Just last week some of our omniscient FReepers were loudly proclaiming that the U.S. didn't betray the Iraqi resistance in 1991 and never promised to help them in the first place. Where are these bigmouth's now?
"I want to introduce myself and ask a question. ... I am Mehsin Juad al-Basaid. ... I was involved in the uprising in 1991. American pilots dropped leaflets telling us to start an uprising against Saddam. And we did. We sacrificed. I lost three family members. Fifteen days later the American Army was removed from the South, and left us to face Saddam alone. Now, I'm willing to go with the American Army. But what happened in 1991 must not happen again."
... At the same time, the U.S. government dropped leaflets and broadcast radio messages urging all Iraqis to overthrow Saddam. Ahmed, my translator, who was 15 in 1991, told me how he had learned that the Americans wanted Iraqis to revolt.
"I remember George Bush said, 'There is another way for the bloodshed to stop. It's for the Iraqi people and the Iraqi military to take matters into their own hands . . . '"
I interrupted to ask him if he was quoting the former president.
"Yeah, I remember that's what he said."
... (quoting Pres. GHWB)"'It's for the Iraqi people and the Iraqi military to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside, comply with the United Nations Resolution, and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.' That's what he said."
Many Iraqis, both in the largely Kurdish north and the Shiite south, took this advice. ... As the Iraqi Army withdrew from Kuwait and retreated towards Baghdad, the rebels made significant gains. ... opposition forces may have controlled as many as 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
... Iraqi military leaders met ... to sign a cease-fire. ... Lt. Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmad, had a request, ... "We have a point, one point. ... We would like to agree that helicopter flights sometimes are needed to carry some of the officials, government officials, or any member that is needed to be transported from one place to another because the roads and bridges are out."
General Norman Schwarzkopf, ... playing the generous victor, told his counterpart that so long as no helicopters flew over areas controlled by U.S. troops, they were "absolutely no problem." ...
... This moment of magnanimity would prove costly. Saddam's soldiers used the helicopters to put down the rebellion, ... On the ground, allied troops had reversed course and were now taking weapons from any Iraqis who had them, including the rebels. In the end, it was a massacre, with conservative estimates of 30,000 dead.
... the American soldiers could tell that Saddam Hussein was mercilessly putting down the rebellion," ... "The tales at the medical tent had a common theme: indiscriminate fire at men, women and children, the destruction of Islamic holy places, in which the Shiites had taken refuge, helicopter and rocket attacks, threats of chemical weapons attacks."
Thankfully, and amazingly, these refugees don't hold this Iraqi "Bay of Pigs" against us and are ready and willing to go back to Iraq with our forces to act as liasons in the liberation of their country. I'm not saying that we owe liberation to the Iraqi people but we are holding out that hope to them again and if we don't follow through this time we'd better not expect to be welcome in the mid-east, in Iraq, at some future date.
In fairness to Pres. GHW Bush he didn't have much time to follow up Gulf War I and make amendments to U.S. foreign policy. We had eight years of the Sink Emperor who thought foreign policy was just a tool to manipulate the press.