Saddam may NOT have gassed the Kurds (yet another SOTU lie?)

Yet another justification for the Iraq war that appeared in the infamous State of the Union speech, given by Bush to justify the Iraq war, appears to be yet another claim of dubious veracity, according to a little-known report of the United States Defense Intelligence Agency. It may be a good time to revisit this earlier issue, that along with the Plame/Niger-gate falsehoods, clearly shows the pattern of disinformation employed by this administration to mislead us into war.

An excellent article on this topic, "A War Crime or an Act of War?", by Stephen C. Pelletiere, initially published in January of 2003 in the NYT, deserves another look.

Here is a link to the original NYT article (note: requires subscription or one-time payment): http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60816F...

And here is the author's later article on the same topic (a freebie):
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArti...

<snip>
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.

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.

I don't even know what to say.

this IS a must read. Wow. Talk about the final nail in the coffin.

It came out before the IWR vote, made a brief appearance and sank like a stone. Hopefully this will see a lot of light this time around in order that people realize just how they were completely lied to.

I can't believe I had never heard of this before. I was astounded to come across it, just by chance.

You haven't heard it because it's simply not true. The evidence that Saddam gassed the Kurds is overwhelming.

It was covered up by Reagan and Poppy Bush.

fingered as the guilty party? To justify his own war against him? Some of what you're saying doesn't seem to make perfect sense. The Pellitiere article was published much later, too. If it could be so easily disputed, wouldn't he have hesitated to publish the info, especially after the official attitude toward Saddam had changed so dramatically?

I must add that I am entirely new to this debate. I never even knew it existed until this morning. I would like to understand what this was all about.

Why would he want to embarrass himself, by writing that article in 2003, if he himself believed the material to be untrue, and with some other reports stating rather strongly the opposite? So, it appears to me it may not be a case of him lying. It would appear to me that he believed what he had written in the report, and according to some other things I've been reading, he DID go to Iraq to investigate. (I am going to keep searching, and post more info as I find it.) Can you see how I am looking at this?

The article was written in a time when Saddam was clearly seen as our enemy. What would be the motivation of Pellitiere in writing it?

who still maintain that Saddam had WMD's in 2003 and was cooperating with AQ.

it up again? Why rehash it, if it brought with it the likelihood of more public scrutiny, which would be more likely to expose the lie?

For me, this question has not been settled definitively at this point. The HRW info carries a lot of weight with me, but I can't see why Pellitiere would bring this up all over again, years later, with no apparent potential gain, if he was lying.

an investigation--he didn't analyze any evidence, interview any witnesses, anything like that.

He's a political analyst, and his report was part of a larger recommendation for the US to favor Saddam against Iran.

<snip>
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.

...and I did read that he had actually gone to Iraq, on a blog, however. Again, I'm continuing to try to sift through all this stuff to see what's what.

investigator.

He's about as qualified to lead that kind of investigation as a lawyer is to perform brain surgery.

again, according to a blog (info from other sources seems hard to come by):
http://www.pnews.org/PhpWiki/index.php/ChemicalAli
<snip>
It is a fact that Human Rights Watch, which has been promoting the genocide story for well over a decade, continues to insist its version of events is correct and the CIA is incorrect. Sadly, one of the reasons President Bush decided to war against Saddam was on these grounds. He had been told repeatedly by the warhawks in his administration that Saddam was another Hitler. A New Yorker article in 2002 by Jeffrey Goldberg totally ignored the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence agencies. If you would have someone check, you will find the CIA's most recent accounting is consistent with the Pelletiere report. It indicated "hundreds," not "5,000," died at Halabja, collateral damage in the clash of Iraqi and Iranian soldiers as the town of 40,000 twice changed hands in the closing months of the eight-year war.

Those are two very different questions, and most of the information you've provided so far deals with the former question of whether any attack in fact occurred (you and I agree on that), but not WHO was responsible. Evidence of the first does not answer the second question.

Again, there is no evidence that Iran ever had, let alone used, nerve agents against Iraq.

On the other hand, Iraq used nerve agents like tabun, sarin, and VX regularly.

I know and you know a chemical attack did happen; we've accepted the reports of the reputable sources who investigated and found that it did. That isn't the point of what I was saying.

So far though, you haven't shown one source that gets into proving that it was Saddam who did it. It appears that everyone just accepts that as an a priori assumption. If you are going to jump into a thread and shout, "bullshit" it seems it would be wise to provide some pretty incontrovertible proof.

Again, I have no way to know at this point what the truth of this is. I've only come to the debate this morning. There seem to be some points on your side, but not such strong points that anyone ought to be convinced without further study.

Edited to correct typo.

dropping the chemical munitions?

Did you miss the part where they disproved Pelletiere's main argument?

Let me explain some basic logic for you:

Pelletiere offers two premises in support of his conclusion.

Premise #1: Only Iran had/used blood agents
Premise #2: The people at Halabja died from a blood agent

Conclusion: It must have been Iran who gassed the people at Halabja.

The forensic reports disprove one of his premises. That destroys his argument.

There is no evidence, and no credible argument, that it was Iran.

or this Administration and you are to their rescue.

I think you are in the wrong forum.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/gas.htm
or
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/a_war_crime_or_an_act_of_war.htm

Whatever you believe to be true becomes the 'truth' upon which you base your reason and the justification for your actions.

<snip>
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?

"Saddam gassed the Kurds" surely is one of them, along with "My administration will end the politics of personal destruction" (even though we invented it, ha ha)

Another reference from way back when.......

"This claim of Iraq gassing its own citizens at Halabjah is suspect. First, both Iran and Iraq used chemical weapons against each other during their war. Second, at the termination of the Iran-Iraq war, professors Stephen Pelletiere and Leif Rosenberger, and Lt Colonel Douglas Johnson of the US Army War College (USAWC) undertook a study of the use of chemical weapons by Iran and Iraq in order to better understand battlefield chemical warfare. They concluded that it was Iran and not Iraq that killed the Kurds.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=22569589

Saddam was a client of theirs. They're fiction.

...against Hussein are therefore more credible? Remember, the legal standard is "reasonable doubt."

scientific and medical experts are more credible.

Reasonable minds do not disagree on this one.

At the time that he supposedly did it, Hussein's government was still in the good graces of the US government. The DoD used to go to great lengths to make him look good in the late 80's to avoid having Congress cut his aid. A number of the reports I've seen that seem to blame the gassing on the Iranians appeared (to me) to be pro-Hussein Pentagon propaganda from that time. Those reports showing up again in 2002 were sort of a classic case of 'we have always been at war with Eurasia'.

OTOH, there have also been 'third party' investigations that have shown some of the same things, but I'm not sure how independent they really were.

In any case, it is fairly clear that both sides of the Iran/Iraq war used chemical weapons. Much of it came from the US (we were helping both sides of that war in different ways), or with the blessings of the US. That fact is not in dispute, as far as I know.

And in case there is any doubt due to what I've written above, I do NOT think that it was a valid justification for the invasion (I do not think there was any valid justification for the invasion, and never did). Even when I was 'against' Hussein during the Reagan/Bush administration(s), I was not in favor of an invasion -- I just wanted his US aid cut off.

He claims it was not Iran, which is not surprising; we can't rely on the word of one of the parties to the incident. And even the Iranian reporting of the incident to the U.N. could conceivably have been deliberately misleading. Do you know anything about the U.N. report on the incident?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E02EEDB1F38F936A35751C0A9659C8B63
To the Editor:

Stephen C. Pelletiere (''A War Crime or an Act of War?,'' Op-Ed, Jan. 31) refers to a United States classified report, unknown to us, that would appear to exonerate the culprit in the tragedy at Halabja, Iraq, in March 1988.

