1991 Iraqi uprisings
1991 Iraqi uprisings | |||||||||
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Part of the aftermath of the Gulf War | |||||||||
An Iraqi government tank disabled by rebels | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
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Support: MEK |
Support: United States[1] Iran[2] Syria | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Commander-in-Chief) Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri Hussein Kamel Ali Hassan al-Majid Taha Yasin Tariq Aziz Qusay Hussein | |||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
c. 300,000[3] |
c. 59,000–107,000 | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
c. 5,000 killed or captured[4] | c. 25,000–180,000 killed (mostly civilians)[5][6][7] |
The 1991 Iraqi uprisings were ethnic and religious uprisings against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq that were led by Shi'ites and Kurds. The uprisings lasted from March to April 1991 after a ceasefire following the end of the Gulf War. The mostly uncoordinated insurgency was fueled by the perception that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had become vulnerable to regime change. This perception of weakness was largely the result of the outcome of the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, both of which occurred within a single decade and devastated the population and economy of Iraq.[8]
Within the first two weeks, most of Iraq's cities and
During the brief, roughly one-month period of unrest, tens of thousands of people died and nearly two million people were displaced. After the conflict, the Iraqi government intensified a prior systematic
Earlier calls for uprising
During the Iran–Iraq War, Iran's supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, called on Iraqis to overthrow the Ba'ath government and establish an Islamic state.[9] Because of his incitement, many Shia Arabs were driven out of Iraq and some were recruited into armed militias backed by Iran, although the majority remained loyal to Iraq throughout the duration of the war.[10]
U.S. radio broadcasts
On February 15, 1991, then President of the United States,
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.[12]
Bush made a similar appeal on March 1, a day after the end of the Gulf War:
In my own view...the Iraqi people should put [Saddam] aside, and that would facilitate the resolution of all these problems that exist and certainly would facilitate the acceptance of Iraq back into the family of peace-loving nations.[13]
On the evening of February 24, four days before the Gulf War ceasefire was signed, the Voice of Free Iraq radio station, allegedly funded and operated by the CIA, broadcast a message to the Iraqi people telling them to rise up and overthrow Saddam.[14] The speaker on the radio was Salah Omar al-Ali, an exiled former member of the Ba'ath Party and the Ba'athist Revolutionary Command Council. Al-Ali's message urged the Iraqis to overthrow the "criminal tyrant of Iraq" and asserted that Saddam "will flee the battlefield when he becomes certain that the catastrophe has engulfed every street, every house and every family in Iraq."[15] He said:
Rise to save the homeland from the clutches of dictatorship so that you can devote yourself to avoiding the dangers of the continuation of the war and destruction. Honorable Sons of the Tigris and Euphrates, at these decisive moments of your life, and while facing the danger of death at the hands of foreign forces, you have no option in order to survive and defend the homeland but put an end to the dictator and his criminal gang.[16]
Revolution
Southern uprisings
Many of the rebels in southern Iraq, where the uprisings began, were either demoralized soldiers of the
The turmoil first began in the towns of
. Smaller cities were swept up in the revolution as well.Many exiled Iraqi dissidents, including thousands of Iran-based
Northern uprisings
Another wave of insurgency broke out shortly afterwards in the
The rebellion in the north (
Unlike in the south, the Kurdish rebellion was preceded by demonstrations with clear political slogans: democracy for Iraq and autonomy for Kurdistan. After Mosul was taken, Jalal Talabani proposed to march on the capital Baghdad.[19]
Loyalist offensive
On March 7, in an effort to quiet the uprisings, Saddam Hussein offered the Shia and Kurd leaders shares in the central government in exchange for loyalty, but the opposing groups rejected the proposal.
Soon, regime loyalists regrouped and went on an offensive to reclaim the cities. They were helped by the fact that about half of tanks of the elite and politically reliable
There were several reports of chemical warfare attacks, including of a nerve agent being used during the assault on Basra. Following an investigation, the United Nations (UN) found that there was no evidence that Iraq used chemical weapons to repress the uprisings, but did not rule out the possibility that Iraq could have used phosgene gas which would not have been detectable after the attack.[25] According to the U.S. government's Iraq Survey Group, Iraqi military did in fact use the nerve agent sarin, as well as non-lethal CS gas, on a massive scale when "dozens" of improvised helicopter bombing sorties were flown against rebels in Karbala and the surrounding areas in March 1991; evidence of apparent mustard gas attacks have been also reported in the areas of Najaf and Karbala by the U.S. forces that have been stationed there at the time.[30]
In the south, Saddam's forces quelled all but a scattering of the resistance by the end of March. On March 29, SCIRI leader
On April 5, the government announced "the complete crushing of acts of sedition, sabotage and rioting in all towns of Iraq."[37] On that same day, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 688 condemning the Iraqi government's oppression of the Kurds and requiring Iraq to respect the human rights of its citizens.[25]
Casualties
The death toll was high throughout the country. The rebels killed many Ba'athist officials and officers. In response, thousands of unarmed civilians were killed by indiscriminate fire from loyalist tanks, artillery and helicopters, and many historical and religious structures in the south were deliberately targeted under orders from Saddam Hussein.
