All along I have said that the United States is not going to intervene militarily in Iraqs internal affairs and risk being drawn into a Vietnam-style quagmire. This remains the case.
Watch what he does, not what he says. George Bush repeated his pledge of noninvolvement last week even as he announced what amounted to a new military intervention in Iraq–one that ran a distinct risk of drawing the United States into another quagmire. The president ordered thousands of American troops, supported by British and French forces, to build and defend a chain of camps for as many as 850,000 Kurdish refugees now huddled along Iraq’s border with Turkey. The idea was to lure the Kurds down from the cold mountainsides, where they were dying at the rate of 1,000 a day, and eventually persuade them to return to their homes in northern Iraq. In the administration’s best-case scenario, most of the U.S. troops would leave within a few weeks, turning the camps over to the United Nations and other international relief agencies. But getting out of Iraq may prove more difficult than getting in.
Bush had been pushed by his allies into a commitment that was truly open-ended, in terms of both time and troops. “We are talking many months at the earliest and possibly years,” admitted a senior presidential aide. And with hundreds of thousands of Kurds to protect from Saddam Hussein–and perhaps from each other, as well–the planned U.S. deployment of up to 10,000 soldiers could easily turn out to be inadequate. The French, who initially drew up the relief plan, thought 25,000 U.S. troops would be needed in the end. The central dilemma for Bush was that combat troops probably cannot be withdrawn until the Kurds are persuaded to return to their cities and villages. And the Kurds will not feel safe enough to go home as long as Saddam remains in power.
Perhaps because the plight of the Kurds was so desperate–and so well covered on television–the American people supported Bush’s relief plan, even though they seemed well aware of some of the risks. In a NEWSWEEK opinion poll, 75 percent of the people surveyed said they supported the use of American troops to help the refugees. And 66 percent agreed with a prediction that U.S. forces will still be protecting the Kurds six months from now.
In a month of missteps, Bush’s administration has proved to be more adept at winning a war than managing a peace (page 23). The same president who took a strong stand on principle over the invasion of Kuwait turned wishy-washy when a majority of Iraq’s people answered his call for an uprising against Saddam. Bush refused to support the rebellion; for the sake of stability in the Persian Gulf region, he wanted to preserve a central government that would hold Iraq together, which meant that Saddam had to be overthrown by his own elite, not by the masses. Then, as the refugee tragedy unfolded, Bush abandoned realpolitik, took up the cause of the Kurds and trampled all over Iraqi sovereignty–a decision that may haunt him the next time he decides it is in America’s interests to ignore human-rights violations in places like China or the Soviet Union–or the Syria of his new ally, Hafez al-Assad.
In this case, compassion ultimately outweighed cold calculation. Bush’s initial reluctance to intervene in the refugee crisis was “overwhelmed by the moral responsibility,” said an aide. Private estimates sent to the White House warned that as many as 500,000 Kurds could die in the mountains if Bush did not take over the relief effort and bring them to camps on flatter ground. “Hunger, malnutrition, disease and exposure are taking their grim toll,” the president said as he announced his program. “No one can see the pictures or hear the accounts of this human suffering-men, women and, most painfully of all, innocent children-and not be deeply moved.”
The withdrawal of U.S. forces from the gulf region passed the halfway mark last week; the overall commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, was due home in Florida on Sunday. The relief effort was under different management: the U.S. European Command, which set up a forward supply base near the Turkish border town of Silopi. The initial rescue operation focused on a narrow wedge of Iraqi territory around the small city of Zakhu (map, page 21). Perhaps 40,000 of the refugees in the mountains came from Zakhu, according to U.S. officials in the field. “These people are going home,” said Dick Swenson, a relief worker from the U.S. Agency for International Development. “It’s just that some of those homes may have been destroyed or occupied by somebody else.” Kurds who live elsewhere in northern Iraq will use the camp at Zakhu as a way station. The French blueprint for the relief campaign stresses that refugees must not settle down in the camps. “In no case is a permanent shelter to be provided,” says the working paper, describing the camps as “simple transit centers.”
