the UNSC in unintended and unanticipated ways, namely by creating an opening for human rights concerns in Security Council deliberations.
When the 15 January 1991 deadline arrived and Saddam Hussein had not withdrawn the Iraqi military from Kuwait, a coalition of thirty-four countries headed by the United States launched the authorized military attack to reverse Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm began on 17 January 1991 with a massive air assault. Weeks of intensive bombing were followed by a ground offensive that was launched on 24 February 1991 and lasted only one hundred hours. Security Council resolutions did not authorize Coalition forces to take military action beyond liberating Kuwait, as the objective of the war was to remove Iraq from Kuwait and simultaneously damage Saddam Hussein’s offensive military capabilities.35 This limited objective was necessary for maintaining cohesion in the coalition. The defeat of the Iraqi Army was swift and definitive. Honoring the limited objectives of the military campaign supported by the UNSC, Coalition forces did not enter Baghdad or require the removal of Saddam Hussein as a condition of surrender. Nonetheless, the terms of the ceasefire outlined in Resolution 686 were severe. They included the acceptance of all previous Security Council resolutions, mandatory reparations for war damages, the release of POWs, the return of stolen property, and maintenance of the sanctions regime.36 Resolution 687, which passed on 3 April 1991, imposed further obligations, including international demarcation of the Iraq-Kuwait border and the establishment of a UN peacekeeping operation to monitor it and the destruction of all Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, which would be overseen by international inspection teams.37 The sanctions regime, including the trade embargo and ban on oil sales, would remain in effect until Iraq had achieved total compliance with all aspects of the resolution. Resolution 687 has been described as “the longest and most comprehensive in UN history” with its provisions placing much of Iraq’s economy and military under international control.38
The war with Coalition forces had further devastating economic and political effects on Iraq. The war had destroyed much of Iraq’s industry and infrastructure and the sanctions regime had eliminated nearly all trade. The ban on oil sales severely diminished Iraq’s income and most states, including the most powerful, had severed diplomatic relations with Iraq. Regionally, Iraq was viewed as a pariah. Domestically, the regime faced internal threats from disaffected military personnel and an increasingly frustrated civilian population. Years of repression combined with nearly a decade of war and economic hardship had taken a toll on Iraq’s domestic population, particularly in the northern and southern regions of the country. By March 1991 spontaneous, unruly, and unorganized rebellions led by returning soldiers and urban Iraqi youth threatened government control of fourteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces.39 Yet by April, the uprising was over and what started out as a seemingly straightforward military operation to reverse Iraqi aggression and reaffirm Kuwait’s sovereignty and territorial integrity took a decidedly radical turn when the Security Council shifted its focus from Iraq’s behavior in Kuwait to its behavior within its own borders.
At the beginning of March 1991, just days after the humiliating defeat of the Iraqi Army by the Coalition forces, Iraqi Army deserters, disaffected soldiers, and local residents of the southern Shi’a city of Basra revolted against Hussein’s rule. Taking advantage of what they thought was a temporary power vacuum, opponents sought to attack the regime while it was still on the defensive and while extensive dislocation remained in Baghdad. The revolt spread quickly and spontaneously throughout southern Iraq, from Basra to Karbala, Najaf, Hilla, Nasiriyya, and al-Amar.40 During the revolt, rebel troops aided by urban youth and civilians targeted symbols of the Iraqi regime including the Baath Party and security forces headquarters, prisons, and military barracks. According to Middle East Watch, semiorganized opposition groups received a spontaneous outpouring of support from civilians who were angry about government repression and the devastation of multiple wars fought by the regime.41 The rebels were unable to build a broader base, however, because interference from Iranian fighters gave the rebellion an unpopular ideological cast and the chaos, destruction, and brutal retribution leveled against members of the regime frightened Sunnis and more moderate elements of the population.42 The rebels also underestimated the strength of the Iraqi regime, which quickly stamped out the uprising when the military refused to join the rebels and international actors failed to intervene. Hussein had remained both powerful and attentive to internal threats to his power. Using his elite Republican Guard and support from the army, he regained control of southern Iraq on 13 March 1991. Saddam Hussein’s retribution was swift and harsh. Middle East Watch reported,
Those who remained in the south were at the mercy of advancing government troops, who went through neighborhoods, firing indiscriminately and summarily executing hundreds of young men…. Refugees alleged to Middle East Watch and others that Iraqi helicopters dropped a variety of ordnance on civilians, including napalm and phosphorus bombs, chemical agents and sulfuric acid. Representatives of human rights and humanitarian organizations who saw refugees with burn injuries or photographs of such injuries were unable to confirm the source of these burns. However, doctors who examined wounded Iraqis said that some of their burns were consistent with the use of napalm.43
Iraqi troops engaged in widespread atrocities against the civilian population. The violence was particularly heavy in the southern marshes, where much of the local Shi’a population had congregated rather than face extensive risks in escaping the country in the flat, exposed terrain of the south.44
While Hussein’s Republican Guard was battling revolt in the south, northern Iraqi Kurds rose up against the regime on 5 March 1991 in Raniyya. As in the south, this revolt spread rapidly as the local population joined. The uprising in the north was characterized by a higher degree of organization and leadership due to the participation of formal Kurdish party organizations and the Fursan—Kurdish military forces that had previously been allied with the Iraqi government but switched sides during the uprising. By 21 March, Kurdish insurgents controlled every major city in its territory except for Mosul, capital of the Nineveh Province.45 Yet the revolt was reversed nearly as suddenly as it began. Once the violence in the south was quelled, the loyalist army troops and Republican Guard mobilized in the north, using helicopter gunships, tanks, and artillery to indiscriminately attack the Kurds. The regime’s counterattack reopened the wounds of the Anfal campaign, provoking panic among the Kurdish population, who exited the country en masse. Within days, hundreds of thousands of Kurds became stranded in the mountains between Iraq and Turkey as they sought to escape the repression.
The result of intensified fighting between Iraqi insurgents and the government of Saddam Hussein was a humanitarian catastrophe. According to Middle East Watch, over 1.5 million Iraqis escaped the attacks in the cities during the months of March and April. Yet many of the displaced were injured or died during their flight from Iraq because of poor conditions. For example, at least 5,000 were killed by land mines as they attempted to cross the mined border between Iraq and Turkey.46 By the beginning of April, at least 400,000 Kurdish refugees were pushed into the mountains between Turkey and Iraq. The death toll for these refugees was estimated to be 1,000 per day. In addition to the Kurds who sought refuge in Turkey, up to 1 million Kurdish refugees crossed the border into Iran at the beginning of April, along with 70,000 Shi’a refugees.47
The Intentional Causal Story
Security Council members told two different sets of causal stories about Iraqi violence: one about its violence against Kuwait and one about its violence against its own domestic population. Council deliberations about the cause and character of Iraq’s military action against Kuwait were marked by incredible unanimity. Members of the Security Council articulated only a single causal story—an intentional story—to describe the conflict. The intentional story characterized the war as an external aggression by Iraq against the sovereign state of Kuwait in violation of the United Nations Charter and international legal norms. States as diverse as Canada, Colombia, Malaysia, and Finland as well as all five of the permanent members of the Security Council condemned “the naked Iraqi invasion of Kuwait’s territory.”48 Resolution 660, which defined the conflict as international aggression and demanded its reversal, was passed unanimously by the UNSC (see Table 2.1). Even