Many of the people killed were buried in mass graves.[18] Mass burial sites containing thousands of bodies have been uncovered since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.[39] Of the 200 mass graves the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry had registered between 2003 and 2006, the majority were in the South, including one believed to hold as many as 10,000 victims.[40]
Aftermath
Refugee crisis
In March and early April, nearly two million Iraqis, 1.5 million of them Kurds,[41] escaped from strife-torn cities to the mountains along the northern borders, into the southern marshes, and to Turkey and Iran. By April 6, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) estimated that about 750,000 Iraqi Kurds had fled to Iran and 280,000 to Turkey, with 300,000 more gathered at the Turkish border.[25] The approach towards the refugee immigration was met with a different approach by Iran and Turkey. Iran had opened its borders to the refugees, while Turkey first closed its borders and only opened its borders following international pressure and assurances of financial help to cope with the refugees.[42] Iran also received much less international help to cope with the crisis than Turkey, mainly due to their strained relations with the USA. According to accounts from international relief organizations cited by Nader Entassar, Turkey received more than seven times the amount of help per refugee, as Iran received.[42] Their exodus was sudden and chaotic with thousands of desperate refugees fleeing on foot, on donkeys, or crammed onto open-backed trucks and tractors. Many were gunned down by Republican Guard helicopters, which deliberately strafed columns of fleeing civilians in a number of incidents in both the north and south.[18] Numerous refugees were also killed or maimed by stepping on land mines planted by Iraqi troops near the eastern border during the war with Iran. According to the U.S. Department of State and international relief organizations, between 500 and 1,000 Kurds died each day along Iraq's Turkish border.[25] According to some reports, up to hundreds of refugees died each day along the way to Iran as well.[43]
Beginning in March 1991, the U.S. and some of the Gulf War allies barred Saddam's forces from conducting jet aircraft attacks by establishing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq and provided humanitarian assistance to the Kurds. On April 17, U.S. forces began to take control of areas more than 60 miles into Iraq to build camps for Kurdish refugees; the last American soldiers left northern Iraq on July 15.[25] In the Yeşilova incident in April, British and Turkish forces confronted each other over the treatment of Kurdish refugees in Turkey. Many Shia refugees fled to Syria, where thousands of them settled in the town of Sayyidah Zaynab.[44]
Resistance and reprisals in the south
In southeastern Iraq, thousands of civilians, army deserters, and rebels began seeking precarious shelter in remote areas of the
At a special meeting of the UN Security Council on August 11, 1992, Britain, France, and the United States accused Iraq of conducting a "systematic military campaign" against the marshlands, warning that Baghdad could face possible consequences. On August 22, 1992, President Bush announced that the U.S. and its allies had established a second no-fly zone for any Iraqi aircraft south of the 32nd parallel to protect dissidents from attacks by the government, as sanctioned by UN Security Council Resolution 688.
In March 1993, a UN investigation reported hundreds of executions of Iraqis from the marshes in the preceding months, asserting that the Iraqi army's behavior in the south is the most "worrying development [in Iraq] in the past year" and added that following the formation of the no-fly zone, the army switched to long-range artillery attacks, followed by ground assaults resulting in "heavy casualties" and widespread destruction of property, along with allegations of mass executions. In November 1993, Iran reported that as a result of the drainage of the marshlands, marsh Iraqis could no longer fish or grow rice and that over 60,000 had fled to Iran since 1991; Iranian officials appealed to the world to send aid to help the refugees. That same month, the UN reported that 40% of the marshlands in the south were drained, while unconfirmed reports surfaced that the Iraq army had used poisonous gas against villages near the border of Iran. In December 1993, the U.S. Department of State accused Iraq of "indiscriminate military operations in the south, which include the burning of villages and forced relocation of non-combatants." On February 23, 1994, Iraq diverted waters from the Tigris river to areas south and east of the main marshlands, resulting in floods of up to 10 feet of water, in order to render the farmlands there useless and drive the rebels who have been hiding there to flee back to the marshes which were being drained of water. In March 1994, a team of British scientists estimated that 57% of the marshlands have been drained and that in 10 to 20 years the entire wetland ecosystem in southern Iraq will be gone. In April 1994, the U.S. officials said Iraq was continuing a military campaign in Iraq's remote marshes.[25]
Iraq saw
Kurdish sovereign enclave
In the north, fighting continued until October when an agreement was made for Iraqi withdrawal from parts of Iraq's Kurdish-inhabited region. This led to the establishment of the
This general stalemate was broken during the 1994–1997
Post–2003 trials
The trial of 15 former aides to Saddam Hussein, including
U.S. non-intervention controversy
Prompted by foreign policy "realists" in his administration—such as Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft and Richard Haass—Mr. Bush allowed Saddam to fly military aircraft to put down the uprising. While thousands of U.S. troops were still on Iraqi soil and in some cases were close enough to watch, the tyrant unleashed the power of modern weaponry against men, women and children.