Other way stations will be set up later, each one protected by U.S. or allieD troops. Washington is negotiating for overland supply route through Syria that could significantly increase the flow of relief supplies to the region. Eventually, relief workers hope that as many as 75 percent of the refugees will be coaxed back to their homes. But until there is a guarantee that the Kurds will not suffer reprisals from Saddam’s Army, many will be too afraid to go home.
Iraq denounced the allied relief plan as foreign meddling. “We refuse this,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. “They have no right to send troops to our territory.” Baghdad cut a deal of its own with the United Nations to set up “humanitarian centers” for the Kurds in the north and for rebellious Shiite refugees in the south. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the arrangement “appears to provide a basis for the U.N. to take over the operation we will establish.” But so far there was no commitment from the United Nations to take over the camps–or from Iraq’s Army to honor their security needs.
The Iraqis have about 30,000 troops in the area. “They should not respond militarily,” Bush said of the Iraqis. “They’ve underestimated the United States once before on that, and they shouldn’t do it again–and I don’t think they will.” Lt. Gen. John Shalikashvili, the Polish-born deputy commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, met with Iraqi officers, bluntly advising them to keep their troops in barracks or pull them out of the area entirely. The Iraqis made no promises, but Pentagon officials said Baghdad had halted all military operations in the region.
A clash with Iraqi forces is only one of the potential pitfalls. Noting that a few Kurds support Saddam’s regime (one of them is the Army chief of staff), Pentagon analysts worry that Baghdad might inspire pro-Saddam elements to launch terrorist attacks on U.S. troops. Americans could be caught in another kind of cross-fire if anti-Saddam Kurds use the camps as bases for their sporadic attacks on the regime. “Whether or not we can control that is a big question,” says a Pentagon official. And what if the refugees refuse to go home? The camps might become the nucleus of an independent Kurdistan, which would disturb Bush’s Turkish allies, who have restless Kurds of their own.
Despite the allied plan to keep the Kurds moving toward home, the new camps could turn into something like permanent settlements, as others have for millions of displaced Palestinians and Afghans. “These camps will give them three squares and medical care,” says a sympathetic Bush aide. “Why should we think they will want to walk 60 miles back to a life of no medical care and perhaps one meal a day?” Once established, the allied camps could become a magnet for refugees from farther south in Iraq or from overburdened camps in Iran, where 1 million Kurds have fled. Few Kurds will want to leave the protection of the camps until Saddam is defanged. “You can only get people to return home when they are confident that they are safe,” says an administration official. “That’s going to take some larger changes in Iraq.” Until those changes occur, U.S. troops may be stuck with the job of protecting camps full of Kurds who refuse to go home.
Saddam Hussein has withdrawn from Kuwait, but remains in power in Iraq. Is this a victory for U.S. and allied forces?
Current March 2 Yes 36% 55% No 55% 38%
Do you think the cease-fire in the Persian Gulf was ordered too soon, before Saddam Hussein was toppled from power?
Current March 2 Yes 57% 30% No 37% 65%
For this Poll, The Gallup Organization interviewed a national sample of 761 adults by telephone April 18-19. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Some “Don’t Know” and other responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll 1991 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.
In the makeshift headquarters of the American forces, men and women from the Agency for International Development ponder topographic maps as Green Berets report the latest intelligence from the field. Often they have to shout above the throbbing roar of helicopters landing nearby, shuttling hundreds of American soldiers to the site. In the distance Marines are billeted in a patch of halfgrown grain. Images of Vietnam haunt some old-timers.
But this is the border between Turkey and Iraq and a new kind of mission for the American military. “What we’re looking at is a byproduct of war itself,” says Special Forces First Sgt. Robert Mohundro. The Americans are here to deliver the Kurds from their exile on the harsh slopes of the mountains. To Gus Konturas, an AID relief specialist and Vietnam veteran, this operation has been a revelation. “I have never seen anything work as efficiently.”
In the mountains hundreds of Kurds, especially the babies, continue to die each day. An AID official calls the situation a “grotesque nightmare.” The survivors have begun stacking bags of American MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). Makeshift tents of air-dropped plastic sheeting dot the slopes. Special Forces units have set up camps near the refugee concentrations along both sides of the border. They sit in council with tribal elders, organizing relief operations along classic counterinsurgency lines: building confidence among the local people and gathering information. Other Special Forces units are operating deeper in Iraqi territory, preparing the way for American troops who will soon arrive to secure the Kurds a refuge in their own land.
