Saddam Gassed His Own People

“A War Crime or an Act of War?

By STEPHEN C. PELLETIERE

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. — It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."

The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent — that is, a cyanide-based gas — which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its war against Iran.

I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.


In fact, those who really feel that the disaster at Halabja has bearing on today might want to consider a different question: Why was Iran so keen on taking the town? A closer look may shed light on America's impetus to invade Iraq.

We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a granary for the region.

Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990's there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that could change.

Thus America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades — not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water. Even if America didn't occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.

All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting, one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in its present debilitated condition — thanks to United Nations sanctions — Iraq's conventional forces threaten no one.

Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.

Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

Stephen C. Pelletiere is author of "Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf."

Source:NY Times Op-Ed”

“I'd like to see his sources on the information he says are in the public domain, but other than that, he's framing the facts well.

I'm still waiting for the magic evidence we're supposed to see this week linking Iraq and al-qaeda.”

“U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 30, 2002; Page A01


High on the Bush administration's list of justifications for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally.

Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.

The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait -- which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors -- is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Throughout the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq was the sworn enemy of Iran, then still in the throes of an Islamic revolution. U.S. officials saw Baghdad as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan -- a Middle East version of the "domino theory" in Southeast Asia. That was enough to turn Hussein into a strategic partner and for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad to routinely refer to Iraqi forces as "the good guys," in contrast to the Iranians, who were depicted as "the bad guys."

A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.

Opinions differ among Middle East experts and former government officials about the pre-Iraqi tilt, and whether Washington could have done more to stop the flow to Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass destruction.

"It was a horrible mistake then, but we have got it right now," says Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA military analyst and author of "The Threatening Storm," which makes the case for war with Iraq. "My fellow [CIA] analysts and I were warning at the time that Hussein was a very nasty character. We were constantly fighting the State Department."”

“would we even be having this discussion if not for 9/11? i dont think so. altho im not so cynical as to say its about oil, so far the case against war seems much stronger than the case for war.”

“Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.

Violin, this seems pretty pathetic. So the Iraqis were trying to kill the Iranians with NO CONSIDERSATION WHATSOEVER for the indigenous Kurdish population. The Iraqis were trying to kill the Iranians. In your mind that earns the Iraqis a pass in the matter? Sure, gas the cr@p out of the Kurds if it means killing some Iranian Army regulars? Then is it okay for the U.S. to brutalize Baghdad in hopes of breaking the Iraqi Republican Guard despite the loss in civilian Iraqi life?

Surely this is not your perspective.”

“Your article is propaganda.”

“I would like to hear something that isn't.I'm not holding my breath!”

“sigh....



poor saddam is so misunderstood...”

“the point violins article is trying to make is the bush administration (and im not being anti-bush here, i wouldnt put it past a democratic administration to behave thusly) is distorting the truth in order to gain support for war. no, the iraqis do not get a free pass, but civilian kurds getting caught in the cross-fire is much, much less reprehensible than deliberately attacking them. reading comprehension 101. now, i was only 18 at the time and was more interested in getting laid than in world affairs, but i dont remember us getting up in arms about it then. bush is trying to validate his presidency. he was on shaky ground with the public and he knew it, until 9/11. now with the war on terror, the war on iraq, and the war on korea, and the war on (fill in the blank), hes onto something. going for the prize of greatest war president of all time! he struck out on the war on terror, but that wasnt his kind of war. durn towelheads ur just too durn sneaky. but a big, brute of a war where the enemy is known and sits still while you hit em, well thats a winnable war, by golly. ole bushy can go 2 for 3, and 2 outta 3 aint bad.”

“That is worth 3scoops.”

“of course, thats just my opinion, i could be wrong.”

“or maybe he knows something that us loosers on a stupid message board have no comprehension of.

i'll say this, if he's doing all this for a legacy, he's a pile of crap. i just don't think he's that kindof guy. 73% of americans agree with me according to the poles they did after his state of the union adress....”

“Even if HE gased the people in the village, they weren't his people, they were Kurds.

Saddam has never thought of Kurds as his people. They belong to a different tribe.



I'm sorry, i'm just thinking out of the box.”

“if 73 percent of americans jumped off a bridge, would you?”