—Ahmed Chalabi in 2011[48]
Events leading up to the Iraq War |
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Many Iraqi and American critics accused President George H. W. Bush and his administration of encouraging and abandoning the rebellion after halting
Soon after the uprisings began, fears of a disintegrating Iraq led the Bush administration to distance itself from the rebels. American military officials downplayed the significance of the revolts and spelled out a policy of
I made clear from the very beginning that it was not an objective of the coalition or the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein. So I don't think the Shiites in the south, those who are unhappy with Saddam in Baghdad, or the Kurds in the north ever felt that the United States would come to their assistance to overthrow this man...I have not misled anybody about the intentions of the United States of America, or has any other coalition partner, all of whom to my knowledge agree with me in this position.[55]
The Bush administration sternly warned Iraqi authorities on March 7 against the use of chemical weapons during the unrest, but equivocated use of helicopter gunships by the government.[18] U.S. Major General Martin Brandtner, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that "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."[56] Consequently, U.S. troops that were deployed in southern Iraq defended arsenals[57] or blew up them altogether to prevent the rebels from arming themselves, blocked the rebels from advancing onto Baghdad and even actively disarmed some rebel forces; according to Middle East expert William B. Quandt, U.S. forces also "let one Iraqi division go through [their] lines to get to Basra because the United States did not want the regime to collapse."[30] In addition the destroying captured munitions, the Bush administration transferred some to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and even returned some to the Iraqis;[28] at the same time, the Bush administration accused Iran of sending arms to the rebels.[25]
The U.S. abandonment of the 1991 revolution was cited by many analysts as an explanation for the fact that the skeptical Iraqi Shia population did not welcome the U.S.-led coalition forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq the way some officials of
In film
Films that have used the southern rebellions as their subject include the 1999 film
See also
- 1935–36 Iraqi Shia revolts
- 1977 Shia uprising in Iraq
- 1999 Shia uprising in Iraq
- Kurdish Rebellion of 1983
- Iraqi Partisan movement, 1979–88
- First Iraqi–Kurdish War
- Second Iraqi–Kurdish War
- Human rights in Saddam Hussein's Iraq
- Arab Spring
- Libyan Civil War
- Syrian Civil War
- List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
- Kurdish Mujahideen
Notes
References
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- ^ "2 Mass Graves in Iraq Unearthed". LA Times. June 5, 2006. Archived from the original on January 9, 2012. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
- ^ "'Chemical Ali' on trial for brutal crushing of Shia uprising". The Guardian. August 22, 2007. Archived from the original on December 28, 2016. Retrieved December 16, 2016.
- ^ "ENDLESS TORMENT, The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath". Hrw.org. Archived from the original on June 15, 2010. Retrieved September 25, 2009.
- ^ Cline, Lawrence E. (August 8, 2000). "View of The Prospects of the Shia Insurgency Movement in Iraq | Journal of Conflict Studies". Journal of Conflict Studies. Retrieved September 10, 2021.
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- ISBN 9780275989088.
Hundreds of thousands of Arab Shi'ites were driven out of [Iraq], and many formed an armed opposition with Iranian support. While most of the remaining Arab Shi'ites remained loyal, their secular and religious leaders were kept under constant surveillance and sometimes imprisoned and killed.
