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 prior to the passage of Resolution 660, the Russian Federation described Iraq’s actions as a “violation of international peace and security.” China, which is generally resistant to the use of enforcement measures, likewise endorsed this and subsequent resolutions condemning Iraqi behavior, abstaining only from resolutions that authorized “all necessary measures” or addressed the domestic practices of the Iraqi government.49 In fact, the only state on record that objected to the intentional story about the war against Kuwait was Iraq itself. This unprecedented level of unity around an intentional story of conflict made the Security Council’s Chapter VII authorization to use military force possible. Indeed, because the intentional story appeals to principles of justice and international law, its policy implications include protection, interdiction, or punishment. The intentional story persisted in the UNSC throughout Operation Desert Storm.
Security Council endorsement of an intentional causal story softened only when a majority of its members used it to characterize the Iraqi regime’s violence against its own population in April 1991. The move to discuss Iraq’s internal practices was both highly controversial and unprecedented in Security Council practice. Yet a majority of council members (eleven members) articulated an intentional story to describe Iraqi violence against its own Kurdish and Shi’a populations. Seven council members (Belgium, Côte d’Ivoire, France, India, Romania, the UK, and the U.S.) articulated a strong intentional story about brutal repression and the indiscriminate use of force by the Iraqi regime against its Kurdish and Shi’a populations in contravention of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions. These members argued that violations of international humanitarian law constituted a threat to international peace and security.50 For example, France argued that Iraq’s repression of its minorities garnered international interest because it was at such proportions as to be considered a crime against humanity.51 This story was embraced by an additional seven states, primarily European, whose representatives spoke as nonvoting participants during the council meeting.52 Germany advocated a particularly strong version of the perpetrator-victim narrative when it argued that Saddam Hussein’s violence against the Kurdish minority was a harbinger of genocide.53
Four Security Council members (Austria, Ecuador, Russia, and Zaire) articulated a softer version of the intentional story. They agreed that Iraq was violating international humanitarian law but noted that Iraq’s behavior was primarily internal. Nonetheless, because of its external effects, this internal violence warranted international attention and condemnation.54 Presumably for these members, in absence of transborder effects, Iraq’s domestic practices would not have warranted Security Council attention. In contrast, China, Cuba, Yemen, and Zimbabwe argued that the Security Council had no right to intervene in the internal matters of a sovereign state, citing Article 2.7 of the UN Charter. They strongly objected to Iraq’s domestic behavior being discussed at all, yet they did not articulate an alternative story to describe the situation nor did they dispute the cause or character of the regime’s violence, only its relevance to Security Council deliberations.
International Security, Human Rights, and the Purpose of Military Force
Unity in the UNSC around an intentional causal story allowed deliberations to quickly shift from the cause and character of the conflict to the relationship between human rights and international security. After Coalition forces successfully reversed the Iraqi occupation, Security Council members began to debate whether humanitarian and international human rights concerns were relevant to council business, and in turn whether international humanitarian law and international human rights law were changing the purpose of military force. On 5 April 1991, Turkey and Iran requested that the UNSC respond to the mounting humanitarian crisis on their borders. They argued that the rapid flow of refugees out of Iraq and into their sovereign territory threatened to destabilize their regimes and the entire region. The effects of Iraq’s military repression of its civilians, they argued, were a threat to international peace and security. During deliberations, Turkey informed the Security Council that nearly one million Iraqi refugees were heading toward the Iraqi-Turkish border, arguing that no single country could cope with such a massive influx of destitute people. Turkey described the mounting humanitarian crisis as a “grave threat to the peace and security of the region” both because of “the scale of the human tragedy” and because Iraqi mortar shells were landing on the Turkish side of the border.55 Iran asserted that it expected to receive half a million Iraqi refugees in subsequent days. Echoing the concerns of Turkey, Iran argued that the crisis inside Iraq had international dimensions because it threatened the security of neighbor countries with the potential of further destabilizing the entire region. Iran urged the Security Council to deal “both with the cause of the crisis and with its immediate symptoms.”56
Convinced that the effects of Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression were threatening the sovereignty and security of Iraq’s neighbors, the Security Council passed Resolution 688, which defined the consequences of Iraq’s repression of its civilian population as a threat to international peace and security. Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease violating human rights and international humanitarian law and open its territory to humanitarian relief organizations and military observers.57 As Table 2.1 illustrates, Resolution 688 was the most divisive of the key resolutions passed by the UNSC on the situation in Iraq. It received only ten votes in favor in contrast to unanimous support for Resolution 660. Three members opposed the resolution and two others abstained, reflecting division within the council on the relevance of human rights to Security Council work. Nevertheless, the passage of Resolution 688 was monumental—never before had the Security Council defined the effects of a state’s domestic behavior as a threat to international peace and security. Its passage signaled the growing legitimacy of international human rights