“by all acounts the kurds hate him and he hates the kurds...”

“"or maybe he knows something that us loosers on a stupid message board have no comprehension of."

correct. and so does pelletiere. and his argument is more convincing to me.”

“how many number one albums did britney spears and the backstreet boys have? and did you go run out and buy one when 73 percent of the record buying public made you ill with their inane taste in music? the popular opinion isnt always the correct opinion. reality shows are all the rage now. doesnt mean theyre quality”

“pelletiere? the french dood? they have deals with iraq. if ther's a regime change, all deals are off. it's all about money.


you make a good point but it's apples/oranges. we're not talkin bout teenybopper music, it's national security. bush was elected to protect us. i believe he takes that burden very seriously and i'm glad.”

“pelletiere? the french dood? they have deals with iraq. if ther's a regime change, all deals are off. it's all about money.


Aren't you the one always complaining that one reads or understands things you post?

Turn some of that on yourself. Pelletiere is the guy who wrote the article at the beginning of this thread.

Did you read it, or just skip down here to the "Call people liberal and be dismissive" portion of the argument?”

“i read the article, ,just didn't care to memorize the author's name because i don't doupt the authenticity of the article.



and i don't recall calling anyone anything.




but now that you mention it....a french reporter ...doing a piece supporting france's position.....and francee being the ones left out in the cold if saddam bites it....hmm....thanks for the clarification phaed, it's all perfectly clear now...”

“Strat, Read the article.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair.


Read... The... Article.


Don't just come into a thread and post your canned opinion. Read and understand what's being discussed first.”

“yeah but he got a french name don't he?

HA! I WIN!


ok, ok...i'll read it again....


there, happy?



personally, this(hussein using mustard gas) to me is not a reason to attack iraq. it only shows his willingness to use it, never mind who he used it on. hans blix' report the other day was repleat with valid reasons and is all the proof i need to be convinced that he is a threat. blix is neutrral and if annyhthing tried(in vain) to candycoat the report. i would believe this if al gore was president or anybody else. not everything's canned phaed, it's really my real opinion. don't hate me for voting republican.....”

“Vote whatever you want. Vote for Britney Spears for all I care. Just try to stay on topic.

Would you disagree that more than half of Bush's state of the union speech was devoted to convincing the American public that it is time to go to war?

That is the issue that was addressed in the article, which is what started this thread.”

“britanny's running!!?!?!? OH MY!


no, how could i disagree with that? you'll call it propaganda but you could look at it as an attempt to calm your fears and answer all the questions you have been asking. i thought he made a very convincing argument. i came to that conclusion all by myself, after listening to his adress and thinking about it and discussing it with buffalobabe. but like i said, i think the more recent past is a better barometer of his intentions. powell will set it straight this week.”

“By the way, I'm pretty sure libya is as much of a threat right now. Why aren't we attacking them?

Then there's north Korea, China, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi arabia, Iran, Ukraine, and our ongoing war in Afghanistan to worry about.

I figure we'll get this whole anti-Democratic capitalist thing stamped out in no time.”

“i thought we were staying on topic?”

“Yep, powell is supposed to give us "evidence" this week. So We'll see. I'm wondering, if this evidence was gathered when we started this whole noise, how come we didn't share with the rest of the free world?

We're just fighting for freedon, human rights and democracy after all!

Pfft.

I'll believe it when they show me the evidence. Until then, the simplest answer is not that saddam is being called to task for UN inspection violations.”

“Until then, the simplest answer is not that saddam is being called to task for UN inspection violations



uhhmm....huh? you doupt blix' report? or you think that it did not contain violations worht of military action?



to answer you question...
they have stated many times that they have intelligence (that means spys) that puts hussein in bed with alqueda. they canot reveal the source or the source will be eliminated. if you compromise your spys by telling the whole world what that spy has seen, they will kill the spy because it's very easy to figure out who the spy is by what the intell is. see? were the good guys phaed, relax...”

“Listen, strat, since we are the good guys, we have a resposibility to prove our intent where there is doubt.

It sure would be easy to say we have intelligence that proves a duck is actually a hippo. Doesn't change a thing though. I have doubts and don't trust people in power to police themselves.

