Early on, the relief effort focused on air resupply, marking of DZs, and distribution of relief supplies. Within days of our arrival, extensive reconnaissance of the camps and border areas, as well as discussions with the (always fragmented) Kurdish leadership on the Iraqi side of the border, and with the Turks on the Turkish side, had made it glaringly obvious that much more was required.
General Jamerson and I stressed the enormity of the situation to the EUCOM staff, which resulted in a confirmation visit by the DCINC, General Jim McCarthy. What the task force faced was literally hundreds of thousands of Kurds in makeshift camps clinging to the mountains along the entire Turkish/Iraqi border. Those in the camps confronted harsh weather, starvation, and exposure, which prompted a death rate of more than a thousand a day. The child mortality was horrific.
When General Shalikashvili was designated overall task force commander in mid-April, the humanitarian mission was changed from airdrop and distribution of supplies to on-thc-ground relief.
On April 17, as the remaining SOF forces were moving into the area, General Shalikashvili stated his Commander's Intent and gave me the following stated missions:1. Get into the mountains and stabilize the situation by all necessary means.2. Organize the camps.3. Get the Kurds under cover and safe from the elements.4. Work food supply and humanitarian supplies into the camps.5. Establish potable water distribution.6. Improve the sanitation, bury the dead bodies — both humans and animals.7. Stop the dying, especially the child mortality.8. Convince the Kurds to return to their villages.9. Turn the press around.
For the entire operation, General Shalikashvili never changed this overall mission set. Each time he met with me during the next three months, he simply inquired about the status of our efforts and asked how he could support them.
In fact, thinking back to General James Galvin's words as CINCEUR as Jamerson and I were deploying on the sixth—"The answer is yes, now what do you need" — I can only say that it was marvelous to have two such men in the chain of command. Direct, succinct orders, no bullshit: "Here is your mission, now get on with it." No one telling you how to suck eggs. As a Special Forces officer, 1 do appreciate such a command relationship.
After receiving the order, Colonel Bill Tangney, 10th Group Commander, was designated ground force commander, Task Force Alpha. Bill had command not only of his own group, but operational command of all U.S. Army personnel and units in the designated AOR, and of a British Commando Battalion and elements of the Luxembourg Army, and oversight responsibility of Canadian and French military hospitals in the AOR. Colonel I loot Hooten, commander of the 39th SOW out of Alconbury, England, was my air component commander, and established a marvelous relationship with Major General Jim Hobson, PROVIDE COMFORT air component commander. Jim Hobson, with bags of previous AFSOC assignments, was most supportive of our mission set.
The international border between Turkey and Iraq split the AOR, with camps on either side of the border. On more than one occasion, the border split the camp. On the Turkish side of the border, the companies and teams of Special Forces had to understand the political nuances of dealing with the Kurds, Turkish sovereignty issues, Turkish military concerns, NGOs, IOs, private organizations, and subtly with Kurdish political structure and tribal affiliations. Once you crossed the border, a different relationship existed with the Kurds, the Pesh Merga, the various representatives of the various Kurdish political establishments (both structural and family/tribal affiliated), and remnants of the Iraqi governmental structure and military. While doing this political and cultural maneuvering, the SF teams and companies had to continue to work their mission: to relieve the suffering, stop the dying, and organize the camps.
Within seventy days, the camps had been vacated, death was due only to natural causes, the child mortality rate was under control, and the Kurds had either returned to their villages or were in resettlement camps established by Major General Jay Garner's Task Force Bravo. Unlike my command, which was a standing command with permanently assigned units who habitually worked together on operations and exercises, Jay Garner had to put his task force together from scratch, using 24th MEU as the base element.
This operation confirmed what I have long known: Special Forces is a Renaissance force. During my career, I had supervised, led, and commanded SF troops in the Meo Tribesman program and Khmer Series programs in Indochina, in the attempt to hold the Lebanese Army together in the early eighties, and in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact. Give them the mission, put them in a difficult political situation, locate them in isolated outposts in rugged terrain, issue them a myriad of missions, both stated and implied, provide them top cover and the proper support, and they will accomplish any mission they've been given.
There arc literally hundreds of stories of children being saved, of the birthing of babies, of food getting delivered at the critical time, of potable water being provided, of adroit handling of conflicts between Kurds and Turks, Kurds and Iraqis, and every other imaginable conflict — family feuds, tribal animosities, disputes between tribal elders, and local political haggling. The constant in all of this is the professional Special Forces officer and NCO. In the camps and in the countryside, the Special Forces soldier kept the lid on volatile situations — always keeping in mind his principal mission of saving the Kurds.
The simple fact is that no other brigade-size element could have gone into the mountains of northern Iraq and southern Turkey in early spring 1991; taken responsibility for 600,000 Kurds; organized a relief effort; stabilized the situation; dealt with the international political and cultural ambiguities; and produced success with no compromise or embarrassment to the United States.
As the task force commander, I knew that our doctrinal manuals did not prescribe how to run a humanitarian operation of that size and complexity; nonetheless it was done in camp after camp in the spring of 1991, and the intelligence, maturity, and adaptability of the Special Forces soldier were the keys. Like the Confederates' Bedford Forrest, we could get to any location in our AOR "Firstest with the Mostest." And Colonel Bill Tangney masterfully transitioncd his units from combat operations to humanitarian endeavors and turned seemingly hopeless situations into success stories. That is the acme of Special Forces leadership.
THE BATTLE FOR LIVES
Tom Clancy:
Many of the 10th SFG troops called in to PROVIDE COMFORT during the second week of April 1991 were returning to an area they had only recently left. Lieutenant Colonel Stan Florer had deployed to Turkey at the beginning of the air war against Iraq. His unit's mission was to help provide combat air rescue for downed allied fliers; fortunately, they were called out for only one sortie. Soon after the end of the ground war, the 1st Battalion returned to its base in Germany, where it was assigned as part of SOCEUR.
Within two weeks, Florer was heading back to Incirlik, Turkey, to accompany General Potter as he surveyed the situation.
"We made a visit to the main camp, Shikferan, and it was absolute disaster. The Turks were overwhelmed," he recalls. "The mountains were as serious as you can get. They were up there at eight thousand to ten thousand feet on the tops, and there was a lot of snow; it was just absolutely brutal."
Civilians were living in crude tents and hastily constructed shelters, or no shelter at all. Food was almost nonexistent, drinking water was polluted, and cholera and other diseases were rampant. The Turkish border troops had orders to keep the refugees out of Turkey — orders that were followed by whatever means necessary.