Survival is the first imperative. “We are going to be at the level of keeping people alive for a long time,” says Marine Lt. Col. Paul Wisniewski, head of logistics at the staging area in Silopi, Turkey (map). Every few minutes, Air Force C-130 transports drop supplies at remote locations-occasionally injuring refugees in the process. Helicopters are on their way to makeshift landing pads where American soldiers sometimes have to force back Kurds fighting for food and water. No trucks could reach these sites. “It is the art of the possible,” says Wisniewski.
For all the enthusiasm, this effort pales in comparison with the mobilization for the war. To help the refugees, some American officers at depots in Germany have improvised wildly. One requisitioned $250,000 worth of baby food. There is a regular flow of blankets, rice and black-eyed peas for Turkey from the air base in Ramstein, The warehouse there, bulging with supplies a few months ago, is mostly empty.
While the people close to tragedy in the mountains are caught up in the drama, those supporting the operation wonder if the crisis will ever slow down. “Our war started here in August and our war’s still going on,” says Bill DeBoer, a Ramstein loading-area supervisor. “Everybody’s asking if it is ever going to turn back to normal operations. And I really don’t know what’s normal anymore.” Reservists, especially, tend to worry more about returning to their homes than returning the Kurds to theirs. Aboard a C-5 full of survival rations, Technical Sgt. Elizabeth Weinhold uses her spare time planning for her July 4 wedding dinner with “fried chicken, watermelon and ice cream.” She’s proud to participate in the relief effort, “but we are still being driven as if the war’s going on.”
Even among those most committed to the military’s humanitarian effort, there are misgivings. As Marines waited in the shade of their helicopters for the order to enter Iraq last week, one officer admitted his apprehension. “We’ll do this job here and we’ll do it well. But I think it makes us all very uncomfortable,” he said. “You like to have an objective in mind when you’re in the military. And you like to know when it’s going to end.” It’s certainly going to take longer than 100 hours.
title: “A Lifeline In Iraq” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-10” author: “Joseph Rubino”
All along I have said that the United States is not going to intervene militarily in Iraqs internal affairs and risk being drawn into a Vietnam-style quagmire. This remains the case.
Watch what he does, not what he says. George Bush repeated his pledge of noninvolvement last week even as he announced what amounted to a new military intervention in Iraq–one that ran a distinct risk of drawing the United States into another quagmire. The president ordered thousands of American troops, supported by British and French forces, to build and defend a chain of camps for as many as 850,000 Kurdish refugees now huddled along Iraq’s border with Turkey. The idea was to lure the Kurds down from the cold mountainsides, where they were dying at the rate of 1,000 a day, and eventually persuade them to return to their homes in northern Iraq. In the administration’s best-case scenario, most of the U.S. troops would leave within a few weeks, turning the camps over to the United Nations and other international relief agencies. But getting out of Iraq may prove more difficult than getting in.
Bush had been pushed by his allies into a commitment that was truly open-ended, in terms of both time and troops. “We are talking many months at the earliest and possibly years,” admitted a senior presidential aide. And with hundreds of thousands of Kurds to protect from Saddam Hussein–and perhaps from each other, as well–the planned U.S. deployment of up to 10,000 soldiers could easily turn out to be inadequate. The French, who initially drew up the relief plan, thought 25,000 U.S. troops would be needed in the end. The central dilemma for Bush was that combat troops probably cannot be withdrawn until the Kurds are persuaded to return to their cities and villages. And the Kurds will not feel safe enough to go home as long as Saddam remains in power.
Perhaps because the plight of the Kurds was so desperate–and so well covered on television–the American people supported Bush’s relief plan, even though they seemed well aware of some of the risks. In a NEWSWEEK opinion poll, 75 percent of the people surveyed said they supported the use of American troops to help the refugees. And 66 percent agreed with a prediction that U.S. forces will still be protecting the Kurds six months from now.