I want proof.

By the way, if we attacked every country that didn't act in accordance with UN resolutions, we would have had to attack ourselves many times over.”

“ok but i don't believe the resolutions 'against' us don't call for our disarming. by your argument, nothing he says will convince you. your mind is made up that he is deceiving you. you would have to be in bagdad and in the inner circle of hussein to know the proof. that's not possible.


i think that you will get your proof but even if you don't , bush in comannder in cheif and he doesn't need your approval or mine. voting him out is your only option. and if public opinion doesn't matter(talkin to 2scoops now), then why do you try so hard to persuade people?”

“Don't kid yourself, Strat. Karl Rove has people running polls the same as any political operative at that level. If they don't have the numbers, they won't invade Iraq (and whoever may be in office, the president always gets a small bump out of the State of the Union, albeit short-lived). He's got the numbers so far... and the hospital ships have sailed for the Gulf...

I feel like waxing nostalgic about Ye Olde Domino Theory, but I shall abstain for the time being... <G>


But What's This?? "pro-Iraqi tilt"???? Them's Fightin' Words! Where's that Michael Dobbs? Lemme at 'im!”

“Musta been the chili...”

“We don't need no Smallpox vaccinations --- we need Bean-o!”

“civilian kurds getting caught in the cross-fire is much, much less reprehensible than deliberately attacking them. reading comprehension 101.

I understood the argument he was making. His whole argument hinges on this one point, and to me it is invalid on the face of it. Using poison gas is reprehensible in the first place. Using poison gas without regard to civilian life is even worse. The Kurds weren't his target or his "tribe"? Who cares! That changes nothing. It's a weak argument.”

“I feel like waxing nostalgic about Ye Olde Domino Theory, but I shall abstain for the time being

I, for one, would like to hear your perspective on the domino theory. It's being revived again for the Middle East. It was a costly fallacy for us back in SE Asia. Is it fallacy now in the ME?”

“Well before I give my opinion on the topic let me say that saddam is nothing but a petty ruthless dictator and little better then hitler.

However, To date it has never been shown that Iraq has ever had any weapon that was actually capable of being used on US soil. Furthermore while I may suspect that the Iraqi goverment may have financed the NY attack there has never been any publicly availible proof nor has any unbiased party examined such evidence and publicly vouched for its existance.

It is one thing to hunt down and destroy organisations which have committed terrorist acts and are clearly a threat to the safety of US citizens BUT, It is a entirely different matter to wage war against an almost helpless opponent which has not been shown to have taken an active part in any overt act of war against the US. Iraq may be our enemy but that does not give us the right to act like a schoolyard bully simply because we disagree over his practices and politics.

To paraphrase Shakespeare a bit: War is a serious matter and if these men do not die for a good cause then it is a black matter for our nation.

Unless of course you wish the US to become the worlds policemen in which case we should skip the small fry and deal with a real threat like china which has a long record of abuses , hostility and posseses weapons of mass destruction that could if fact reach us.

If evidence that Iraq knowingly supplied any assistance to the 9/11 attack or that Iraq actually possesed a weapon of mass destruction with the means to deliver it to US soil, I would not only support a war with the Iraqi's but would advocate a scorched-earth policy for conducting such a war.

Consider the matter from a different angle. If you knew someone hated you would you attack or kill them for that reason alone? Would you kill them simply for making threats?
What if this same person held a gun to your head and then threatened to kill you? Assualted a family member?
If you did decide this person was a threat would you take what ever action was needed to protect your self and family for just one day or would you eliminate the threat forever...

President Bush needs to publicly present evidence that Iraq is a credible threat to us and if he does so, then congress should declare war outright and let the bombing begin. Otherwise all I have heard sounds like war-monging and politics are never an acceptable reason to go to war.”

“The Domino Theory seems to have borne fruit for only one domino. Cambodia became one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century with the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, but war on the ground in eastern Cambodia directly contributed to that, IMO.”

“we should skip the small fry and deal with a real threat like china

I agree - China is the real long-term threat. However, assuming total victory for the U.S., we would be in fact dealing with China. China desperately needs new sources of oil for its industry. We already know that China has been trying to curry favor with Iran and Iraq by selling them WMD components. By controlling Iraqi oil and by having military force in Iraq, Chinese influence in the region will wane, and they'll be forced to deal with the U.S. - directly or indirectly - for Mid-East oil.”

