Post-Withdrawal Iraq Could Resemble Bloody Aftermath of First Bush’s Gulf War

In 1991, the first Pres. Bush promised military support to Iraqi rebels after Saddam’s surrender. But Bush broke the promise and Saddam’s forces masssacred 30,000 rebels and buried them in unmarked graves.

This is how Pres. George W. Bush’s failed Iraq war will end. When U.S. forces pull out of Iraq — whether it is next week, next month, or, as Pres. Bush now prosposes, 10 years from now, the civil war for control of the country will escalate.

The warring factions will include various sects within the majority Shia communtiy, the Sunni minority and the Kurds seeking secession and independence. There may also be forces of outside fundamentalists militias, including al Qaeda, who move in to fill the vaccuum left by departed American forces.

The battle for control of Iraq could be bloody and long, perhaps comparable to the war in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, George Bush lit the fuse on this bomb in the heart of the Middle East in 2003, when he foolishly ordered the invasion of Iraq. Those of us who opposed the war from the start, and who now favor moving our troops out of harm’s way, should be prepared for the violence and bloodshed that erupt in the aftermath of our retreat.

To get a sense of what Iraq will suffer when the U.S. pulls out, we need look no further back than 1991, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War.

Inmediately after the end of the first Gulf War, Pres. George H.W. Bush promised Iraqi Shiites and Kurds American military support if they would rise up and overthrow the newly defeated Saddam Hussein. In a broadcast to Iraqis via Voice of America on Februrary 15, 1991, then-Pres. Bush said:

There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations’ resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.

But when the rebellion got underway, Bush and his war council, which included Defense Sec. Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell, changed their minds about helping the rebels.

This decision led to the massacre of at least 30,000 rebels who were buried in mass graves. Mr. Bush himself has said that what happened to the Shiites was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency

Details of the uprising and its horrific aftermath below the fold.

U.S. non-intervention in 1991 Iraqi uprising

Wikipedia:

The Iraqi survivors and American critics of the President George H. W. Bush say that the president encouraged the rebellion after halting American troops at Iraq’s southern border with Kuwait at the end of the Persian Gulf war. (Mr. Bush himself has said that what happened to the Shiites was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency.) [5]

This remark by George H. W. Bush was heard by Iraqis on the Voice of America on February 15, 1991 shortly before the uprisings began:

There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations’ resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.

Soon after the uprising began, however, fears of a disintegrating Iraq led the Administration to distance itself from the insurgents. Officials downplayed the significance of the revolts and spelled out a policy of nonintervention in Iraq’s internal affairs. On March 5, Rear Admiral Mike McConnell, director of intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that “chaotic and spontaneous” uprisings were under way in thirteen Iraqi cities, but stated the Pentagon’s view that Saddam would prevail because of the rebels’ “lack of organization and leadership.”

On the same day, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said that “it would be very difficult for us to hold the coalition together for any particular course of action dealing with internal Iraqi politics, and I don’t think, at this point, our writ extends to trying to move inside Iraq.” Marine Major General Martin Brandtner, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added the same day, “There is no move on the [part of] U.S. forces…to let any weapons slip through [to the rebels], or to play any role whatsoever in fomenting or assisting any side.” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained on March 6: “We don’t think that outside powers should be interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.”

Consequently, U.S. occupation forces who were stationed only a few miles from Nasiriyah, Samawa and Basra did nothing to help the rebels who rose up in these cities. Soldiers watched helplessly as Iraqi troops devastated the cities, and wounded civilians fled on foot to U.S. bases nearby telling of the atrocities that were taking place. Thomas Isom, a U.S. Army officer, described what he saw from his post at the edge of Samawa:

They fired at the hospital twice. We were watching them shell the train station and other small houses. This was simply designed to kill civilians or terrorize them, which it did. It did not have a military purpose, just artillery impacts on large concentrations of civilians.

The Administration did sternly warn Iraqi authorities on March 7 against the use of chemical weapons during the unrest, but equivocated about Iraq’s use of helicopter gunships against civilians. President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker stated in mid-March that helicopter gunships should not be used, but other Administration officials gave conflicting signals. The question of helicopters was ignored in the March 3 cease-fire agreement, which clearly prohibited Iraq’s use of fixed-wing aircraft. In the end, the aircraft were employed with impunity to attack rebels and civilians alike, and proved instrumental in quelling the insurrection.

The decision to permit Iraq to use helicopters in suppressing the revolt has been the subject of lively debate. Some believe that the rebels would have triumphed had helicopters been included in the Allies’ cease-fire ban on flights by Iraqi aircraft. Others believe that a ban on helicopters would have merely prolonged the bloodshed without altering the outcome.

In a carefully crafted statement, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said on April 2 that the Bush Administration had “never, ever stated as either a military or a political goal…the removal of Saddam Hussein.” President Bush insisted three days later,

I have not misled anybody about the intentions of the United States of America. I don’t think the Shiites in the south, those who are unhappy with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad or the Kurds in the north, ever felt that the United States would come to their assistance to overthrow this man. (…) I made clear from the very beginning that it was not an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The contradictions of U.S. policy may have reflected a lack of sufficient concern for the consequences of the call to rebel; it may have been due to miscalculation; or it may be attributable to a preoccupation with political considerations unrelated to the well-being of the residents of Iraq. Whatever the reasons, the George H. W. Bush Administration contributed to the making of a tragedy that left tens of thousands of civilians massacred by Saddam’s troops and nearly two million forced to flee their homes.

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