In a month of missteps, Bush’s administration has proved to be more adept at winning a war than managing a peace (page 23). The same president who took a strong stand on principle over the invasion of Kuwait turned wishy-washy when a majority of Iraq’s people answered his call for an uprising against Saddam. Bush refused to support the rebellion; for the sake of stability in the Persian Gulf region, he wanted to preserve a central government that would hold Iraq together, which meant that Saddam had to be overthrown by his own elite, not by the masses. Then, as the refugee tragedy unfolded, Bush abandoned realpolitik, took up the cause of the Kurds and trampled all over Iraqi sovereignty–a decision that may haunt him the next time he decides it is in America’s interests to ignore human-rights violations in places like China or the Soviet Union–or the Syria of his new ally, Hafez al-Assad.
In this case, compassion ultimately outweighed cold calculation. Bush’s initial reluctance to intervene in the refugee crisis was “overwhelmed by the moral responsibility,” said an aide. Private estimates sent to the White House warned that as many as 500,000 Kurds could die in the mountains if Bush did not take over the relief effort and bring them to camps on flatter ground. “Hunger, malnutrition, disease and exposure are taking their grim toll,” the president said as he announced his program. “No one can see the pictures or hear the accounts of this human suffering-men, women and, most painfully of all, innocent children-and not be deeply moved.”
The withdrawal of U.S. forces from the gulf region passed the halfway mark last week; the overall commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, was due home in Florida on Sunday. The relief effort was under different management: the U.S. European Command, which set up a forward supply base near the Turkish border town of Silopi. The initial rescue operation focused on a narrow wedge of Iraqi territory around the small city of Zakhu (map, page 21). Perhaps 40,000 of the refugees in the mountains came from Zakhu, according to U.S. officials in the field. “These people are going home,” said Dick Swenson, a relief worker from the U.S. Agency for International Development. “It’s just that some of those homes may have been destroyed or occupied by somebody else.” Kurds who live elsewhere in northern Iraq will use the camp at Zakhu as a way station. The French blueprint for the relief campaign stresses that refugees must not settle down in the camps. “In no case is a permanent shelter to be provided,” says the working paper, describing the camps as “simple transit centers.”
Other way stations will be set up later, each one protected by U.S. or allieD troops. Washington is negotiating for overland supply route through Syria that could significantly increase the flow of relief supplies to the region. Eventually, relief workers hope that as many as 75 percent of the refugees will be coaxed back to their homes. But until there is a guarantee that the Kurds will not suffer reprisals from Saddam’s Army, many will be too afraid to go home.
Iraq denounced the allied relief plan as foreign meddling. “We refuse this,” said Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. “They have no right to send troops to our territory.” Baghdad cut a deal of its own with the United Nations to set up “humanitarian centers” for the Kurds in the north and for rebellious Shiite refugees in the south. White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the arrangement “appears to provide a basis for the U.N. to take over the operation we will establish.” But so far there was no commitment from the United Nations to take over the camps–or from Iraq’s Army to honor their security needs.
The Iraqis have about 30,000 troops in the area. “They should not respond militarily,” Bush said of the Iraqis. “They’ve underestimated the United States once before on that, and they shouldn’t do it again–and I don’t think they will.” Lt. Gen. John Shalikashvili, the Polish-born deputy commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, met with Iraqi officers, bluntly advising them to keep their troops in barracks or pull them out of the area entirely. The Iraqis made no promises, but Pentagon officials said Baghdad had halted all military operations in the region.
A clash with Iraqi forces is only one of the potential pitfalls. Noting that a few Kurds support Saddam’s regime (one of them is the Army chief of staff), Pentagon analysts worry that Baghdad might inspire pro-Saddam elements to launch terrorist attacks on U.S. troops. Americans could be caught in another kind of cross-fire if anti-Saddam Kurds use the camps as bases for their sporadic attacks on the regime. “Whether or not we can control that is a big question,” says a Pentagon official. And what if the refugees refuse to go home? The camps might become the nucleus of an independent Kurdistan, which would disturb Bush’s Turkish allies, who have restless Kurds of their own.