This report stands in stark contrast to the United Nations investigation team findings, which invariably singled out the Iraqi Army as the culprit in the use of chemical weapons.

The Iranian government was the party that brought the Halabja tragedy to the attention of the United Nations and invited the international media to visit the city under its escort, the action that helped make clear who the culprit was.

Unfortunately, United States political expediency at the time obstructed the United Nations' efforts to investigate this incident fully. MORTEZA RAMANDI Press Attaché, Mission of Iran to the United Nations New York, Feb. 3, 2003

and I believe him. However, I've always thought we had something to do with encouraging Saddam to do it, but can't prove it.

he did when he was an ally of the U.S. and receiving chemical weapon pre-cursors and classified satellite data to help him fight the Iranians.

... this assumption on Pelletiere's part has been challenged on several fronts, including a reported later DIA report which concluded that other Kurd villages had been gassed later. Human Rights Watch issued a report in 1993, saying much the same thing. A Senate Foreign Relations investigation in Turkey in 1988 also stated that interviews with Iraqi Kurds who had fled to Turkey suggested the use of mustard gas and sarin.

This one may remain up in the air until someone freely confesses that such was Iraqi policy. One of the alternate scenarios posited is that the CIA was rather nervous that news would get out that the United States was selling Iraq the raw materials for chemical weapons production, and could therefore be considered legally culpable. Thus, the need to create a diversion, that this action was just an accident of war and was actually a fault of the Iranians.

Had the US been completely neutral in the Iran-Iraq war and had nothing to gain one way or another in the matter, and stayed out of it, I'd be more inclined to view Pelletiere's remarks as objective. But, because the US, once again, interposed itself on both sides of the conflict, hoping to influence the outcome and with some notably mixed motives, I'm not sure that I entirely trust his account, simply because the US did have something to hide in the matter.

Cheers.

... but, as I recall, there was some uncertainty about the date of the videotape. HRW thought it was from 1987 or so (which would have shown at least malice aforethought), but it may have been from circa 1989, which would make the issue less clear-cut, since that was after the major events supposedly took place. Also, let's face it--Ali is not what one would call a credible witness. What he may have bragged about doing may not have been a policy.

Not to say it wasn't. I'm just pointing out that the US, yet again, compromised its veracity by being a behind-the-scenes participant, rather than an observer.

Cheers.

the forensic and documentary evidence, and the case is pretty damn airtight.

Because it seems to me, since there is a controversy, that we need to know more in order to understand it.

He has accepted other people's evaluation of who actually did it, as far as I can see in that article, and is far more concerned with the effects of chemical agents. Not convincing proof of who did it, imho.

Dr. Gosden (a she, by the way)is infinitely more qualified to make such determinations than a political analyst.

A senior CIA political analyst, privy to all the classified information, is in a far better position to make that call, imho, than a doctor, who could only have the information about who was responsible fed to him/her by some other person(s).

Just like a local coroner can provide data on the cause of death, a bullet to the heart, say. But the coroner can't say "It was Mr. Smith's gun that did it." That requires other types of experts.

I think Pellitiere's credentials go further here.

Sorry, but you're going out of your way to believe a Reaganite liar.

Would you say, maybe, 50-50 odds?

And you have yet to prove that Iran didn't have the chemical agent of which you speak. Or, that is, to give me a link to something that does.

Here's a link about Iran and Iraq's relative capabilities, btw:

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so97hogendoorn

"Iran. According to the 1990 DIA report, Iran's program was developed in response to the Iraqi use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War. The DIA concluded that by the end of the war the Iranian military had been able to field mustard and phosgene, although it reportedly used them in limited quantities only.

The same report stated that Iran had artillery shells and bombs filled with chemical agents. A 1992 DIA report, "Weapons Acquisition Strategy Iran," added that Iran was developing ballistic missiles with the assistance of China and North Korea, both of which are reported to have chemical-agent warheads for their surface-to-surface missiles."

been asking a different question, namely, WAS there a chemical incident in northern Iraq? This could easily have come about because Saddam denied gassing "his own people" (more on that later). He could have denied because in actuality he did not. One of the other suggestions that Pelletier makes is that this may have been a situation where both Iraq and Iran were using chemical weapons at EACH OTHER, and the Kurds were caught in the middle.

I need to read more, what about you?

Here are Pelletier's own words:
<snip>
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.

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.


...and note he says here that cyanide is a blood agent. You tried to tell us it was not elsewhere in this thread. (That's what I was mentioning about the doctor's report you cited; she confirmed the presence of cyanide...the blood agent...the (partial) basis of this claim.)

blame Iraq and Saddam.

There isn't a single credible human rights organization on the planet that thinks that Iran did it.

Item 1: Please note the caveats to the information you provided, as listed under the previous section. Also, if you are claiming that the previous DIA report was deliberately falsified due to a shifting of the political winds, how can you now use later DIA reports as support for your case?
<snip>
There are two caveats about using these sources: Intelligence reports often characterize a state as having a "chemical warfare capability" without indicating whether that state is developing weapons or already has a stockpile of chemical munitions. Then, too, IT IS DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO VERIFY U.S. INTELLIGENCE REPORTS INDEPENDENTLY (emphasis mine). Nonetheless, they are on-the-record assessments that U.S. policy makers use and often share with NATO partners and other allies.

Item 2: Even in what you snipped from the report, there is something you perhaps did not consider. It is that...
<snip>
"...Iran was developing ballistic missiles with the assistance of China and North Korea, both of which are reported to have chemical-agent warheads for their surface-to-surface missiles."

And here is what the report says about Chinese and North Korean capbabilities:
<snip>
China. China has a mature chemical warfare capability, according to the 1996 Defense Department report on proliferation. Given China's advanced technical know-how, it must also be assumed that China can field its chemical agents in a wide variety of munitions, including ballistic missiles. China is also a serious proliferation concern, and a number of Chinese companies and individuals have been sanctioned by the U.S. government for their proliferation activities.

North Korea. North Korea's chemical weapons stockpile is probably the largest in the region. According to a 1995 DIA assessment, "Worldwide Chemical Warfare Threat Current and Projected," North Korea has had a chemical weapons program since the 1960s. The 1996 Defense Department survey concludes that North Korea can produce "large quantities" of blister, blood, and nerve agents.

It appears to me that while Iran's production capability may not have been sufficient, the fact that there was documented cooperation with China and North Korea suggests that the weapons could have been obtained through one of those countries. The possible inability of Iran to produce the agents doesn't mean that Iran couldn't or didn't use them.

Small edit for clarity.

You're asking the impossible--to prove a negative.

Plain and simple: The presence of nerve gas leads to one, and only one, logical conclusion: that it was Iraq who was responsible. It's beyond a reasonable doubt.

Robert Einhorn, makes the case that Iran DID have nerve gas (mustard) capablility back then. The quote below is from testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October, 2000. (Shouldn't the Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation be in a position to know? (And are you confusing production capability with the ability to acquire them?)

http://www.state.gov/www/policy_remarks/2000/001005_einhorn_sfrc.html
<snip>
Chemical and Biological Weapons

Iran's chemical weapons (CW) program is one of the largest in the developing world. Iran began its offensive program during the Iran-Iraq war in response to Iraq's use of CW. By 1987 Iran was able to deliver limited quantities of blister (mustard) and blood (cyanide) agents against Iraqi troops using artillery shells. Since then Iran's CW production capability has grown and become more sophisticated. It has already produced a number of CW agents, including nerve, blister, choking and blood agents. Despite its 1997 ratification of the CWC, we believe Iran's CW program continues and that it possesses a substantial stockpile of weaponized and bulk agent.

