I would recommend rounding up some of the old Kurdistan hands on this, like Peter Galbraith, as there are a few academics and humanitarians who responded or attempted to rally political will during the Anfal Campaigns in Iraqi Kurdistan during 1987-8. There are a few decent histories of Anfal out there, and a number of those who are authorities on the matter can be identified through those publications. Mike Amitay, formerly Executive Director of the Washington Kurdish Institute could probably guide you to the right folks. Galbraith was pulled in as Ambassador to Croatia in 1995 based on his advocacy against Anfal, but managed to tick someone off in the administration for being morally/philosophically consistent and was shown the door, if memory serves.

Speaking of Anfal, we had the RDJTF or QRDF or whatever we called the 82nd/101st/24th during that era. Dropping in light infantry rapid response folks to intervene would have been operationally feasible, no? What prevented it was national interst and lack of political will. That would seem to me to be a more important area to focus on - its a heck of a lot easier, IMO, to prepare military formations to respond in these situations than it is to convince our leadership that there is an imperative to do so, humanitarian or otherwise, in locations where compelling national interests are not easy to identify, if they exist at all. During Anfal it seems it was more important to have Saddam as a bulwark against Khomeni than it was to keep 100 grand or so folks out of mass graves.

If you'd like to get hold of some of the old Kurdistan crew, let me know, as I was part of that group of starry-eyed idealists.

Cheers,