“The Domino Theory seems to have borne fruit for only one domino.

Yes, so you're saying a Mid-East Domino theory is a non-starter or what?”

“"Reply Hazy. Ask Again Later." LOL

If Bush can sustain the momentum and we go in, I think we're there for a WHILE... If we leave too soon, the risks escalate rapidly.

Short-term, I think not, unless things go horribly wrong in Baghdad. Long-term... ?? How would developments in Iraq influence the local monarchies... and that one particular theocracy? (I wonder what they're thinking in Tehran)

Tom Friedman has commented that we must police Baghdad for some time or the backlash against the current junta will result in bodies hanging from lightpoles. Also, I believe the Sunni have ruled Iraq for a number of generations while they only comprise ~15% of the population. That fact, coupled with the Kurds in the north and #&%!$es in the south don't make for a cohesive atmosphere, and Turkey definitely doesn't want the Kurds on both sides of its border thinking about gaining their own state!

It's a powderkeg-type situation George H.W. Bush sidestepped by pulling out then leaving those who rebelled to Saddam's wrath. The only way to clean house and not set off the powderkeg is to engage in a large experiment in something we would rather avoid: nation-building.

How will the artificial borders drawn by the Brits some 80(?) years ago hold up? <G>”

“and if public opinion doesn't matter(talkin to 2scoops now), then why do you try so hard to persuade people?"

i dunno. i was an english major in college and had to write alot of persuasive papers. old habits die hard, i guess.”

“i didnt hear you complain when i took your side on the abortion issue.”

“I wonder if Violin was concerned about civilian deaths when Clinton bombed Iraq?

If Saddam is such a scapegoat for U.S. occupation of Iraqi oil fields maybe he can live with Violin after we invade.”

“there you go, when all else fails, resort to liberal bashing. that always makes for a convincing argument.”

“i didn't see him call bash any liberals....well ceept fot violin...lolz...

just makin a point 2scoops. and i can't help myself either.


ok, DOM...so iraq never did nothing to us....here's an analogy for ya..


the germans never attacked us, it was the japanese at pearl harbor...so we have no right to fight the germans in eurpoe, only the japanese in the south pacific.

kinda weak, dontcha think?



HE SHOOTS HE SCORES! ! !”

“Violin, this seems pretty pathetic. So the Iraqis were trying to kill the Iranians with NO CONSIDERSATION WHATSOEVER for the indigenous Kurdish population. The Iraqis were trying to kill the Iranians. In your mind that earns the Iraqis a pass in the matter? Sure, gas the cr@p out of the Kurds if it means killing some Iranian Army regulars? Then is it okay for the U.S. to brutalize Baghdad in hopes of breaking the Iraqi Republican Guard despite the loss in civilian Iraqi life?

Surely this is not your perspective.


Hardly.

I found this apparently very credible source’s insight into an oft repeated claim that is being used as a reason to invade Iraq interesting.

What about the water issue he brought up? That’s the first I’d heard on that angle and it’s a little bizarre from my perspective.

Surely the administration has good reasons for expending so much energy on this one issue. I just wish they’d share it with us instead of treating us like idiots who can’t comprehend such things and don’t really deserve an explanation.”

“Good point, stratdewd!”

“I didn't read all the posts above, but for what it is worth I work with a Kurd who is part of the anti-Saddam Hussein resistance movement here in the US. He and his brother are active in the movement and I have seen his brother quoted in major newspaper articles. My friend has told me about attrocities committed by Saddam to his own countrymen, not just Kurds. He also said that Saddam has committed about 4 times more attrocities than the general public even thinks they know about.

You can process that information any way you want. Just tossing it into the fire.”

“so what you're saying violin is....uhhmm....violin should be notified of all military action because he is so smart and everybody else is so stoooooopid...


so if iraq will only gas enemies, and not civilians....hmm....we're enemies...so that makes him a threat”

“i heard on tv just now...that the hewyork times did a recent article accusing hussein of 200,000 deaths of civilians....


this is no mickey mouse club....”