventions. Take a look at the
list at http://www.globalpolicy.org/us-westward-expansion/26024.html, for example –
both before and after, the priorities of interventions rarely has been quite
this comprehensive. (However, you can
choose to disagree with my possibly hairbrained assertion: if so, I’d like to
see your rationale for that – I might be wrong.) Also, note that the priority
for withdrawing as quickly as possible met two goals: it was a key criteria of
the “Powell Doctrine,” and of the Bush Administration’s hope for a short, fast
war. Put this into the context of the post-Vietnam era (look up “Vietnam
Syndrome.”) ]
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