War Stories (6 page)

   
the immediate return of all Kuwaiti property taken in the invasion

   
an immediate end to the Iraqi WMD program and the destruction of all such weapons stockpiles

   
an end to Iraqi support for international terrorism

   
a promise to abide by all United Nations resolutions

Some in Washington and London wondered why Saddam so readily agreed to these onerous conditions. By the time combat operations ceased at 0800 on February 28, U.S. and British military officers were well aware that Saddam had succeeded in extricating his Republican
Guard divisions, virtually unscathed, from the coalition juggernaut. But lacking adequate intelligence about what was happening in Baghdad—or even a few miles from where the allied advance had stopped—they did not know that Saddam was already seeing the beginning of yet another internal rebellion.

Some of this revolt began even before the allied victory. In February, a Baath Party headquarters had been destroyed and its occupants burned alive during a Shi'ite food riot in the town of Diwaniyah, on the banks of the Euphrates. By the end of the month, when the allied advance halted, the Shi'ite towns in the south and Kurdish enclaves in the north had been showered with leaflets and broadcasts from U.S. psychological operations units urging the two communities to rise up and overthrow the “Butcher of Baghdad.”

Given the situation, no one should have been particularly surprised that within hours of General Schwarzkopf sitting down with his defeated opponents at Safwan, those who had suffered most under Saddam's heel decided it was time to fight back. Shi'ite uprisings in Basra, Karbala, and Najaf, aided by Iraqi army deserters, were easily crushed by Republican Guard troops who were told that they were saving Iraq from Khomeini-inspired operatives intent on establishing an Iranian theocracy in the land between the rivers. With allied troops sometimes within earshot, Republican Guard tanks, supported by helicopter gunships, massacred the lightly armed mujahideen and their families. Artillery pounded mosques, homes, ancient shrines, and anyone who took refuge there. Once the Republican Guard had done the “heavy work,” the dreaded Amn Al Khass arrived, usually in the dead of night, to hunt down survivors. In entire towns throughout the southern part of Iraq, every male between the ages of fifteen and thirty simply disappeared. All through the month of March, bulldozers worked through the night. It would take more than a decade to confirm that what they were digging were mass graves.

In the Kurdish areas of the north the outcome was much the same, though because of the terrain—and because Saddam perceived the Shi'ite intifada to be the most immediate threat—it took a little longer.

At the end of March, Saddam shifted three Republican Guard divisions from the killing fields of southern Iraq to the mountainous north. Kurdish pesh merga fighters, who had taken control of Zakho, Sulaimaniyah, and Kirkuk, and threatened Mosul, were no match for armor, massed artillery, and helicopter gunships. These were people with firsthand knowledge of what Saddam's chemical weapons could do. Though resistance was futile and the carnage horrifying, they valiantly fought on, hoping for the coalition allies, with half a million troops still in the region, to come to their rescue.

Washington and London met Kurdish appeals for help with paralysis. Initial hopes that the Iraqi military would stage a coup in the aftermath of the Kuwaiti debacle were unrealized. Uncertain about who might take over if the Shi'ites and Kurds succeeded, sympathetic to Saudi concerns about Iranian intentions, and warned by NATO ally Turkey that an independent Kurdistan would not be tolerated, the U.S. and Britain opted to do nothing.

By the end of April it was all over. Though the final toll will probably never be known, perhaps as many as 250,000 Shi'ites were killed, and almost as many Kurds. More than two million refugees had been created. Scores of villages in the north and south of the country had been emptied of every living soul. The Kurds and the Shi'ites had failed to unite in common cause against their common enemy, and Saddam had utterly destroyed any hopes they had for freedom or independence. In the end, the only help that America delivered was the massive airlift of food, medicine, tents, and blankets to nearly one million displaced Kurds in Operation Provide Comfort.

Saddam had survived once again.

By May 1991, the land between the rivers was a terrible place. Baghdad, heavily bombed throughout the war, was a shambles. Every bridge across the Tigris was damaged or destroyed. Electrical power, water, sewer systems, telephone service, even mail delivery were sporadic at best in the capital and almost nonexistent throughout the rest of the country. The treasures looted from Kuwait were being pawned to buy food.

Realizing that perception is reality in Iraq, Saddam set out to convince the Iraqi people, if not the rest of the world, that he had won the “mother of all battles.” He purged the military and the Baath Party in order to put a new face on the regime and to eliminate internal dissent. Despite rampant debt and inflation, Saddam embarked on a massive rebuilding campaign.