1991 Uprisings in Iraq - Prelude

Prelude

Further information: Gulf War and History of Iraq under Ba'athist rule

On February 15, 1991, President of the United States George H. W. Bush announced on the Voice of America radio:

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"There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations' resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations."

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On the evening of February 24, several days before the Gulf War ceasefire was signed, the Saudi Arabia-based Voice of Free Iraq radio station, allegedly funded and operated by the CIA, broadcasted a message to the Iraqis telling them to rise up and overthrow Saddam. The speaker on the radio was Salah Omar al-Ali, an exiled former member of the Ba'ath Party and the Ba'athist Revolutionary Command Council. Al-Ali's message urged the Iraqis to overthrow the "criminal tyrant of Iraq" and asserted that Saddam "will flee the battlefield when he becomes certain that the catastrophe has engulfed every street, every house and every family in Iraq":

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"Rise to save the homeland from the clutches of dictatorship so that you can devote yourself to avoid the dangers of the continuation of the war and destruction. Honorable sons of the Tigris and Euphrates, at these decisive moments of your life, and while facing the danger of death at the hands of foreign forces, you have no option in order to survive and defend the homeland but put an end to the dictator and his criminal gang."

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