NationStates Jolt Archive

Yep, this shocked me aswell.
A few days ago I was surfing the web when this caught my eyes " Iran not Iraq is responsible for the slaughter of Iraqi Kurds", so I decided to dig further and this is what I found.

The date that most historians say the Iraqi army sytematically gassed the Iraqi Kurds was in the year 1988 between January and August of that year. The UN Human Rights Commission state that atleast 50,000 people were killed. Some among the UN and in the U.S claim that what happened was nothing short of a GENOCIDE. Okay, here is where it gets intresting.

The only recorded evidence of actual gassing occured on the 16 of May 1988 in the village of Halajba near the Iranian border.
Now in the year 1988 the Iraq/Iran war was at its final stages, that however did not mean that fighting wasn't fierce, and on the 15 of May 1988 Iranian forces captured Halajba and overran the Iraqi garrison positioned there.
Lets recap; The population of Halajba was exterminated on May 16, The Iranian army captures the village on May 15 a day earlier.
For the rest of my argument I'm going to let you read what a former member of the CIA and a professor at the Army War College had to say about the issue.
From http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html

A War Crime or an Act of War?
By STEPHEN C. PELLETIERE

ECHANICSBURG, 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."

Please not that the article was written before the war started.

Resources:
The US Army War College Report
www.whatreallyhappened.com

I personally don't have any love for Saddam Hussein. However,Iraq is not better now that Saddam is removed and if the whole "he gassed his own people" thing is a fake then the Bush administration has a lot to answer for :rolleyes: .
Thank you for your time.

I had never heard that before. I'm not going to comment on it before I check it out myself.

Interesting.

Sorry, but as a former soldier who was in Iraq the last time the US was there, every time I see this stuff trotted out I laugh, then cry. This is because claims that Saddam used gas on his own people during the uprising after the first gulf war have been "discredited" by people who for some reason want to make Saddam look less like the villian he is. They they all go back to the 1988 gassing and say it was Iran, not Iraq, and ignore everything else by saying all those "stories" are based on the 88 attack and people are confused.

I walked through more than one small village in northern Iraq in the spring of 1991, never knowing the names of the dead towns I visited. And I saw bodies of people killed by gas attacks; and just plain shelled to death, or shot, or what have you. Some were rebels, most likely, most were just poor people living a meager life who got killed because of where they were born.

Keep all your "proof" and documentation. I'll believe what I saw with my own eyes. I just wish someone in my unit had owned a camera and taken pictures. Because every time someone tells me I didn't see it and demands proof I cry for humanity.

And it is your opinion that Iraq is worse off now than under Saddam. Fortunately, your opinion is moot because the man is gone.

if saddham kills innocents, its a sad sight and he should die, if we end up killing innocents by omething like ..shooting missiles into a building downtown, its their own fault

its not that either is excusable, or the former excusable because of the latter, its that i get tired of the moral highground shit employed or ludicrous logical fallacies used

Sorry, but as a former soldier who was in Iraq the last time the US was there, every time I see this stuff trotted out I laugh, then cry. This is because claims that Saddam used gas on his own people during the uprising after the first gulf war have been "discredited" by people who for some reason want to make Saddam look less like the villian he is. They they all go back to the 1988 gassing and say it was Iran, not Iraq, and ignore everything else by saying all those "stories" are based on the 88 attack and people are confused.

I walked through more than one small village in northern Iraq in the spring of 1991, never knowing the names of the dead towns I visited. And I saw bodies of people killed by gas attacks; and just plain shelled to death, or shot, or what have you. Some were rebels, most likely, most were just poor people living a meager life who got killed because of where they were born.

Keep all your "proof" and documentation. I'll believe what I saw with my own eyes. I just wish someone in my unit had owned a camera and taken pictures. Because every time someone tells me I didn't see it and demands proof I cry for humanity.

And it is your opinion that Iraq is worse off now than under Saddam. Fortunately, your opinion is moot because the man is gone.

No one is denying that those villages were gassed, nor that saddam was evil. The thing is, in this particular point, is it not possible that we are mostly mistaken, and that some of the villages were actually attacked by Iran?

I wouldn't believe everything you read on just any web site. I think most of this information is either crap written by people who think they know everything or greatly exagerated information that is written to prove a political point. I trust the opinions of people like Fahrsburg who actualy have been to Iraq and seen the results of gassing these people. How much Iran is responsible for gassing Kurds we will probably never really know. I despise the way politics has tainted our information of the truth.

by the way Chess Squares, I think you're stupid for thinking it's not ok for Saddam to kill inocents and it's ok for the U.S. to.

That war was very chaotic and both armies used massive amounts of chemical weapons. It's still not clear if it was the Iranians or the Iraqis who are responsible for Haquba. It's also not clear whether that was the intended target or "collateral damage".

So what the USA should now invade Iran based on some flimsy evidence? What the hell they're on a roll!

I wouldn't believe everything you read on just any web site. I think most of this information is either crap written by people who think they know everything or greatly exagerated information that is written to prove a political point. I trust the opinions of people like Fahrsburg who actualy have been to Iraq and seen the results of gassing these people. How much Iran is responsible for gassing Kurds we will probably never really know. I despise the way politics has tainted our information of the truth.

by the way Chess Squares, I think you're stupid for thinking it's not ok for Saddam to kill inocents and it's ok for the U.S. to.

