Gassing of Kurds

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A War Crime or an Act of War?
By Stephen C. Pelletiere The New York Times, Jan. 31, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html

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."

Memo on the Margin

In Defense of Saddam Hussein
http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/12-14-00.html
December 14, 2000

To: Barbara Crossette, New York Times
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: The Gassing of Iraq’s Kurds

We may have had this discussion before, Barbara, but perhaps not, so I’ll do it now. You report in your article ( "Iraq Is Forcing Kurds From Their Homes, the U.N. Reports", 12-11-00) that "[i]n 1987 and 1988, 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds were gassed to death with chemical agent by Mr. [Saddam] Hussein’s government." You attribute the claim to "American officials" but provide no further details. I’m fairly certain the claim that Saddam Hussein used chemical warfare against Iraqi Kurds was part of the demonization campaign against Iraq in preparation for the war against that country by the U.S. and its allies. What a monster! If he would slaughter his own people, he must be some kind of bad guy.

Let’s go back to 1988, when the patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party had united and had joined in Iran’s war efforts against Iraq. Iraq was accused by Teheran of using mustard gas and cyanide against the Kurds in the Halabjeh region, but even the Iranians put the number of casualties at 3,000 to 5,000 -- never at the figures you cite. Although both Iran and Iraq had engaged in chemical warfare during their conflict, the deaths of civilians in Halabjeh provoked condemnation from throughout the world. Iraq denied the charges, but the campaign to attribute the atrocities to Iraq was already in full swing. Consequently, the disclosure by U.S. officials that Iran also had used chemical weapons at Halabjeh received little circulation in the media. This, despite the fact that the case against Iran, in fact, was very strong. For example, in reviewing classified information, U.S. analysts determined that the Kurds had been killed by cyanide, and that only the Iranians possessed cyanide gas at the time.

Not only was the evidence weak against Iraq and strong that Iran had carried out the chemical warfare attacks in Halabjeh, but subsequent charges that Iraq was carrying out further gas attacks on the Kurds were found to be without evidence. Turkish doctors treating ailing Kurds could not verify the use of poison gas on them, and the U.S. Army War College study in early 1990 also found it impossible to determine if gas had been used by the Iraqis in further attacks.

In the Spring of 1988, an anti-Iraq campaign was heating up, with various officials resurrecting the allegation that Saddam Hussein had gassed his own people. I am concerned such a campaign may be underway again, now that the U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iraq are beginning to break down. As a respected journalist, I think you have an obligation to provide the evidence to back up allegations such as the claim that 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein. Check as much as you wish, but you will find no evidence for that charge. I enclose here memos I sent to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms in which I pointed out how recklessly U.S. policy toward Baghdad was being manipulated by the circulation of such charges. Please do some digging, lest you become a mere instrument of those in pursuit of a new offensive against Iraq.

* * * * *

November 18, 1998

Did Saddam Hussein Gas His Own People?

Memo To: Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Iraqi use of Poison Gas

On the Jim Lehrer News Hour Monday night, you repeated the assertion that Saddam Hussein "gassed his own people." As the President’s National Security Advisor, I had assumed you of all people would not make such assertions without having supporting evidence. Early this year, on the supposition that the Iraqi situation would blow up again, I made serious inquiries about this charge. On April 7, I sent the following memo to Chairman Jesse Helms of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If you have better information, Mr. Berger, I hope you can supply it, as this is the most serious of all charges made against Saddam Hussein. The Iraqis readily acknowledge using chemical weapons against Iran a few times late in the war, but using such weapons in wartime is not nearly as serious as "gassing his own people."

* * * * *

To Senator Helms:

I continue to make inquiry into the situation in Iraq, as it is likely to brew up into another crisis one of these days when the United Nations has no choice but to conclude that Iraq is not hiding any weapons of mass destruction -- or if they are, they are so well hidden that nobody is going to find them. As you know, I’m sure, the warhawks in the United States will continue to insist that the embargo remain in place no matter what, and there will be assertions from around the world that we have not been acting in good faith. As you also know, I believe there are serious questions regarding our behavior toward Iraq that go back further. You would agree, I think, that at the very least our State Department gave a "green light" to Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait in August 1990. The more I read of the events of the period, the more I believe history will record that the Gulf War was unnecessary, perhaps even that Saddam Hussein was willing to retreat back to his borders, but our government decided we preferred the war to the status quo ante.