- ^ "CRS Report: Iraq's Opposition Movements". Fas.org. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ "Unfinished War - CNN.com - Transcripts". Transcripts.cnn.com. January 5, 2001. Archived from the original on May 4, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ a b c d "Uprising in Iraq may be slow because of U.S. inaction in 1991". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. April 4, 2003. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
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- ^ Fisk. Great War for Civilisation, p. 647
- ^ Fisk. Great War for Civilisation, p. 646
- PBSFrontline, January 24, 2006
- ^ a b c d e f g Flashback: the 1991 Iraqi revolt Archived December 10, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, BBC News, August 21, 2007
- ^ a b c d e f g "Why the Uprisings Failed | Middle East Research and Information Project". Merip.org. May 4, 1992. Archived from the original on November 6, 2018. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ Ominous deja vu as Saddam's victims watch Gaddafi Archived October 12, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Al Arabiya, March 13, 2011
- ^ "Iraq". www.hrw.org. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
- ^ "Amna Suraka (Red Security)". Travel Iraqi Kurdistan. Archived from the original on February 8, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ Time Magazine (September 7, 2011). "Amna Suraka Museum – Saddam's torture cells". Demotix.com. Archived from the original on December 27, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds – UNHCR". Unhcr.org. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (June 13, 1997). "Refworld | Chronology for Sunnis in Iraq". UNHCR. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ "1991: 'Mother of all battles' begins over Kuwait". Otago Daily Times. October 20, 2011. Archived from the original on January 12, 2014. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ Gordon, Michael R. (January 2013). "Victory Over Iraq in 1991 Was Swift, but Flawed – NYTimes.com". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 1, 2017. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
- ^ a b c Zenko, Micah (March 7, 2016). "Who Is to Blame for the Doomed Iraqi Uprisings of 1991?". National Interest.org. Archived from the original on March 8, 2016. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
- ^ "Iraq". Human Rights Watch. Archived from the original on November 15, 2008. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ a b Barry Lando (March 29, 2007). "How George H.W. Bush Helped Saddam Hussein Prevent an Iraqi Uprising". Alternet. Archived from the original on November 11, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
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- ^ Graff, James (December 14, 2006). "Iran's Armed Opposition Wins a Battle — In Court". Time. Archived from the original on April 28, 2011. Retrieved April 13, 2011.
- ^ "Behind the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK)". Archived from the original on September 28, 2009. Retrieved August 3, 2009.
- ^ "Behind the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK)". Archived from the original on August 5, 2009.
the MeK was alleged to have assisted the Iraqi Republican Guard in suppressing Shiite and Kurdish uprisings, although this has always been denied by the MeK
- ISBN 978-0813384764.
The Mojahedin's support of the Kurdish rebellion, their opposition to the Velayat-e Faqih, and their boycott of the constituional referendum in 1979 further strained their fragile relationship with the fundamentalists.
- ISBN 1-85043-077-2.
In the political sphere, the Mojahedin attacked the regime for disrupting rallies and meetings; … violating the rights of the national minorities, especially of the Kurds.
- ^ United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "Refworld | Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 – Iraq and Occupied Kuwait". UNHCR. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ "Justice For Iraq". Mafhoum.com. Archived from the original on October 12, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ Mass grave unearthed in Iraq city Archived October 12, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, BBC News, December 27, 2005
- ^ a b Uncovering Iraq's Horrors in Desert Graves Archived December 28, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, June 5, 2006
- ^ Kurds say Iraq's attacks serve as a warning Archived July 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Christian Science Monitor, May 13, 2002
- ^ ISBN 978-1-55587-250-2.
- ^ Kurdish Refugees Straggle Into Iran, Followed By Tragedy Archived July 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Associated Press, Apr 13, 1991
- ^ "Syria: Inventing a Religious War by Toby Matthiesen | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books". Nybooks.com. June 12, 2013. Archived from the original on June 18, 2013. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ "The Iraqi Government Assault on the Marsh Arabs". Hrw.org. Archived from the original on October 19, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ a b 'Chemical Ali' on trial for brutal crushing of Shia uprising Archived December 28, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, August 22, 2007
- ^ Iraqi Shia uprising trial begins Archived February 10, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Al-Jazeera, August 22, 2007
- ^ "Ahmed Chalabi: The Libyan Uprising—Lessons From Iraq - WSJ.com". Online.wsj.com. February 28, 2011. Archived from the original on July 24, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ a b A Long-Awaited Apology for Shiites, but the Wounds Run Deep Archived April 26, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, November 8, 2011
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- ^ Najmaldin Karim, A 1991 Kurdish Betrayal Redux? Archived October 20, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, washingtonpost.com, December 2, 2006
- ^ Shia Folly Archived July 25, 2008, at the Wayback Machine, Slate, March 27, 2003
- ^ ""Situation 'Fluid' in Southeast Iraq, Kurdish North." The Iraqi government appears to be establishing some degree of control in southeastern Iraq, but the situation is still unsettled". Fas.org. May 30, 2008. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ "US Department of State Daily Briefing #53: Tuesday, 4/2/91". Dosfan.lib.uic.edu. April 2, 1991. Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ ""US Forces Won't Intervene in Iraq's Civil War." President Bush firmly reiterated that he does not want US military forces to be involved in Iraq's internal turmoil". Fas.org. May 30, 2008. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ "U.S. Policy". Hrw.org. Archived from the original on June 27, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ISBN 0060764686
Further reading
- Goldstein, Eric; Whitley, Andrew (1992). Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq and its Aftermath. New York: Middle East Watch (Human Rights Watch). ISBN 1-56432-069-3.