Throughout the life of its CW program, Iran has sought the ability to produce indigenously more sophisticated and lethal agents. This trend toward self-sufficiency is worrisome, since it means that Iran could eventually become a supplier of CW-related materials to other nations.

Over the past several years, Iran's procurement efforts have dwindled in countries of the Australia Group, the multilateral export control regime responsible for chemical and biological exports, as that Group's controls have become more effective. Instead, Iran has concentrated on suppliers in countries outside of the Australia Group. As Iran moves to suppliers outside the major industrialized countries and seeks less specialized (and hence less strictly controlled) items, our ability to stop Iran's CW-related procurement efforts has also decreased.

1. Note the date on the report--the year 2000.

2. What does it say about Iran's CW capabilities at the time Halabja occurred?

"By 1987 Iran was able to deliver limited quantities of blister (mustard) and blood (cyanide) agents against Iraqi troops using artillery shells."

That Iran had nerve agents in 2000 does not mean that it had such capability in 1988.

Duh.

There does not seem to be any proof that it was Saddam. The report is mostly about how there was evidence of Sarin gas; it seems to take the idea that Saddam did it as a given, but offers no proof of that.

Iraq used nerve agents frequently during the Iran-Iraq war. There aren't accounts of Iran using it.

Do the math.

However, there are many, many reports of Iraq doing so.

to produce them or acquire them? All the other questions distract us from that one. I don't know the answer. I bet you don't know the answer either. So, get busy and find info from a legit source that says Iran DID NOT have the cabability to either produce or acquire them, cause those other questions just don't matter.

Many of the sources you've cited so far just aren't going to be able to answer that question, which brings us back to Pelletiere, who certainly could have, if anyone could have.

That is his central thesis. Without that, he has ZERO proof that Iran did it.

Now, who are you going to trust to determine cause of death:

A) A political analyst from the Reagan administration; or

B) Professional medical and forensic investigators.

The expert acknowledges finding cyanide, but qualifies the statement. The thing is, your expert traveled to Iraq in the late 1990s, after Saddam had fallen very much out of favor. She was speaking before a Senate Committee. Who selected this woman? Who vetted her testimony? Who provided the background info to her for her understanding of the situation in Iraq? Why would she feel it necessary to volunteer the information on the possibility of the cyanide she found being a by-product of TABUN? Just to try to refute Pelletiere? Why would she feel a need to do that, if she was a disinterested medical person?

Without answering those questions, I can't see how you can expect us to blindly accept the doctor's testimony, yet reject that of Pelletiere. Why do you assume that she would be any less subject to political pressures than Pelletiere?

Here's what the doctor said (she acknowledges a blood agent):
<snip>
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. It may be that an
impure form of TABUN, which has a cyanide residue, released the
cyanide compound.

Here's something else Pelletiere says:
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.

She is clear and unequivocal--it was nerve agents and mustard gas that did the killing.

If you think that the Poppy Bush administration, who were supporting Saddam at the time, are as credible as forensic investigators looking for the truth, I really don't know what to say except that you sure do trust Republicans.

Note also that the PHRUSA doctors and HRW all have reached the same conclusions.

"In summary, this Brit 'medical expert' made a number of what I consider to be outrageous statements. I would be very much surprised if any peer-reviewed research could be found to support her cause-effect claims."

And contrary to popular belief, most Kurds fought WITH Iraq AGAINST Iran. In Iraqi military uniform.

He's also a rightwing Reagan toadie--a good friend of Jude Wanniski.

And I have no medical background, but I believe that means your doctor could not have found them roughly 10 years later when she made her investigation. Correct?

<snip>
On March 16, 1988, at Halabja, an Iraqi Kurdish city near Baghdad, the
Iraqis and the Iranians both used gas. The Iranians, it seemed, had come to
see the advantages of chemical warfare under circumstances advantageous to
them - not mustard gas, the persistent agent that the Iraqis used, but
non-persistent forms that disorient the enemy but then are quickly
dissipated, allowing the human wave attacks to pour through.

Edited to correct typo.

of blue lips.

That's all he's got.

<snip>
"The great majority of the victims seen by reporters and other observers who attended the scene were blue in their extremities. That means that they were killed by a blood agent, probably either cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide. Iraq never used and lacked any capacity to produce these chemicals. But the Iranians did deploy them. Therefore the Iranians killed the Kurds."

He. was. not. there.

He is not a forensic examiner. He is not a doctor. He is talking out of his ass when it comes to blue lips and blood agents.

Nerve agents can also produce blue lips--they kill through respiratory failure which leads to blue lips.

Futhermore, cyanide gas is not effective in open air. It disperses/degrades too quickly.

Why do you trust a Poppy Bush political analyst's opinion over people who are actually qualified to make such determinations, and lack his bias?

Believe whatever you want to believe.

But in the real world, Saddam gassed those people.

<http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/Chemical/2340_2959.html>
<http://www.nbc-med.org/SiteContent/HomePage/WhatsNew/MedAspects/Ch-10electrv699.pdf#search='iran%20use%20of%20cyanide%20based%20gas'>
<http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp>

Iran did indeed have the means and motivation to gas the Kurds. Whether they actually did or not is open to debate.

Iran may have had the former, but there's no evidence they had the latter.

Iraq regularly used the latter.

That's the whole nub of the debate.

of who did it. They appear to have an entirely different focus: simply proving that the attacks occured. That Saddam did it is again apparently taken as a given. No evidence that he did is provided in the article.

You can see what the focus was, by reading the subtitle of the article:
<snip>
Medical Group proves use of chemical weapons through forensic analysis

I want to emphasize again that I'm not defending Saddam; merely trying to find out the truth.

during the gulf war.

The fact that they're finding sarin points directly at Saddam.

Either that or I am just too tired to continue this one minute more (or both). I'll try to revisit this in the morning...

Could you, in the meanwhile or the morning, explain what you are saying about who used what? And what you feel the significance is?

Iraq was known to have and use mustard gas, nerve gas, and also cyanide gas. Cyanide gas is what is known as a blood agent, as opposed to nerve agents like sarin, tabun, and VX.

Iran was known to be trying to develop mustard and some crude pulmonary agents and perhaps cyanide. There has never been any evidence that Iran had access to nerve agents.

It is not disputed that Iraq used poison gas against the Kurds on occasions other than Halabja. Soil samples from other sites of Iraqi attacks against the Kurds reveal trace elements of nerve gas.

The presence of nerve agents is extremely strong (I would argue conclusive) evidence of Iraqi and not Iranian involvement.

Pelletiere claims that the gas used was cyanide, and that this means that Iran did it. It's important to remember that Pelletiere is not a doctor or a forensic investigator. He didn't examine a single body or talk to a single witness. He's relying on other people's accounts, and then throwing together a very casual analysis.

He's also deceptive. Note that he doesn't mention that the DIA concluded in 1991 that Iraq had cyanide capability at the time of Halabja. Hmmmmm.

Moreover, the circumstantial evidence points towards Iraq. The Iranians knew that the Iraqi army wasn't in Halabja. When the poison gas attack occurred, there weren't even any Iraqi troops in the vicinity to gas--they sent the planes in first.

Also, the Kurds witnessed planes with Iraqi markings dropping the chemical munitions. Also note that cyanide is much, much less effective in open air than nerve agents--it's extremely unplausible that a attack using mustard gas and cyanide could wipe out that many people. Nerve gas, on the other hand, is much more deadly and could have such deadly consequences.

