from starvation and disease. At the same time, Turkey — fearing its own Kurdish minority — moved to keep the refugees from crossing their border.
America and its other allies were slow to respond.
Meanwhile, on April 5, the UN passed Resolution 688, demanding that Iraq immediately end repression of civilians in the Kurdish areas and elsewhere. The UN also directed Iraq to allow humanitarian agencies to aid the civilians who had fled.
Soon after the vote, U.S. Air Force Special Operations cargo aircraft began dropping emergency supplies into the region, but Iraqi artillery and helicopter attacks on civilians continued. More fled; the narrow band of mountainous terrain near the Turkish border became crowded with people in hellishly squalid camps.
On April 10, America warned Iraq to cease operations north of the 36th Parallel (roughly the line separating Kurdish from Arab Iraqi territory). The next day, the UN announced it would send a peacekeeping force to the area. SOF ground units shipped out to Turkey to help survey and stabilize the air-relief operation.
On April 16, the United States, Great Britain, and France declared that Resolution 688 gave them authority to send troops into Iraq to help the refugees. A task force spearheaded by American Marines and U.S. fighter jets pushed back the Iraqis, preventing further atrocities. By that point, the death toll among refugees in the makeshift border camps was estimated at several hundred a day.
PROVIDE COMFORT, the allied relief mission, combined the efforts of thirteen nations under the direction of Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili. It had three aspects:
• Air interdiction to prevent Iraqi aircraft from operating above the 36th Parallel. This was primarily handled by U.S. Air Force fighters operating out of Turkey.
• A ground presence to secure northern Iraq and the refugees from attack, as well as prepare resettlement camps in Iraq. The Marine Corps 24th MEU (SOC) — Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) — spearheaded this effort, with its 3,600 members operating approximately five hundred miles inland from their support craft in the Mediterranean.
• A rescue operation to bring supplies and medical attention to the displaced Iraqi civilians. Army Special Forces soldiers from the 10th SFG played a key role in this phase of the operation, as did the Air Force's 39th Special Operations Wing, which flew MC- 130 cargo aircraft and MH-53J helicopters. Civil Affairs troops and members of the 4th Psychological Operations Group joined the effort by the beginning of May. Numerous helicopters from Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force units also played a vital role in the supply effort, as did a range of U.S. and allied C-130 and support aircraft.
Brigadier General Richard W. Potter, commanding general of Special Operations Command Europe, headed the SF task force charged with bringing relief to the Kurds. Potter's 'Joint Task Force Alpha' would eventually add British and Italian forces, as well as small groups from other nations. A second task force organized around the 24th MEU, called 'Joint Task Force Bravo' and headed by Major General Jay M. Garner, operated farther south in Iraq, preparing camps and assisting refugees near the front lines of the guerrilla war (the mission and resources of the two task forces overlapped to some extent, especially in the early and closing days). At its peak, 11,936 U.S. servicemen were involved.
In November and December of 1990, in talks with the Turkish General Staff to establish the second front for Desert Storm, Major General James Jamerson, Admiral Leighton 'Snuffy' Smith, and I (as commanding general of SOCEUR — Special Operations Command Europe) had represented CINCEUR in support of U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Abramowitz. These talks resulted in the establishment of Task Force Proven Force, commanded by Jim Jamerson, and my supporting JSOTF, which operated into northern Iraq out of bases in southern Turkey.
In the spring of 1991, the EUCOM staff that had put together the European reinforcement of the VII Corps for DESERT STORM was still in existence. I had stood down the JSOTE and returned to EUCOM headquarters, but the relationships we had developed before and during DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM turned out to be of tremendous benefit as we put the relief effort together and as I stood up what General Shalikashvili later designated as Combined Task Force Alpha. We returned to Turkey on April 6 to work the relief effort. Within a week, Brigadier General Tony Zinni joined us as the deputy commander.
Early on, the relief effort focused on air resupply, marking of DZs, and distribution of relief supplies. Within days of our arrival, extensive reconnaissance of the camps and border areas, as well as discussions with the (always fragmented) Kurdish leadership on the Iraqi side of the border, and with the Turks on the Turkish side, had made it glaringly obvious that much more was required.
General Jamerson and I stressed the enormity of the situation to the EUCOM staff, which resulted in a confirmation visit by the DCINC, General Jim McCarthy. What the task force faced was literally hundreds of thousands of Kurds in makeshift camps clinging to the mountains along the entire Turkish/Iraqi border. Those in the camps confronted harsh weather, starvation, and exposure, which prompted a death rate of more than a thousand a day. The child mortality was horrific.
When General Shalikashvili was designated overall task force commander in mid-April, the humanitarian mission was changed from airdrop and distribution of supplies to on-thc-ground relief.
On April 17, as the remaining SOF forces were moving into the area, General Shalikashvili stated his Commander's Intent and gave me the following stated missions:1. Get into the mountains and stabilize the situation by all necessary means.2. Organize the camps.3. Get the Kurds under cover and safe from the elements.4. Work food supply and humanitarian supplies into the camps.5. Establish potable water distribution.6. Improve the sanitation, bury the dead bodies — both humans and animals.7. Stop the dying, especially the child mortality.8. Convince the Kurds to return to their villages.9. Turn the press around.
For the entire operation, General Shalikashvili never changed this overall mission set. Each time he met with me during the next three months, he simply inquired about the status of our efforts and asked how he could support them.
In fact, thinking back to General James Galvin's words as CINCEUR as Jamerson and I were deploying on the sixth—'The answer is yes, now what do you need' — I can only say that it was marvelous to have two such men in the chain of command. Direct, succinct orders, no bullshit: 'Here is your mission, now get on with it.' No one telling you how to suck eggs. As a Special Forces officer, 1 do appreciate such a command relationship.
After receiving the order, Colonel Bill Tangney, 10th Group Commander, was designated ground force commander, Task Force Alpha. Bill had command not only of his own group, but operational command of all U.S. Army personnel and units in the designated AOR, and of a British Commando Battalion and elements of the Luxembourg Army, and oversight responsibility of Canadian and French military hospitals in the AOR. Colonel I loot Hooten, commander of the 39th SOW out of Alconbury, England, was my air component commander, and established a marvelous relationship with Major General Jim Hobson, PROVIDE COMFORT air component commander. Jim Hobson, with bags of previous AFSOC assignments, was most supportive of our mission set.
The international border between Turkey and Iraq split the AOR, with camps on either side of the border. On more than one occasion, the border split the camp. On the Turkish side of the border, the companies and teams of Special Forces had to understand the political nuances of dealing with the Kurds, Turkish sovereignty issues, Turkish military concerns, NGOs, IOs, private organizations, and subtly with Kurdish political structure and tribal affiliations. Once you crossed the border, a different relationship existed with the Kurds, the Pesh Merga, the various representatives of the various Kurdish political establishments (both structural and family/tribal affiliated), and remnants of the Iraqi governmental structure and military. While doing this political and cultural maneuvering, the SF teams and companies had to continue to work their mission: to relieve the suffering, stop the dying, and organize the camps.
Within seventy days, the camps had been vacated, death was due only to natural causes, the child mortality rate was under control, and the Kurds had either returned to their villages or were in resettlement camps established by Major General Jay Garner's Task Force Bravo. Unlike my command, which was a standing command with permanently assigned units who habitually worked together on operations and exercises, Jay Garner had to put
