The 100-hour ceasefire ended fighting between coalition and Iraqi military forces. But it did not end Saddam's war against Iraq's own people.

Within days of the ceasefire, uprisings erupted in southern Iraq among the Shiite population and in northern Iraq among the Kurds. The uprisings had been encouraged by American broadcasts suggesting that the Iraqi people should remove Saddam from power. But no coalition military support materialized. Saddam's remaining forces—the Republican Guard and other units that had escaped destruction—turned on the rebellious populations with ferocious violence.

The Kurdish region in northern Iraq was devastated. Iraqi forces launched attacks on civilian Kurdish populations. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled northward toward Turkey, creating a massive refugee crisis. Images of Kurdish families dying in the mountains from exposure and starvation dominated international media.

Turkey, already hosting hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees from internal conflicts, closed its borders. The Kurdish refugees found themselves trapped in the mountains between Iraq and Turkey, facing starvation and exposure. The humanitarian crisis threatened to become a catastrophe.

International pressure mounted on the Bush administration to do something. The images of suffering Kurdish refugees were politically unacceptable. The administration, having avoided occupying Iraq, now found itself forced to intervene on humanitarian grounds.

Operation Provide Comfort was established to protect Kurdish populations and establish a safe zone in northern Iraq. American, British, and French aircraft patrolled a no-fly zone above the 36th parallel, preventing Iraqi fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters from attacking Kurdish positions. Ground forces established humanitarian relief operations, providing food, water, and medical care to refugees.

Turkish forces, crossing into Iraq, also engaged with the refugee crisis and participated in operations against PKK Kurdish separatist forces in the region. The operation was controversial in Turkey, which viewed the Kurdish refugee problem as its burden and Iraqi Kurdish nationalism as a potential threat to Turkish interests.

Over time, the no-fly zone became permanent. The Kurdish zone in northern Iraq became a de facto autonomous region protected by the no-fly zone. Turkish aircraft occasionally violated the zone to attack PKK bases. Iraqi forces periodically probed the boundaries but could not challenge the coalition air presence.

Operation Provide Comfort established a precedent. When populations faced atrocities by their own governments, international intervention became possible. The no-fly zone concept would be extended to southern Iraq (Operation Southern Watch) and would persist for over a decade.

From Saddam's perspective, the operation represented a humiliation. Large areas of his country were no-fly zones where he could not project power. Kurdish and Shiite areas remained out of his full control. The political consequence was that Saddam was weakened internally while claiming international defiance.

Operation Provide Comfort was one of the first post-Cold War humanitarian interventions. It set a template for how international coalitions could respond to humanitarian crises. It also set a precedent that would be invoked in future conflicts when civilian populations faced atrocities.