I found reference to the following report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the website of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, here:
http://cns.miis.edu/research/cbw/possess.htm#27

Here's the reference:
<snip>
Iran reportedly stockpiled cyanide, phosgene, and mustard gas after 1985. Cordesman, "Creeping Proliferation Could Mean a Paradigm Shift in the Cost of War and Terrorism," http://www.csis.org/mideast/stable/3h.html.

And there was also this, although admittedly there is no date mentioned:
"At present the industrial production of mustard gas and sarin has been established in Iran." Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, A New Challenge After the Cold War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, p. 98.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to get copies of the actual articles cited, as the search function on the Center for Strategic and International Studies site is only semi-functional, and returns over 200 article when I try to search (does not seem to accept anything but "all the words" for a search). I am a determined researcher, but not that determined.

The Russian report was dated 1993.

And I know you won't find instances of Iran actually using nerve agents in the field, because they never did.

You seem awfully determined to exonerate Saddam. Why struggle so much against international and scientific consensus?

Somebody gassed the Kurds, most Kurds blame Hussein, and Hussein appears to have determined that it was in his strategic interests not to run from this blame.

However, the true IDENTITIES and MOTIVATIONS of the actual perpetrators are very murky.

Remember Judith Miller, Chalabi, Curveball & Fat Osama, for example?

The only people who are confused or who think Iran did it are those who are easily duped by stale Reagan/Poppy Bush era agitprop.

I have learned SO MUCH from this! Sometimes it's good to have a thread hijacked! LOL
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Human_Rights_Watch
<snip>
Background

(Note: I have bolded certain sections below for emphasis!)
HRW was set up by the United States government to monitor human rights in Eastern Europe following the signature of the Helsinki Accords. Initially, the group was called Helsinki Watch (NB: there is a British group with the same name – specializes in monitoring elections…). The United States used Helsinki Watch for propaganda purposes, and to amplify the "human rights" contradictions in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In this it was singularly successful, and it led to the broadening of HRW to cover additional regions. HRW-Americas, etc. and it also spun off the Index on Censorship, the latter to monitor abuses of "freedom of the press". HRW may claim that it is independent and nongovernmental, but its origins inidicate that these properties were absent. <unsnip>

This for me, was your strongest argument, because I was under the impression that Human Rights Watch was INDEPENDENT. Given that it clearly is not, you no longer have your strongest argument and Pelletiere's case seems even stronger, imho.

http://hrw.org/about/faq/#12

<snip>No, the U.S. Government did not start Human Rights Watch, nor does Human Rights Watch accept any funds from the U.S. government (or any other government). Indeed, we are often highly critical of the U.S. government for its human rights policies at home and abroad. Human Rights Watch is a fully independent, nongovernmental organization, supported exclusively by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. Human Rights Watch accepts no funds from any government, directly or indirectly, nor have we ever.

Human Rights Watch was founded as "Helsinki Watch" in 1978 to support the citizens' groups that formed, first in Moscow, then throughout the Eastern bloc, to monitor their governments' compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords.<snip>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Watch


But, go on believing that HRW is a neocon imperialist tool. It just sheds light on the utter lack of credibilty of your pro-Saddam garbage.

is a rhetorical trick. (See http://www.virtualsalt.com/think/matfall3.htm for a bit more info). Your constant misquoting of me and claims that I am "pro-Saddam" is a similar ruse: guilt by association. I have no way of knowing if this arguing style is a result of sloppy intellectual skills, or a deliberate attempt to mischaracterize my statements.

Nevertheless...could it be that the investigators of these horrible events fell into a similar intellectual hole? To whit: "We know Saddam is a bad guy, therefore, this must be Saddam's fault." THAT is what I am asking about this issue. It seems a fair question. And nothing you have linked about HRW shows where the original group, Helinski Watch, originated, or whether they obtained their funding through government sources, etc., etc. The earlier Helinski Watch morphed into HRW about the time that the Iran atrocities occured.

Also, just so we're clear, in response to your claim that I believe "HRW is a neocon imperialist tool": I think HRW does outstanding work. I'm just not certain if we can say with certainty what happened in this particular case, nearly two decades ago. It would not be surprising to find the organization had changed over the years, or that it might have had one or two particular blind spots at any given time. I need more info.

it while defending an egregiously wrong argument about Halabja.

HRW was NOT founded by the US government. It is NOT funded by the US government. It DOES criticize the US government extensively.

Moreover, you ignore a key point: HRW was blaming Iraq when it was the official policy of the US government to blame Iran.

Still haven't heard your explanation for the eyewitnesses who saw Iraqi planes drop the chemical munitions.

deal with the eyewitness issue. I just don't have the energy to search through all these posts to find it, and my search function does not work properly. So, it appears that the "wear the enemy down (with OT, repetitive, non-responsive, and all kinds of other specious arguments) until they are to exhausted to fight - then you win" approach will work in this case, but only for those who don't recognize what's been going on here.

Google would have demonstrated that.

The larger point was that your attempt to discredit HRW relied on mistruths and disinformation.

I've read a bunch of your posts, and I've seen nothing explaining why the Kurds would say it was Iraqi planes who gassed them if that weren't the case.

In any event, they're much more credible witnesses than are 80's era Republican apparatchiks.

The upshot of it all was as described above--the Iraqis and Iranians were gassing each other, and the Kurds were caught in the middle.

That 'fighting fact' was the impetus behind the drive to outfit personnel heading to the Gulf the first time with CBR (chem-bio-radiological) protective gear. Those efforts were not entirely successful, as many personnel arrived in theater during GW1 without full kit.

The Iran-Iraq war was a brutal thing, the effects of which are felt over there to this day.

writings about this.

I'm discouraged to see that we seem to be forgetting.

I remember seeing this as part of a discussion on this forum.

Are we not collecting information in a concentrated and simple place? It seems that we should be putting timelines and facts and nonfacts in a format that even an orangutang, like myself, can easily refer to.

Saddam DID gas the Kurds. All credible investigations and analysis have reached that conclusion.

The investigations I've read about so far are primarily concerned with establishing that there WAS a gassing incident; they do NOT establish WHO did it. (Unless there are investigations I simply have not been presented with yet.)

Again, do you not appreciate that Iraq used poison gas against the Kurds on multiple occasions besides Halabja.

Has that fact at all seeped into your consciousness?

battles with the Iranians? There is nothing that says definitively that Iran ALSO did not have these weapons. This is important, because the use of these agents in a military battle, however monstrous, is on a moral level, light years away from their use against a helpless civilian population.

We just do no know enough. Even some of the citations that you yourself have posted acknowledge that information about who had what when is at best quite sketchy. The fact that the investigations took soil samples and found residue of nerve agents ultimately says NOTHING about where those agents came from.

I keep stating these questions about your data; you ignore the questions and restate your premises. This is not productive.

There is none. You can't find any evidence anywhere that Iran had and/or was using nerve agents during the Gulf War.

That evidence doesn't exist.

You're relying on a logical fallacy--that one must prove a negative.

Here, we have one side that used nerve agents with great regularity, while there is no evidence or record of the other side possessing or using nerve agents.

That is strong evidence that any attacks involving nerve agents were done by Iraq. It's beyond a reasonable doubt.

To put it another way:

Please find me a link stating that Iraq didn't have access to space-based death and mind-control rays during the Gulf War. Unless you can provide a link proving that they didn't, I must assume that they could have.

