and Southern Watch

Photo by PO2 Milton R. Savage, USN. Defense Imagery DN-ST-92-09843 During Operation Provide Comfort, a Navy corpsman with Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 24 provides medical services to a Kurdish boy in a medical clinic in northern Iraq.

Postwar Iraq: Operations Provide Comfort, Northern Watch, and Southern Watch

Yet the end of combat operations in the Kuwaiti theater of operations did not end the armed confrontation between the United States and Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government. Marines remained involved with the ongoing confrontation over the next 12 years. Throughout the war, the Coalition had expressed the desire that Iraqis overthrow Saddam’s government, encouraging the Iraqi military in particular to overthrow their president. In the aftermath of the Coalition’s destruction of the Iraqi military, the government’s foes attempted to do just that. On 1 March, an uprising began in Basrah that was apparently begun by soldiers who had fled from the Coalition in Kuwait, and it soon spread to most of the southern cities dominated by the Shia. On 4 March, another uprising began in the north among the Kurds, beginning in the town of Rania and soon spreading throughout Iraqi Kurdistan.

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In keeping with his belief that the United States had been maneuvering to destroy Iraq (or, even worse, to bring about his downfall) throughout the 1980s, Saddam Hussein believed that these uprisings were planned by America. In fact, he believed that they were the intended “next step” following the Coalition military operations that liberated Kuwait. As he told his senior military officers in April, “The entire siege that happened, the air bombardment until the land attack began, they were all methods used to create the appropriate environment for the operation [uprising] to take place.”

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Faced with insurrection in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, the Republican Guard and the Iraqi military (which remained predominantly loyal to Saddam) responded fiercely and effectively. They had been ineffective in the face of Coalition military power, but smashing poorly armed civilian uprisings was an Iraqi military specialty in 1991. Artillery was used widely and indiscriminately to smash the rebels, and helicopters were also operated on a widespread scale. Many believed that this use was why the Iraqis had insisted on obtaining the right to fly helicopters within Iraq in the Safwan Accords. By 15 March, the Iraqi military had essentially crushed the nascent rebellion of the Shia in southern Iraq, often in full view of the U.S. Army’s VII

Corps, which occupied much of this area until May 1991. The United States was reluctant to become involved, but when Iraqi military forces turned north and began to roll back Kurdish forces in late March and early April, international pressure to intervene began to grow. The pressure grew greater as it became apparent that a humanitarian disaster was imminent in the northern Iraq refugee camps.

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On 5 April, UN Security Council Resolution 688 was passed, calling for Iraq to end the repression of its people. President Bush determined that the United States would join in the international effort to bring aid to the hundreds of thousands of refugees believed to be in danger of starvation in northern Iraq. On 10 April, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), which was deployed to the Mediterranean under U.S. European Command, was ordered to join Combined Task Force Provide Comfort on 16 April. The expeditionary unit entered northern Iraq on 20 April.

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The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), the main Marine unit for Operation Provide Comfort, was commanded by Colonel James L. Jones Jr. Its ground combat element was Battalion Landing Team 2/8; the air element was a composite squadron formed from Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 264; and logistics were handled by Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 24. Beyond Colonel Jones’s command, many other Marines served with the combined task force. Brigadier General Anthony C. Zinni served as both deputy commanding general and chief of staff. In addition, the Contingency Marine Air-Ground Task Force 1-91 and detachments from the 2d Remotely Piloted Vehicle Company and the 4th Civil Affairs Group served in the combined task force. Fire control teams from the 2d ANGLICO served alongside the allied British, French, Spanish, and Italian NATO units that were also stationed in northern Iraq.

The Iraqi military chose not to respond to Operation Provide Comfort with military force, and after several months of providing security and supplies to the refugees, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit departed Iraq on 15 July 1991. Operation Provide Comfort then entered its second phase, which focused on aerial responses to Iraqi military aggression against Kurdish areas. This second phase in turn transformed in January 1997 into Operation Northern Watch. The Marine Corps committed detachments of KC-130 Hercules aerial refuelers and EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft to the support of Operation Northern Watch, which continued until Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

In the south, Joint Task Force Southwest Asia

Painted with graffiti by Coalition troops, an Iraqi T-55 main battle tank lies amidst other destroyed vehicles along the highway between Kuwait City and Basrah, Iraq.

Photo by TSgt Joe Coleman, USAF. Defense Imagery, DF-ST-92-08469