2                               HUMANITARIAN OPERATIONS IN NORTHERN IRAQ, 1991:


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               ETHIOPIA        Mandab


   More than 750,000 refugees were starving. Relief workers reported about
1,500 refugees were dying each day. By early April, two out of three people in
northern Iraq were dislocated civilians. The situation seemed hopeless. In an act
of desperation, Kurdish leader Moussad Barzani made an uncharacteristic plea
for help when he publicly asked the United States for assistance.
   At first, American President George W. Bush was reluctant to intervene, but
he eventually reacted to public pressure to join relief efforts underway from
Europe. The decision to commit American resources was made on 5 April 1991.
Urgent orders for action flashed to American military units around the world.
The first Marines to be alerted were 19 parachute riggers from the Air Delivery
Platoon, 1st Landing Support Battalion, 1st Force Service Support Group at
Camp Pendleton, California. On the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean, the
24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) [MEU (SOC)] was
ordered to sail for the eastern Mediterranean. On the Pacific island of Okinawa,
a contingency Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) was created from the 3d
Force Service Support Group (FSSG). At Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,
members of an unmanned aerial vehicle detachment from the 2d Remotely
Piloted   Vehicle    (RPV)  Company,    2d    Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and
Intelligence Group (SlUG), dumped desert sand out of their seabags and mounted