the approval of twelve Security Council members (see Table 2.1). Only Cuba and Yemen opposed the resolution, while China abstained. China justified its abstention based on its principled opposition to the use of force to settle international disputes but explained that since Iraq had acted forcefully against Kuwait, China would abstain rather than veto the resolution.30
The near unanimity of the council’s condemnation of Iraqi aggression and its defense of Kuwait were notable. Both permanent and nonpermanent members regarded the Security Council response as “historic” for the United Nations because the council was “rediscovering its true mission”—the maintenance of international peace and security and the use of enforcement action to reverse aggression.31 For example, the U.S. secretary of state, James Baker, made the following statement preceding the vote on Resolution 678:
Table 2.1. Security Council Support for Key Resolutions, Iraq
Permanent members of Security Council are in bold type.
With the Cold War behind us, we now have the chance to build the world which was envisioned by the founders of this organization—the founders of the United Nations. We have the chance to make this Security Council and this United Nations true instruments for peace and justice around the globe…. But if we are to do so, we must meet the threat to international peace created by Saddam Hussein’s aggression. And that is why the debate that we are about to begin will, I think, rank as one of the most important in the history of the United Nations; It will surely do much to determine the future of this body.32
Addressing Iraqi aggression was deemed so important that the UNSC convened at the ministerial level twice, which doubled the previous number of Security Council meetings at the foreign ministerial level.33 Indeed, the resort to force against Iraq would mark “the start of a new era for the United Nations” because it would transform the collective security system and create a flexible interpretation of Chapter VII.34 It also transformed 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When the 15 January 1991 deadline arrived and Saddam Hussein had not withdrawn the Iraqi military from Kuwait, a coalition of thirty-four countries headed by the United States launched the authorized military attack to reverse Iraqi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