Do you see how incredibly stupid of an argument that is?

bit more clearly? (It's clear that you want something, but exactly what isn't clear to me.)

And I keep having to re-research. Just like this, I did not know it had been debunked. That is, if it has been.

But my concern is that I don't know of a place where this kind of information is collected in a concentrated, organized place. I've spent years here, looking over paper after paper. But where is that simple timeline that puts it all on one page. Maybe it isn't a big deal. After all, the people who are the big players in all of this, don't need it. They have it organized in their heads.

all too frequently. In this case it appears that is the problem. All sorts of people could conceivably have a dog in this race, for a variety of reasons.

If aren't able to agree on the facts, I guess we can't have the kind of final certainty that feels so much better and that we as humans seem to long for. That makes gathering the info all in one place impossible, really. Who would gather it? Whose version of the facts do we use?

And as for the big players, who knows if they truly know the "facts" any more than we do. They are human, after all; due to their positions they may be the *most* vulnerable to "political facts," or they may have to operate on the "best guess" method, or simply recognize that due to the conflicting information there simply *is* no way to know for sure.

Unsatisfying, but there you have it.

therefore we must invade.

Seems pretty transparent to me :shrug:

when we supported Saddam against Iran.

It was Republican propaganda, pure and simple.

Saddam was clearly considered an enemy by then.

He's simply repeating his claims--he doesn't want to be exposed as a lying Republican whore.

Pelletiere, by the way, is a political analyst who has never been anywhere near the areas where the gassing occurred. He has no scientific training.

Pelletiere is retired at age 70 and living in central Pennsylvania. He is a
Ph.D. in political science and was the chief of the CIA Iraq desk at
Langley in the 1980s. He left the CIA in 1987 to become a lecturer at the
Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., and was sent in 1988 to investigate
Halabja. He based his conclusions that the "several hundred Kurds" who died
at Halabja must have been killed by Iranians, because the deaths were
caused by cyanide gas, which Iraq had not used in the war against Iran
(they used mustard gas), and which, says Pelletiere, they had no ability to
produce. He says the Iranians blamed the deaths on the Iraqis and won the
public-relations war that followed, even though journalists at Halabja
could see the symptoms being caused by cyanide gas.
http://www.pnews.org/PhpWiki/index.php/ChemicalAli

This is from a blog that I know absolutely nothing about, so I am in the process of trying to confirm the above.

He has no medical or scientific training. He would have no way of knowing what gas killed the people there.

He was in charge of the investigation much like Scooter Libby was in charge of determining the truth of Saddam's WMD program.

That Times article was written by someone who was a DIA analyst under Poppy Bush when Saddam was our client.

FACT: Every single credible human rights organization on the planet has put the blame squarely on Iraq.

FACT: Every single forensic and medical investigation has concluded that Iraq gassed the Kurds.

FACT: There are mountains and mountains of evidence that Iraq gassed the Kurds.

Recycled Poppy Bush propaganda is just as wrong and dishonest now as it was then.

Sad to see this ignorant crap get so many nominations/votes. Today's DU'ers are swallowing crap like yesterday's Freepers.

You couldn't have said it BETTER!

I have some Kurdish friends who's families perished in that event. It "is" what it "is". Nothing more, nothing less.

they want? When it is in OUR gov't's best interest to make the Iranians gas the Kurds, they do. When Saddam is the villain du jour, then it's Iraq that gassed them.

They can't keep their stories straight.

To me, that's the real message here.

are venal liars.

It does demonstrate how much Republicans really care about the Iraqi people.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=us_support_of_iraq_wmd , scroll down to "March 1998".


This was from when Saddam was our boy, and Rummy was inclined to go shake his hand. It is ironic that now that Saddam is our enemy, this piece of dis-info got picked up by the left.

but not many were into this. and so many are blatanly saying it i thought i was wrong. but yup, this is the article i read. it was getting some press then bush start gulf 1 adn it was dismissed and went away

What is beyond dispute is that the town suffered a chemical attack, most likely from the Iraqis.

The incident is portrayed here as some sort of isolated event where the Evil Saddam simply ordered the town gassed. That account is bullshit. It happened in the midst of a massively brutal war between Iran and Iraq, a war in which Iraq functioned at least partially as our proxy, used by us to dissipate the Iranian revolution in a sea of blood, and a war in which the use of chemical weapons became routine.

I've always wondered how they were going to have a public trial of Saddam without our complicity in his crimes coming right out into the open. It should be interesting.

were complicit in that.

I found these comments,
<snip>
You should first pitch out the New Yorker report by Jeffrey Goldberg, who
offers no evidence, only quotes from various Kurds who seem to remember gas
being used. My big problem with Goldberg is that he told me three years ago
that he had served in the Israeli army, which made him a dual citizen of
the United States and Israel. I read his long article and can tell you it
is worthless as “evidence.” Even at the time, Turkey said it could not tell
whether Kurds showing up on its side of the border had been gassed or were
victims of malnutrition. Not that Goldberg is malicious, only that he had a
serious bias going into the assignment and there is no evidence he made any
attempt to test his own initial hypothesis. Having a dual citizenship with
the U.S. and Israel might be okay in ordinary times, but when push comes to
shove, you cannot serve two masters. Goldberg has thrown in with Richard
Perle’s team (
http://supplysideinvestor.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=1634 ), and as you
can readily see in his article, he quotes Jim Woolsey, who is Perle’s
agent. Even before the article hit the newsstands, Woolsey was on national
tv telling audiences to rush out and buy the New Yorker to read it.

Here: Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq, http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2002/msg00453.html

DISCLAIMER!
The comments above are not, imho, either bigoted or anti-semitic. To say a person may have a bias toward Israel is not anti-semitic. Nor do the above comments indicate anything about a "conspiracy." To say that there are people working in the government that may have a bias toward Israel is not to claim a "conspiracy." I will do my best to verify the above information with an additional source, if such a thing is available. AND I know nothing about the website on which I found these comments. They just came up in a Google search.

Guess who he named the world's most evil man?

Answer: Paul Krugman.

from Alexander Cockburn, in an article from CounterPunch

February 28, 2003

...Goldberg, whose first major chunk of agitprop for The New Yorker was published on March 25 of last year. Titled "The Great Terror," it was billed as containing disclosures of "Saddam Hussein's possible ties to al Qaeda."

This was at a moment when the FBI and CIA had just shot down the war party's claim of a meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague before the 9/11 attacks. Goldberg saved the day for the Bush crowd. At the core of his rambling, 16,000-word piece was an interview in the Kurdish-held Iraqi town of Sulaimaniya with Mohammed Mansour Shahab, who offered the eager Goldberg a wealth of detail about his activities as a link between Osama bin Laden and the Iraqis, shuttling arms and other equipment.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02282003.html

FACT: The only credible voices who have studied the attack on Halabja have concluded that Iraq was responsible.

The UN. Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International. Physicians for Human Rights.

They all have studied what happened and point the finger at Iraq.

It's only far left and far right cranks who try to blame Iran.

antisemitic filth.

and did nothing but wonderful things for the people of Iraq. That's why they built monuments for him.

lied to or not. dont you want to know. does it make saddam a better man to not of gassed the kurds, or does it just give us a truth instead of a lie. none of how saddam ran his country or who he was as a person allows him to be a thumbs up. but isnt honesty, truth better than stories told. or are you more comfortable with hands over ears to validate your own beliefs because you are to fearful it doesnt merge with the story you tell yourself

how do i know this. how do you know this. i am not holding to any position. i am curious how you know it is true, and htis report is false

conducted by scientists and doctors, and they concluded that the gassing was a mixture of mustard gas and nerve agents, both of which Iraq had in abundance.