In my previous correspondence with you on this matter, I had been in a quandary about the state of our relations with Baghdad during that critical period. In the months immediately preceding the "green light" given by our Ambassador, April Glaspie, a number of your Senate colleagues including Bob Dole had traveled to Baghdad, met with Saddam, and found him to be a head of state worthy of support. Even Sen. Howard Metzenbaum [D-OH], a Jewish liberal and staunch supporter of Israel, gave him a seal of approval. What disturbs me even now, Jesse, is that these meetings occurred after the Senate Foreign Relations committee had accused Iraq of using poison gas against its own people, i.e., the Kurds. Like all other Americans, in recent years I had assumed that what I read in the papers was true about Iraq gassing its own people. Once the war drums again began beating last November, I decided to read up on the history, and found Iraq denied having used gas against its own people. Furthermore, I heard that a Pentagon investigation at the time had also turned up no hard evidence of Saddam gassing his own people.

1.4 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of sanctions

This is serious stuff, because the United Nations tells us that 1.4 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the sanctions, which is three thousand times more than the number of Kurds who supposedly died of gassing at the hands of Saddam. Many of my old Cold Warrior friends practically DEMAND that we not lift the sanctions because if Saddam would gas his own people, he would gas anyone. Now I have come across the 1990 Pentagon report, published just prior to the invasion of Kuwait. Its authors are Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II, and Leif R. Rosenberger, of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The report is 93 pages, but I append here only the passages having to do with the aforementioned issue:

Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East
Excerpt, Chapter 5
U.S. SECURITY AND IRAQI POWER

Introduction. 
Throughout the war the United States practiced a fairly benign policy toward Iraq. Although initially disapproving of the invasion, Washington came slowly over to the side of Baghdad. Both wanted to restore the status quo ante to the Gulf and to re-establish the relative harmony that prevailed there before Khomeini began threatening the regional balance of power. Khomenini’s revolutionary appeal was anathema to both Baghdad and Washington; hence they wanted to get rid of him.

United by a common interest, Iraq and the United States restored diplomatic relations in 1984, and the United States began to actively assist Iraq in ending the fighting. It mounted Operation Staunch, an attempt to stem the flow of arms to Iran. It also increased its purchases of Iraqi oil while cutting back on Iranian oil purchases, and it urged its allies to do likewise. All this had the effect of repairing relations between the two countries, which had been at a very low ebb.

In September 1988, however -- a month after the war had ended -- the State Department abruptly, and in what many viewed as a sensational manner, condemned Iraq for allegedly using chemicals against its Kurdish population. The incident cannot be understood without some background of Iraq’s relations with the Kurds. It is beyond the scope of this study to go deeply into this matter; suffice it to say that throughout the war Iraq effectively faced two enemies -- Iran and the elements of its own Kurdish minority. Significant numbers of the Kurds had launched a revolt against Baghdad and in the process teamed up with Tehran. As soon as the war with Iran ended, Iraq announced its determination to crush the Kurdish insurrection. It sent Republican Guards to the Kurdish area, and in the course of this operation -- according to the U.S. State Department -- gas was used, with the result that numerous Kurdish civilians were killed. The Iraqi government denied that any such gassing had occurred. Nonetheless, Secretary of State Schultz stood by U.S. accusations, and the U.S. Congress, acting on its own, sought to impose economic sanctions on Baghdad as a violator of the Kurds’ human rights.

Having looked at all of the evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the State Department’s claim that gas was used in this instance. To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds -- in Turkey where they had gone for asylum -- failed to discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

We would have expected, in a matter as serious as this, that the Congress would have exercised some care. However, passage of the sanctions measure through the Congress was unusually swift -- at least in the Senate where a unanimous vote was secured within 24 hours. Further, the proposed sanctions were quite draconian (and will be discussed in detail below). Fortunately for the future of Iraqi-U.S. ties, the sanctions measure failed to pass on a bureaucratic technicality (it was attached as a rider to a bill that died before adjournment).

