Fire Case

Friendly Fire

On April 14, 1994, in a tragic case of what is called "friendly fire," two U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter jets shot down two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters over northern Iraq. The Black Hawks were carrying members of a special United Nations (UN) peacekeeping group: high-ranking military and civilian officials from several nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey, as well as five Kurds. All 26 passengers and crew died instantly. Everyone, including senior leaders from the Pentagon to the White House, wanted answers. The shootdown had occurred in broad daylight, with unlimited visibility, under relatively benign conditions. How could some of the best-trained and best-equipped people in the world make such a terrible mistake?

The Context

Just past midnight on August 2, 1990 Iraq invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. After an unprecedented multinational military buildup, a U.S.-led coalition defeated the Iraqi military in the Gulf War. Following nine months of conflict, on April 7, 1991, Iraq agreed to UN demands, including an immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of its invasion force from Kuwait. In the period of confusion immediately following the cease-fire, Kurds in northern Iraq briefly gained control of a number of key cities. Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard retaliated with brutal force, decimating Kurdish villages and pushing thousands of Kurds into refugee camps along the Turkish-Iraqi border.

With 500,000 Kurds forced from their homes and 2,000 dying daily from a combination of Iraqi attacks and unsanitary conditions, the UN condemned Iraqi atrocities and designated an area of northern Iraq along the Turkish border as a "security zone." The UN High Commission for Refugees also organized a multinational humanitarian effort to care for the immediate needs of suffering Kurdish refugees. But someone had to convince the Kurds that it was "safe" to return home to their villages and protect them once they did.

To accomplish this task, the U.S. launched "Operation Provide Comfort." Its mission was clear: deter aggressive Iraqi behavior and, if deterrence fails, respond with force. Under U.S. command, a