Eyewitnesses also report seeing Iraqi planes dropping the chemical bombs, Halabja was in Iranian control at the time, the Kurds were sympathetic to the Iranians, and there tons of documents that show Saddam's officials discussing chemical warfare.

This "blood agent" crap is a smokescreen concocted by Saddam's defenders in the WH in 1988-1990.

the Iraqis or the Iranians. Sorry, I don't have a source. :shrug:

And, I agree, Saddam did bad things, just, perhaps, not this bad thing.

i would think we would at least try for it. and it wasnt a pointing at finger at iranians either. they didnt mean to. was an oops. thought iraqi'a were there not kurds. but both using gas, it is a possibility

or do we just embrace adn accept law to validate our hate of saddam

If you object to any attribution of evil deeds to Saddam, then you are a supporter of Saddam. If you attribute any good deeds to Saddam (for example Iraq was relatively enlightened with respect to women's rights) then you are a supporter of Saddam. Saddam has become, for those still suffering from a post-911 fear induced lobotomy, the Hitler-figure, the Great Satan, of our age. Busholini and his sycophants play on this all the time. Recognize it for what it is. Rational people can have a discussion that attempts to get at the truth about the history of our era with respect to specific incidents, in this case the gassing of this kurdish town. The facts do not change based on your theory of the quality of evil represented by Saddam.

Bush Sr's too, up until the moment he invaded Kuwait.

pin it on iran, until he decided he need iraqi doing it because he was going to war

It's not like because people think Saddam was a bad guy, they're more inclined to believe stories about bad things he did, or is it?

I mean, given the accusers track record of being untruthfull, such as in the case of babies thrown out of incubators...

They've interviewed hundreds of people, taken soil samples, etc etc.

It all points at Iraq/Saddam.

was responsible? I wonder if the two have gotten confused in the news stories. Since their was bad blood between the Kurds and Saddam, the Kurds could easily have made the *assumption* that it was him, imo. And told that to the investigators.

And, let me say right here. In NO WAY am I saying that Saddam was a good guy, that he was an innocent. He was clearly a monster. I just want to know the truth about all this. And I had never even heard there was any question.

the chemicals were of a type that Iraq and not Iran had, and there are Baath party/Iraqi government documents and audio recordings that demonstrate that Iraq was gassing the Kurds.

It's not a done deal yet in my mind.

done after the Gulf War, when Saddam had gone from friend to foe.

and Bush administrations.

Everyone else agreed it was Iraq.

The Reagan administration, of course, had plenty of reason to attempt a white-wash of the matter. Why this particular report should be regarded as holy writ, particularly by persons who claim, with some justice, Republican officials cannot do other than lie in their own interests, is beyond me.

For instance why would Pelletiere, a highly regarded scholar with a reputation to protect, publish an article repeating these supposedly false claims, years after the report came out? This was when the tide had changed against Saddam, and the odds of any deliberate lie being exposed had become astronomically high. This is a highly intelligent man. Is it likely that he would do such a thing?

And further, you do realize that this is now a case of one Bush against the other. Poppy apparently (according to some other posters here) had reason to want Iran to be made culpable, so he published the report, yet here comes Dimson, who leads us to war with the exact opposite claim. Whatever the truth of the matter (and I am not sure of it at this point), I find this fascinating.

those who have conducted on-site investigations.

Poppy and his crowd were liars. So is Dumbya and his ilk.

But, HRW, the UN, AI, PHRUSA all point at Saddam. And they back it up with scientific and forensic investigations.

Pelletiere's account is not only suspect due to the obvious motivation, it is extremely thin on factual support.

The account seemed bogus at the time it was first put out, and nothing much has changed. People often defend past mistakes, and the man may have been sincerely mistaken. The entire matter is a side-show anyway. Poison gasses were routinely used in Iraqi military operations during the eighties, and there is no reason whatever to suppose they were not employed in counter-insurgency work in the Kurdish provinces during that period. Armies employ a standard battle-drill, and fight as they are practiced to fight wherever they are called on to act. This is simply the incident that was well photographed: there were many others. Nor is there anything particularly abberant by local standards about the over-all exercise: since Iraq was set up by the English after the Great War, suppression of Kurdish irridentism has been a leading activity of its central authority and armed forces, and been pursued with the full armory of weapons and techniques available to same.

refute the OP.

thread. So maybe you could start your own thread on how evil saddam is.

you have just saved me from falling off the edge of the world.

You have provided LOTS of links, it's just that they don't prove what you want them to prove. They mostly show that there WAS a gassing incident. (Nobody disputes that, we both agree.)

At least, I sure haven't seen any that prove that it could not have been Iran! Nor have I read any links that prove that it could only have been Iraq. I haven't been able to check them all out carefully yet. I have rebutted the ones I have read so far.

Edited to add second paragraph.

Pelletiere's attempt to blame the Iranians is the claim that blood agents, not nerve agents, were involved.

If you take away that leg, his entire argument gets blown up.

You'd basically have to think every single credible human rights organization for the last 25 years has fed nothing but propaganda and lies for the past time to think Saddam was an angel. And I guess the people of the Soviet Union must've loved Stalin to put all those pictures of him up, heh?

You don't have to support the war to admit Saddam was a bad guy.

They may not like to admit it, but from the Reagan/Bush's Iran-contra affair, to the alliance with Iraq or over Iran in the 80's to the support of Bin Laden in Afghanistan...All the Republicans have done for the last several decades is prop up these people. Train them, fund them and look the other way when they did wrong.
If there's anyone a terrorist loves more, it's a Republican.

Never understood why no one ever brings it up when discussing the Habjala massacre.

acquire the chemical weapons in his arsenal ?

Because then they'd have to discuss his accomplices.

I think the better question here is... why even use WMD?

Surely knowing the use of WMD and it's implications would bring enormous scrutiny to bear. Even the craziest of dictators would give pause and only use these as weapons of last resort.

Is it possible that this was exactly the situation Saddam faced?

from the NYT article Pelltierre seems to imply that this was exactly the case....

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.

In the same opinion piece. he unequivocally states-

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


So the fact that Iraq used chemical weapons is not in dispute, even by Mr. Pelltierre

Saddam is known to have used nerve agents and mustard gas against Iran with regularity.

There are multiple reports of poison gas attacks in places besides Halabja against the Kurds, who were generally allied with Iran and no friends of Saddam.

These reports are substantiated with findings of nerve gas elements in the soil.

Eyewitness accounts state that it was Iraqi war planes who dropped the bombs.

But this guy from the Poppy Bush administration repeats his story that he came up with when Saddam was our friend and has an incredibly thin factual support, and people start claiming it was a lie.

Does Bush hatred really drive people to such nuttiness? It's like the Freepi and Clinton.

The information has been out there since 2001.
Unfortunately, the MSM was too busy fawning over their "Warrior President" to do their damn jobs for the edification of the public.

it isn't true.

Maybe he did ... maybe he didn't.
I'll read up on it some more.

which are forbidden by the Geneva accord, but we're spreading democracy, so I guess it doesn't matter.

:sarcasm:

The US State Department found both sides were using chemical weapons.

"There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting," spokesman Charles Redman told the press a week after the attack. "We call on Iran and Iraq to desist immediately from the use of any chemical weapons."

On May 3, 1990, referring to yet another study, "A Defense Department reconstruction of the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war has assembled what analysts say is conclusive intelligence that one of the worst civilian massacres of the war, in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, was caused by "repeated chemical bombardments from both belligerent armies." "
Washington Post (May 3, 1990)
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0218,trilling,34389,1.html

The US government itself later confirmed the fact that both sides had used gas and that, in all likelihood, Iranian gas killed the Kurds.

