outside it. They opened schools… and even got textbooks and school lunches. They reopened medical clinics, using both our own medical supplies and some captured from the Iraqis (one of our first sergeants told me he and his troops particularly enjoyed using Iraqi medical supplies to stock the civilian health clinic in Safwan). According to our doctors, the health treatment we provided to the over 8,000 people in the camp near Safwan dramatically improved the overall health of the refugees there. By the end of April, daily requests for medical assistance were few.
On 22 March, on a visit with Bill Nash and Butch Funk to the Safwan health clinic, I asked CW4 Joe Hatch, the 3rd AD head physician assistant, if I could do anything for them (his assistant was CW2 Ben Beaoui, who spoke Farsi).
'Get us some baby food!' he answered, holding up an infant. 'This baby will die soon if we don't get it food and get it treated.'
We got them the baby food via C-130s, and the child survived. For his work in that clinic, General Powell awarded Joe the Humanitarian Service Medal.
WITHDRAWAL
At 0230 on 13 April, Toby woke me for another middle-of-the-night phone call from Riyadh. At a little past midnight (our time) of the day before, the peace treaty and the UN resolutions had been signed. This phone call was from ARCENT: the President had ordered us to move the rest of our troops out of Iraq by 19 April. I did not mind being awakened for that call at all.
I had estimated it would take us five days to get out of Iraq, and that was the time we had. We swung into action, with first-in, first-out still my rule. First out of Iraq had been the 2nd ACR, on 9 April. On the twelfth, we moved the 1st AD, followed on the fifteenth by the 1st INF. By the nineteenth, everyone was out, including all of our own equipment. At each stage, our units had moved into redeployment assembly areas near KKMC, where they had begun the tedious procedures necessary to prepare the vehicles and equipment for shipment back to Germany or the U.S.A.
Since the UN-sponsored treaty included no provision for the protection of the refugees who had fled the Iraqi civil conflict and who (rightly) feared government reprisals, I asked Major General Greindl (the Austrian commander of the UN force) what he planned to do about them. 'Since that's not in my orders,' he informed me, 'I can't do anything.'
'General, we have a problem,' I said. 'We are not leaving until we get this settled. We are not abandoning these people to Iraqi government atrocities.'
That same day I told John Yeosock we had a responsibility to ensure the continued protection of the refugees, and he ordered us to protect the refugee sites. In fact, during this period, John constantly went out on a limb for us in order to authorize our humanitarian activities. 'Fred, do what you think is right,' he told me again and again; and he backed us up.
Meanwhile, on 7 April, we had changed command in 3rd AD. Much to his, and my, disappointment (since he would not be with us for the redeployment and homecoming in Germany), Butch Funk was pulled out of command to become the deputy J-3 on the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington. He was replaced by Major General Jerry Rutherford, who had been an ADC in the 1st INF. I assigned to Jerry Rutherford the mission with 3rd AD in Safwan.
In the western part of our sector, 2nd AD (Forward), which I had pulled from the 1st INF, replaced the 11th Aviation Brigade (the French remained). I assigned the protection mission to them.
Under Jerry Rutherford, 3rd AD continued to provide assistance to the refugees at the camp in Safwan and to the inhabitants returning to the town, as well as protection to a second camp just over the Kuwait border that was run by the Red Cross.
Our protection mission put us in an awkward situation, since U.S. troops were no longer supposed to be in Iraq after the treaty went into effect. In order to avoid that, the plan was for the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to take in the refugees. But that plan did not work; both governments initially refused to take in any Iraqi refugees.
Meanwhile, John Yeosock had been talking to officials in the Saudi government, and on 17 April they committed to building a camp sixty kilometers north of Rafha in Saudi Arabia, just south of the Iraqi border. This timely and compassionate move by the Saudi government was widely reported in Arab regional newspapers, but not, to my knowledge, in the West.
The Saudis then hired a contractor, who told us it would take them sixty to ninety days to build a camp.
'No way,' I said. I didn't want us to have to wait around while they took their time to build the camp. 'Our engineers will build a temporary camp, if you will agree to build a more permanent one.' They agreed, and from 21 to 27 April, our engineers built Rafha II. Our temporary camp was roughly 1.4 kilometers by 1.1 kilometers. Around its perimeter were placed twelve 5,000-gallon water bladders that our engineers kept full. Our engineers (the 588th out of Fort Polk) also placed bottled water and food inside the camp, as well as 250 wooden showers and 250 latrines. These were urgently needed.
In the meantime, we notified Iraqi refugees at both Safwan and Rafha I that we were setting up the temporary camp inside Saudi Arabia, and camp leaders were allowed a visit there. They then had to make a choice: since the U.S. force was leaving soon, they had to make up their minds whether they wanted to stay in Iraq or go to the new camp, with the Saudi government's promise to build a more permanent camp. Most decided to leave. We gave those who chose to stay in Iraq seven days' worth of food and water.
The Kuwaiti government erected a fence around the Red Cross site with the only exit into Kuwait. The government of Iran accepted some 350 refugees a day from this camp flown out of Kuwait City International Airport.
Our VII Corps official report says:
'Movement of refugees from Rafha I to Rafha II began on 28 April. 11,500 refugees were moved, with the final closing of refugees in Rafha II on 8 May. Refugees from Rafha I were allowed to bring automobiles across the Saudi border and park them outside the camp… During the period 28 April to 7 May, a total of 8,430 refugees were flown by USAF C-130 aircraft from Safwan to Rafha,' a distance of about 500 kilometers. For all those going to Saudi, our personnel soldiers made new ID cards with photos. It was a masterful operation by both 3rd AD and CENTAF. Likewise, 2nd AD (Forward) did a superb job in moving refugees to Rafha II.
I vividly remember, during the transfer, scenes of U.S. soldiers digging into their own belongings and providing food, blankets, or even Army sweatshirts. As our report puts it, 'The individual soldiers' generosity is evidenced by the number of government-issued blankets among the refugees and the U.S. Army sweatshirts hanging from the arms of the children.'
The results were staggering: almost 20,000 refugees were resettled. Safwan was reopened as a village, with civil affairs soldiers helping local inhabitants regain self-sufficiency. Total meals of all types distributed during this entire period reached well over a million. Tons of flour, rice, and beans were distributed. Over 1.5 million gallons of water were produced, and close to a million gallons of bulk and bottled water were transported and distributed. Seven hundred cases of baby food were provided. In the hospitals we set up for the Iraqi people, corps doctors, nurses, and medics treated 29,450 Iraqi patients, with 601 of these evacuated to Saudi for further treatment. Many of them were returned and reunited with their families.
Our last message on this operation closed with the words: 'The same soldiers and leaders who a short time before had relentlessly attacked and destroyed the Iraqi army in sector turned to and accomplished this humanitarian mission with compassion, discipline, and pride in being American soldiers. Doing both so well is a mark of who we are and what we stand for. JAYHAWK. Franks.'
RESIDUAL FORCE
But we were not done.