Despite the allied plan to keep the Kurds moving toward home, the new camps could turn into something like permanent settlements, as others have for millions of displaced Palestinians and Afghans. “These camps will give them three squares and medical care,” says a sympathetic Bush aide. “Why should we think they will want to walk 60 miles back to a life of no medical care and perhaps one meal a day?” Once established, the allied camps could become a magnet for refugees from farther south in Iraq or from overburdened camps in Iran, where 1 million Kurds have fled. Few Kurds will want to leave the protection of the camps until Saddam is defanged. “You can only get people to return home when they are confident that they are safe,” says an administration official. “That’s going to take some larger changes in Iraq.” Until those changes occur, U.S. troops may be stuck with the job of protecting camps full of Kurds who refuse to go home.
Saddam Hussein has withdrawn from Kuwait, but remains in power in Iraq. Is this a victory for U.S. and allied forces?
Current March 2 Yes 36% 55% No 55% 38%
Do you think the cease-fire in the Persian Gulf was ordered too soon, before Saddam Hussein was toppled from power?
Current March 2 Yes 57% 30% No 37% 65%
For this Poll, The Gallup Organization interviewed a national sample of 761 adults by telephone April 18-19. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. Some “Don’t Know” and other responses not shown. The NEWSWEEK Poll 1991 by NEWSWEEK, Inc.
In the makeshift headquarters of the American forces, men and women from the Agency for International Development ponder topographic maps as Green Berets report the latest intelligence from the field. Often they have to shout above the throbbing roar of helicopters landing nearby, shuttling hundreds of American soldiers to the site. In the distance Marines are billeted in a patch of halfgrown grain. Images of Vietnam haunt some old-timers.
But this is the border between Turkey and Iraq and a new kind of mission for the American military. “What we’re looking at is a byproduct of war itself,” says Special Forces First Sgt. Robert Mohundro. The Americans are here to deliver the Kurds from their exile on the harsh slopes of the mountains. To Gus Konturas, an AID relief specialist and Vietnam veteran, this operation has been a revelation. “I have never seen anything work as efficiently.”
In the mountains hundreds of Kurds, especially the babies, continue to die each day. An AID official calls the situation a “grotesque nightmare.” The survivors have begun stacking bags of American MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). Makeshift tents of air-dropped plastic sheeting dot the slopes. Special Forces units have set up camps near the refugee concentrations along both sides of the border. They sit in council with tribal elders, organizing relief operations along classic counterinsurgency lines: building confidence among the local people and gathering information. Other Special Forces units are operating deeper in Iraqi territory, preparing the way for American troops who will soon arrive to secure the Kurds a refuge in their own land.
Survival is the first imperative. “We are going to be at the level of keeping people alive for a long time,” says Marine Lt. Col. Paul Wisniewski, head of logistics at the staging area in Silopi, Turkey (map). Every few minutes, Air Force C-130 transports drop supplies at remote locations-occasionally injuring refugees in the process. Helicopters are on their way to makeshift landing pads where American soldiers sometimes have to force back Kurds fighting for food and water. No trucks could reach these sites. “It is the art of the possible,” says Wisniewski.
For all the enthusiasm, this effort pales in comparison with the mobilization for the war. To help the refugees, some American officers at depots in Germany have improvised wildly. One requisitioned $250,000 worth of baby food. There is a regular flow of blankets, rice and black-eyed peas for Turkey from the air base in Ramstein, The warehouse there, bulging with supplies a few months ago, is mostly empty.
While the people close to tragedy in the mountains are caught up in the drama, those supporting the operation wonder if the crisis will ever slow down. “Our war started here in August and our war’s still going on,” says Bill DeBoer, a Ramstein loading-area supervisor. “Everybody’s asking if it is ever going to turn back to normal operations. And I really don’t know what’s normal anymore.” Reservists, especially, tend to worry more about returning to their homes than returning the Kurds to theirs. Aboard a C-5 full of survival rations, Technical Sgt. Elizabeth Weinhold uses her spare time planning for her July 4 wedding dinner with “fried chicken, watermelon and ice cream.” She’s proud to participate in the relief effort, “but we are still being driven as if the war’s going on.”
Even among those most committed to the military’s humanitarian effort, there are misgivings. As Marines waited in the shade of their helicopters for the order to enter Iraq last week, one officer admitted his apprehension. “We’ll do this job here and we’ll do it well. But I think it makes us all very uncomfortable,” he said. “You like to have an objective in mind when you’re in the military. And you like to know when it’s going to end.” It’s certainly going to take longer than 100 hours.