A Pentagon report, ‘Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East’ published in 1990 states (Chapter 5): “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.”
-United Nations: No Proof Saddam Gassed the Kurds
http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-18-98.html

The Pentagon's USAWC and US Marine Corps report concluded Iran gassed the Kurds at Halbjah, not Iraq.

Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War
by Dr. Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson
U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute

"The great majority of the victims seen by reporters and other
observers who attended the scene were blue in their extremities. That means that they were killed by a blood agent, probably either cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide. Iraq never used and lacked any capacity to produce these chemicals. But the Iranians did deploy them. Therefore the Iranians killed the Kurds."

US Marine Corps document FMFRP 3

"Blood agents were allegedly responsible for the most infamous use of chemicals in the war—the killing of Kurds at Halabjah. Since the Iraqis have no history of using these two agents—and the Iranians do—we conclude that the Iranians perpetrated this attack."
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/docs/3203 /

The DIA's report concluded Iran had gassed the Kurds & Iranians of Halabjah;

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.

http://truthout.org/docs_02/020303C.htm

The CIA's report mentions "hundreds" killed, not "5000" and against the Iranians primarily w Kurds caught in the cross-fire. This report is still on the US government CIA website.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm

Halabaja, the town where it took place, was at the time occupied by invading Iranian forces, and, according to MSNBC Internet Home News, hundreds of Iranians and civilians were killed, not thousands.

Why you think they're any more trustworthy than Chalabi and Scooter Libby, let alone AI, the UN, and HRW, is beyond any rational person.

I note that you didn't provide a UN cite. Because the UN found IRAQ solely responsible.

Iraq and Iran aren't the only countries who have fought against ethnic Kurds trying to secede and form their own country.

Turkey has also fought Kurds and has jailed and killed them in high numbers.

Educate yourself. Learn what the MSM doesn't talk about. Google it!

Ask the current "president" of Iraq about his genocide of Kurds.

But hey, until the USA decides Kurds are the Enemy du Jour, we'll just pretend we know nothing. :eyes:

What special importance does this issue have for you, because it's clear there must be something motivating you to spend all the time you have replying to just one thread. What is that motivation?

Why is it so important to you to promote just one side's version of these events, even though it's apparent there are two sides?

Who gassed the Kurds has been overwhelmingly established. The Iraqi government did so on MULTIPLE occasions.

There aren't two sides. There is the conclusion supported by the evidence, and then there is the crank version of reality that ignores all of the relevant evidence.

Leftists being idiotic in defense of a fascist mass murderer does harm to the cause.

Not in my name.

exist situations in which claims of genocide are NOT true? Where it is important to consider other possibilities? And that challenging claims of genocide makes one neither guilty of holocaust denial nor support of whomever may have been accused of the genocide?

I understand, agree with and completely support the legitimate outrage against those who DO deny that the holocaust happened. But this is not Germany and the Nazis we are talking about. To challenge with such vehemence the mere questioning of what happened in the Kurdish situation, well...what can I say?

We must not, it seems to me, apply the lessons learned from a truly horrible earlier event to a later event without being willing to ask ourselves, objectively, whether those lessons actually do apply.

is overwhelming.

Those who seek to deny it must engage in a series of logical contortions that remind one of a mental pretzel.

One must suspend logic, common sense, and every other rational faculty to think that Saddam's guilt was less than proven.

To believe that Iran gassed the Kurds at Halabja, you must believe that:

1) Ronald Reagan and Poppy Bush's administrations are the best, most credible and honest sources of information about the activities of their then-client Saddam;

2) That Kurds would lie about who dropped poison gas on them;

3) That the Iranians would use poison gas on a friendly town that they and their allies controlled;

4) That AI, HRW, PHRUSA, and every scientific and forensic investigation conducted by non-US governmental researchers were biased or incompetent;

5) That Iraq's repeated use of poison gas against the Kurds is irrelevant;



And that doesn't even get into Iraq's use of poison gas in other locations inside Kurdistan.

At least, not necessarily. The questions in your previous posts are highly loaded, as I imagine you must be aware. And yet here we are after hours of discussing this, and you have apparently abandoned some of the earlier arguments, in favor of some new arguments, along with some of the same repetitive arguments, having never fully addressed the issues that I raised in response to them earlier in the thread.

Look, I have more information regarding Iran's chemical weapons program:
http://www.iranwatch.org/wmd/wmd-chemicalessay.htm
<snip>
In April 1984, the Iranian delegate to the United Nations, Rajai Khorassani, admitted at a London news conference that Iran was “capable of manufacturing chemical weapons … consider using them.” In 1987, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, Iran was able to deploy limited quantities of mustard gas and cyanide against Iraqi troops. The change in Iran’s policy with regard to chemical warfare was publicly announced in December 1987, when Iranian Prime Minister Hussein Musavi was reported to have told parliament that Iran was producing “sophisticated offensive chemical weapons.”

As Iran’s chemical warfare capabilities grew, it became more difficult to determine which side was responsible for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq war. In March 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq, sandwiched between Iranian and Iraqi forces, was caught in chemical weapon crossfire that left thousands of civilians dead. A 1990 U.S. Department of Defense reconstruction of the Halabja incident reportedly concluded that both Iran and Iraq used chemical weapons in Halabja. Iran allegedly attacked the town with cyanide gas bombs and artillery, and Iraqi forces allegedly used a mixture of mustard gas and nerve agents. In total, the Defense Department study estimated that Iranian forces used more than 50 chemical bombs and artillery shells during the offensive. The Pentagon analysis of the Halabja incident is corroborated by a 1990 report co-written by Stephen Pelletiere, the CIA’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. In his report, Pelletiere stated that there was “no evidence whatsoever that the Iraqis have ever employed blood gasses such as cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide.” Because “blood agents were allegedly responsible for…the killing of Kurds at Halabjah,” Pelletiere concluded that “the Iranians perpetrated this attack.”

According to some reports, Iran may have used still other chemical agents during the Iran-Iraq war. In April 1988, a U.N. medical specialist examined several dozen Iraqi soldiers and concluded that they could all have been exposed to mustard gas. In addition, the specialist observed symptoms in a number of patients that indicated possible exposure to “an acetylcholine esterase-inhibiting chemical in small concentrations,” which could suggest the use of a nerve agent. A 1990 DIA study also reported the allegation that Iran used sulfur mustard in some attacks, and concluded that Iran had either purchased the sulfur mustard or produced it on its own. The DIA report added that a “U.N. team that examined Iraqi casualties from Iranian chemical attacks found that some of them displayed the effects of exposure to a choking agent…believed to have been phosgene.” Despite these findings, Iran has yet to acknowledge that it used chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war.

And as for those other loaded questions, I'm not certain it would be productive to even attempt to try to get into all that. Some of what those questions themselves are trying to say I reject out of hand. For instance, why should I disbelieve the study produced by the Reagan/Bush I people, because of the potential for bias, yet not apply the same test to the "Saddam gassed his own people" claims coming from Bush II? That approach leads to nothing very useful or final, does it?

