Bush Sr.'s Rescue of the Kurds of Iraq
* What: Operations Provide Comfort I and II and the establishment of the No Fly Zones in Operation Northern Watch and Operation Southern Watch following the Gulf War.
* The Number of Lives Saved: Previous attacks by Saddam Hussein on the Kurds had killed as many as 100,000. But since Hussein was attacking both Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south, potentially deaths could have been double that or more. Up to a million Kurds fled Iraq immediately after the Gulf War. Up to several hundred initially died each day. These operations resettled 700,000 refugees, providing food, shelter, medical care, and protection against the Iraqi military.
* Who Else Gets the Credit:
* Much of US public opinion, especially antiwar activists and Democrats pushed for the protection of Kurds once images of civilian deaths by warfare and starvation were broadcast by American media. Conservatives, Republicans, and pro war supporters generally opposed the rescue efforts.
* The United Nations called for an end to repression of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein with Resolution 688. The UN resolution played a major part in winning European support for these operations.
* American, British, French, Saudi, and other coalition troops and pilots carried out these operations with an admirable display of efficiency, with little notice but rapid response.
* Presidents Clinton and GW Bush continued the no fly zones and rescue operations. Kurdish leaders eventually ran the northern zone as de facto self government.
* In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein appeared to be weakening. Hussein's Baathist Party was mostly Sunni, where nearly three quarters of Iraqis were Shiites, especially in the south. The Kurdish minority, mostly in the north, also had a long history of facing repression by Hussein that had killed up to 100,000. (See Section Two.)
* The Iraqi military had already been badly weakened by a disastrous war with Iran than killed perhaps half a million Iranians and Iraqis. The Gulf War killed perhaps 50,000 more Iraqi soldiers. (See Section Five.) The Iraqi Air Force was mostly destroyed or its planes seized by Iran. About half of Iraqi tanks and other armor were destroyed by US and coalition troops or bombing, though most helicopters remained. The war was so one sided that many Iraqi soldiers surrendered to journalists in desperation.
* Many Iraqis saw this as a chance to finally overthrow Hussein. In both the Kurdish north and Shiite south, revolts broke out, often called the National Uprisings. Many towns fell to local control. Bush broadcast several messages on the Voice of America radio urging Iraqis on, to completely overthrow Hussein. Many Iraqi troops mutinied. At one point the majority of Iraqi provinces were under rebel control.
* But Hussein still had most of his elite Republican Guard, as well as half his army's armor and many helicopters. Indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, including some reported chemical attacks, broke the rebels after only a month. Perhaps two million Iraqis tried to escape to other countries. The international media, a heavy presence due to the war, was there to report the sight of so many refugees' deaths by Iraqi troop attacks, starvation, or cold.
* The UN passed Resolution 688. The No Fly Zone, US and coalition planes keeping out Iraqi planes and troops, began, as did air drops of food, medicine, and other necessities. While at first the Iraqi military made no move against coalition forces, over time the planes were fired on hundreds of times, bringing coalition retaliation.
* Units involved in these operations included not just combat aircraft but hundreds of cargo planes, helicopters, thousands of support personnel, military police, civil affairs, engineers, Marines, commandos, medical units, and even dental health teams. The effect of this rescue effort was admirable. The death rate in the Kurdish zone actually was actually lower than before the war. The southern zone, while protected from air attacks or indiscriminate bombing, remained under Hussein's control though.
* A strong controversy at the time was whether US troops should have invaded Iraq itself to overthrow Hussein. There is no reason to believe it would have turned out any different than the failed Iraq War of 2003 to 2010. Bush Sr. was far less dogmatic and stubborn than his son though, so likely he would simply have left early, leaving another dictator friendly to the US in power rather than hoping to start a democracy.
* A second controversy was the claim that Bush Sr. should have supported the Iraqi uprising, or even had encouraged but abandoned it. But at no point did Bush promise US support for an uprising. He could not abandon something he never proposed. Generals Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf later spoke with regret of not having used US forces to shoot down Iraqi helicopters. But doing that would not have guaranteed Iraqi rebels winning. The uprising was very uncoordinated and unplanned.
* Bush Sr.'s rescue of the Kurds, and to an extent Iraqis in the south, was noble, but not done for noble reasons. Bush was pushed into it, and he felt he had to due to public pressure both American and international. While he did speak of democracy and right and wrong while winning support for the war, Bush was far too pragmatic and ultimately cynical to actually believe in these words. In a sense, his practical skeptical nature was good in that he avoided the deeply destructive and doomed to fail war that entrapped his son.
* Ironically, Bush lost re election in 1992, in part because many considered the Gulf War a failure because Hussein was not overthrown. He was condemned more for the Iraq War he failed to fight, one that would have failed, rather than condemned for the Gulf War that should not have been fought at all.