First off, to address Fahrsburg, this guy isn't trying to exhonorate Saddam Hussein, he is trying to inform. Also I didn't even think we sent troops into Iraq in the first Gulf War.

Second off, for FT, what does Fahrsburg actually know about the devastation he saw there? I an positive he is telling the truth about what he saw, but who holds more water, one soldier, or the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq?

Second off, for FT, what does Fahrsburg actually know about the devastation he saw there? I an positive he is telling the truth about what he saw, but who holds more water, one soldier, or the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq?
That's actually an interesting question. At first glance one would say CIA boy. However, there are several things to consider. Firstly, he wasn't one of the CIA field agents gathering the info. This means he has no firsthand experience. Secondly he's senior, which means high in the food chain. The problem with being high in the food chain is that reports are to varying extents whitewashed by the time they make it to your desk. Lastly he's a political analyst. Given the job description http://www.cia.gov/employment/jobs/political_analyst.html whether or not he even had access to all the info on the subject is highly questionable.

sounds plausible

The aircraft used in the attack were MiGs and Mirages. A number of eyewitnesses attest to this. Iran had neither at the time, but Saddam certainly did.

On March 15, 1988, Halabja fell to the Kurdish peshmerga fighters of Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which was supported by Iranian revolutionary guards. The next morning, Iraqi MiG and Mirage jets dropped bombs that engulfed the town in a sickly stench. In the space of a few hours, 5,000 people had died.

The attack was ordered by Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam who was later dubbed "Chemical Ali" by opponents.

http://www.govsux.com/many_iraq_arabs_unaware.htm

Iran used chemical weapons late in the war, but never as extensively or successfully as Iraq. The success of Iraqi offensive operations in the southern sector in mid-1988 ultimately caused the Iranians to cease hostilities. The use of chemical weapons contributed to the success of these operations.

The first chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein against civilian populations included attacks launched by Iraqi aircraft against 20 small villages in 1987.

Saddam Hussein's forces reportedly killed hundreds of Iraqi Kurds with chemical agents in the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988. The poison gas attack on Halabja was the largest-scale chemical weapons (CW) attack against a civilian population in modern times. Halabja had a population of about 80,000 people who was predominantly Kurdish and had sympathised with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Troops from the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) entered Halabja on 15th March 1988, accompanied by Iranian revolutionary guards. The Iraqi CW attack began early in the evening of March 16th, when a group of eight aircraft began dropping chemical bombs; the chemical bombardment continued all night. The Halabja attack involved multiple chemical agents -- including mustard gas, and the nerve agents SARIN, TABUN and VX. Some sources report that cyanide was also used.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/program.htm

http://www.krg.org/docs/articles/anfal-campaign.asp

http://home.cogeco.ca/~kurdistanobserver/10-7-02-enduring-pain-halabja.html

http://www.kurdistan.ws/olga1.html

Likewise it would seem that these attacks were aided, in part, by Soviet advisors, who were using the exact same techniques in Afghanistan and are suspected in the gassing of Cambodians by the Vietnamese as well. This would make sense, as the Soviet Union at the time was second to none in the deployment of chemical weapons, both on the battlefield and against civilians. No one else had their expertise or hands-on experience.

THere is no definitive proof of this, however.

Well, as Chemical weapons have been a deep interest of mine for many years, I remember reading quite alot about the Iran-Iraq war. I have always understood that it was just that, unlucky civillians who got caught up in the fighting. The Iranian's had the town, and the Iraqi's wanted it back. That is war, civillians always die. Saying that Iraq used chemical weapons on it's own people when enemy troops occupied the town is about as strong as saying American troops attacked European civillians in WW2 when they fought the Germans in towns to capture them, and civillians died. Both are true, and both are false.
Civillians die in war, this will never change, and all armies have killed countless civillians in their fighting.
Saddam has about as much to answer to a court as any US president. This is fact, every leader commits attrocities, and every leader does stuff against "human rights", just some get away with it.
This does not make it excusable, and does not give them a right to do it, it merely means that instead of blaming one, look at the whole, and blame the whole.

As for Iraqi use of Mustard Gas at that time, or before/durring/after the first Gulf War, I highly doubt it was used in even remotely large quantities. Mustard Gas stays in an area for a week or two, and any thing trying to live in that area durring that time will die. As well, Mustard Gas is highly corrosive, up until 1988 there was no material that could protect against it, so no gas mask or NBC suit was able to stand against it, and I doubt the US had these NBC protection upgrades fully in place even by 1993. Mustard gas is nasty nasty stuff, and I don't think people should be so hasty to jump to saying it was used in alot of cases. Same with VX. VX will stay in an area for weeks, it's use is equivilant to a nuclear bomb, you effectivly ruin an area for a long time if you saturate if with the stuff, like the Iraqi's are supposed to have done.
Although Sarin, Tabun, Bromied, and Phosphogene were all probably used extensivly in all accounts of gas attacks.
None of these chemicals are nice, but they do range quite severly in their effects on the people, and area used, and some of them are just not likely to be used. I have both talked to people who have been exposed to such stuff, including one vetran of the Battle of the Somme durring the Great War, and I myself have had the displeasure of firsthand experiance with some of these chemicals.

Sorry about the rant, I just get a bit annoyed when people start throwing stuff around about chemical weapons, with little or no knowladge of them.
I am also well aware that the armed forces in many countries practise NBC protection training, and that they are exposed to gas, but bare and masked, but the gas used are 2 forms of common tear gas, and are nowhere near what these other agents do.