Operation Provide Comfort: Humanitarian intervention in northern Iraq, 1991.

摘要

This dissertation studies Provide Comfort, a military operation that set out to save half a million Kurds who fled from Iraq in the spring of 1991. They had revolted against Iraq's central government after its defeat in Desert Storm. When the revolt failed and the Iraqi army pursued them to the mountains along the Turkish border, exposure to the elements led to thousands of deaths and intense suffering. World leaders provided humanitarian assistance through the commitment of their military forces.;Within days military aircraft were dropping food and supplies by parachute to those stranded in the mountains. A week later Special Forces and other soldiers joined the refugees on the ground to provide direct assistance. Conventional forces entered northern Iraq and created a security area, and within a month the military coalition was returning refugees safely to their country. Within two months they had the situation stabilized with much of the civil infrastructure rebuilt. Within three months the military forces were departing and civilian relief workers were assuming the residual relief operation.;Unlike most military operations, Provide Comfort enjoyed no prior planning, little specific preparation, and operated beyond the range of most military doctrine. These forces had to work with civilians from the United Nations and other relief organizations with whom they were not familiar. Yet within a few months, the military operation achieved its goals of relieving the suffering and dying while returning the refugees safely to Iraq.;The purpose of this dissertation is to study how the participating military organizations formed on such short notice, resolved friction and obstacles, accomplished their tasks quickly, and departed as soon as the political situation allowed. The materials used for this work include primary and secondary sources on the Kurds, Iraq, and Turkey, but the study is dominated by interviews with over a hundred participants on Provide Comfort supported by the military and civilian documentation that covered and analyzed the operation.;The conclusion of this study is that even without doctrine for humanitarian assistance, the capacity of military forces to provide immediate relief on a vast scale to resolve a crisis situation significantly exceeds that of civilian organizations primarily oriented for such tasks. Specifically military forces can neutralize a hostile environment; mobilize the necessary transportation and logistics assets to sustain the flow of resources; rebuild a civil infrastructure; and provide the command and control necessary to make the overall effort cohesive under a unified command. Finally the manner in which the military forces were used did not degrade their wartime readiness. Provide Comfort offers new perspectives for military participation on humanitarian assistance operations.