It appears that in seeking to punish Iraq, the Congress was influenced by another incident that occurred five months earlier in another Iraqi-Kurdish city, Halabjah. In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.

Thus, in our view, the Congress acted more on the basis of emotionalism than factual information, and without sufficient thought for the adverse diplomatic effects of its action. As a result of the outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq is now the most powerful state in the Persian Gulf, an area in which we have vital interests. To maintain an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Gulf to the West, we need to develop good working relations with all of the Gulf states, and particularly with Iraq, the strongest.

* * * * *

I wonder, Senator, had you ever read this material? The entire report is worth reading, as a matter of fact, because of its credibility on the threshold of the Iraqi invasion. The authors are quite emphatic, by the way, in stating that Iraq was struggling for its financial survival at this point -- because of its debts from the Iranian war, and the decline of the world oil price. That is, they did not believe Iraq would have expansionist designs in the Middle East for years to come, given how financially flattened they had been.

It does seem to me that if Congress did act more on the basis of emotionalism than factual information, it may have contributed substantially to the economic distress of our ally in the war with Iran. That is, by squeezing Saddam with sanctions that included a cutoff of IMF assistance, it thrust Saddam into the confrontation he had with the Emir of Kuwait over oil fields and better port access to the Gulf that the Iraqis claimed going back to World War I.

The more I pull on this piece of string, the more I believe you should commit resources of the Foreign Relations Committee to a review of this history. In this period, the Democrats did have control of Congress and another senator chaired Foreign Relations. It could be that a different viewpoint at a distance of time would enable even slight adjustments of policy. It is now a season where everyone is asking for apologies of events that occurred generations ago, even hundreds of years ago. We should deal today with those issues which could grow tomorrow into embarrassments for which our grandchildren will have to apologize. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to keep you informed as I collect this Iraqi ball of string.

...In 1997, I had come upon a 1991 report of the Army War College at Carlyle, Pa., that had come to completely different conclusions. Its author, Dr. Stephen Pelletiere, had headed a team that pulled together all the specialists of the US intelligence agencies to study the Iran/Iraq war, to study how Iraq had defeated a country three times its size. The report touched on the Halabja deaths, saying that "hundreds" of civilians had died, with indicatio! ns they were killed by a cyanide gas known to be used by the Iranian army, not possessed by Iraq. It said nothing about the "disappearance" of 10,000 Iraqi Kurds. Pelletiere had been the CIA’s senior analyst in covering the eight-year Iran/Iraq war. When I tracked him down a year ago, living in retirement near the War College, he insisted nothing had happened in the dozen years since to change his mind. There was no genocide, he told me, and said the story about the 100,000 deaths was a hoax, a non-event, propagated by Human Rights Watch. He said he had discussed his differences with Joost Hilterman, arguing the "victims" had never been found, nor had any mass graves been located. I called Hiltermann at HRW for a discussion of his differences with Pelletiere, which led to an exchange of e-mails over a period of weeks. Here is the last contact I had with him, a long e-mail from me asking questions, and his lengthy response. I’ve merged the two letters so they can be read sea! mlessly. There are of course no follow-up questions in this ex! change, but I think the exchange speaks for itself, and why I could easily conclude that Human Rights Watch had made an enormous blunder in propagating the genocide story and now will say anything to insist it was right all along...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25997

If Saddam Hussein ever comes to trial, the charge of genocide will almost certainly be at the top of the list. If he has a decent lawyer, this is the one charge he is most likely to beat. I say that because I have more or less played "devil’s advocate" for Saddam and his regime since 1997, when I first met the late Nizar Hamdoon, then the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations. Those of you who have frequented this website know I have written extensively on the su! bject, having been persuaded by all the existing evidence that whatever else Saddam inflicted on Iraq, genocide was not one of them. If I believed he did, I could not have played "devil’s advocate," which was how I put it to Hamdoon...

Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25996

Bush and Cheney are misinformed - no evidence  of Chemical Weapons used against Kurds
http://supplysideinvestor.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=1920