And, lets take your item #2. I have run across some things in my reading on this matter which have said that part of the confusion in interpreting the incident in question comes out of a mis-perception that all the Kurds were on one side in the conflict. This particular report said that some were on the side of the Iranians while others remained on the Iraqi side. Since it certainly seems to me that wartime always seems to create for its participants an intense motivation to lie, I can't really evaluate the claims you present and know for certain who is right. Can you, really? You are relying on others to do that for you. You seem unable to concede that some who have looked at this may have been starting with assumptions that may have not been accurate (and this could occur without any bias, incompetence or deceit). I want to take a look at what evidence is available for myself. And I certainly cannot begin to try to explore that issue without some more intense digging through the internet, which, quite frankly, I can no longer do. Too tired; too burnt out on this.

So, for those readers who are convinced by agressiveness, or by leading questions, or the unwillingness to concede points, etc., not to mention the sheer determination with which you, geek tragedy, have pursued your argument, I suppose you will have made your case.

I however, am more old-school. I am hoping there are other readers of this thread, who will acknowledge my case: that despite the intensity of the claims otherwise, there does seem to be a reason (or a few reasons) to doubt the claims that "Saddam gassed his own people," in a deliberate genocidal act. Please note once again that I am not completely certain myself. I don't think either side has a definitive claim to the ultimate truth here. There appear to be some good and some weak arguments, on BOTH sides of this issue.

I believe those arguments on both side of this issue should be able to be presented, and considered. Let others make up their own minds.

Fin.

As I said, you can have Pelletiere, Wanniski, and the rest of the Ronnie Raygun and Poppy Bush flunkies.

I'll take the international human rights community and all major forensic and medical investigations, and everyone not generally described as an extremist crank.

Those who argue in favor of exonerating Saddam always rely on the same stale, discredited 1980's Republican agitprop. I suppose in 15 years the same crowd will be citing Donald Rumsfeld and Doug Feith as valid sources.

The data you presented from the "international human rights community" did NOT prove that SADDAM did it, as far as I can see. It DID prove that IT HAPPENED, that a gassing happened. It appeared to me they may have been asking the question, "did a gassing happen," rather than "was it Saddam that did the gassing?" It may be that by the time that they did their research, that question was considered already answered. It may be that they never considered if Iran might posess the same types of weapons. There are many possiblities. All I wish to do is look at those.

Perhaps there really IS information from the human rights community that DOES prove that Saddam did it. If so, that is not what you presented; at least not in the links that I followed (most, but not all of them). My arguments for the rest of it have already been presented.

And damn it, STOP trying to say that I'm defending Saddam. All THROUGH this thread I've said that I am not. Saddam was a brute; he operated a brutal police state. He was an awful despot. That doesn't mean if tomorrow I stub my toe that it's Saddam's fault.

I believe the characterization of that last paragraph will be seen for what it is, by any other poster who has the time to search on my other posts regarding the neocons. I don't think one really wins arguments through the use of a false appeal to the emotions, sarcasm and misinformation. In all honesty, those sorts of tactics make me more suspicious of the merits of your claims. If your case were really all that airtight, you would not need to resort to such tactics, imho.

munitions on Halabja counts as evidence that Iraq did it?

http://hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFAL3.htm

<snip>
Halabja had been subjected to three days of heavy Iranian shelling from the surrounding hills, beginning on March 13. One by one, the small Iraqi military posts between Halabja and the border were routed, and their occupants pulled back to the safety of the town. Some stripped off their uniforms and took refuge in the mosques, while some took up temporary defensive positions in local army bases. Others fled altogether. Yet the Baghdad regime resisted the temptation to reinforce Halabja with large numbers of ground troops, for it had an entirely different strategy in mind.

Some Iranian pasdaran had reportedly begun to slip into town as early as March 13. By the night of March 15 they were openly parading through the streets, accompanied by Iraqi Kurds, greeting the townspeople and chanting "God is Great! Khomeini is our leader!" They billeted themselves on local Kurdish families and ordered them to prepare dinner. Some rode around Halabja on motorcycles; others were very young, barely teenagers, and carried only sticks and knives. Many also carried gas masks. They asked bewildered people in the streets how far it was to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.25 Militants of the Iraqi Islamic Movement did a victory dance outside the headquarters of Amn and the Istikhbarat building, which they took over for themselves. But among the townspeople as a whole there was grave apprehension, especially when public employees were ordered on March 15 to evacuatetheir posts.26 Swift Iraqi reprisals were widely expected; one Amn cable the next day spoke, with notable understatement, of the need for "a firm escalation of military might and cruelty."27

The Iraqi counterattack began in the mid-morning of March 16, with conventional airstrikes and artillery shelling from the town of Sayed Sadeq to the north. Most families in Halabja had built primitive air-raid shelters near their homes. Some crowded into these, others into the government shelters, following the standard air-raid drills they had been taught since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980. The first wave of air strikes appears to have included the use of napalm or phosphorus. "It was different from the other bombs," according to one witness. "There was a huge sound, a huge flame and it had very destructive ability. If you touched one part of your body that had been burned, your hand burned also. It caused things to catch fire." The raids continued unabated for several hours. "It was not just one raid, so you could stop and breathe before another raid started. It was just continuous planes, coming and coming. Six planes would finish and another six would come."28

Those outside in the streets could see clearly that these were Iraqi, not Iranian aircraft, since they flew low enough for their markings to be legible. In the afternoon, at about 3:00, those who remained in the shelters became aware of an unusual smell. Like the villagers in the Balisan Valley the previous spring, they compared it most often to sweet apples, or to perfume, or cucumbers, although one man says that it smelled "very bad, like snake poison." No one needed to be told what the smell was.

The attack appeared to be concentrated in the northern sector of the city, well away from its military bases--although these, by now, had been abandoned. In the shelters, there was immediate panic and claustrophobia. Some tried to plug the cracks around the entrance with damp towels, or pressed wet cloths to their faces, or set fires. But in the end they had no alternative but to emerge into the streets. It wasgrowing dark and there were no streetlights; the power had been knocked out the day before by artillery fire. In the dim light, the people of Halabja could see nightmarish scenes. Dead bodies--human and animal--littered the streets, huddled in doorways, slumped over the steering wheels of their cars. Survivors stumbled around, laughing hysterically, before collapsing. Iranian soldiers flitted through the darkened streets, dressed in protective clothing, their faces concealed by gas masks. Those who fled could barely see, and felt a sensation "like needles in the eyes." Their urine was streaked with blood.29

Those who had the strength fled toward the Iranian border. A freezing rain had turned the ground to mud, and many of the refugees went barefoot. Those who had been directly exposed to the gas found that their symptoms worsened as the night wore on. Many children died along the way and were abandoned where they fell. At first light the next morning Iraqi warplanes appeared in the sky, apparently monitoring the flight of the survivors. Many kept away from the main roads and scattered into the mountains, despite the ever-present menace of landmines. According to one account, some six thousand people from Halabja congregated at the ruined villages of Lima and Pega. Another thousand or so gathered among the rubble of Daratfeh, the last village on the Iraqi side of the border.30
<snip>

Okay, you can put your head back in the sand now.

The Iranians held western reporters just across the border and when the smoke cleared snuck them across the border into Iraq. This would indicated prior knowledge imo. I don't give a crap what HRW has say about it. I don't like the fact that the founder signed some PNAC letter addressing China about 4-6 yrs ago.

"Borders on Holocaust denial??"

Wow, way to stay on the subject.

I see your authoritarian way of insisting that all history must conform to your personal "knowledge", and your personal opinion, and I instinctively wonder why you must keep all focus on your version of this incident, and none on other war criminals who are in the process of outstripping anything Saddam ever did.

Saddam Hussein may be facing death. I never liked the guy. But the more I hear Bushistas and FUCKING NEOCON TRAITORS pile on about Saddam Hussein, the closer I get to saying, "Wait a minute... the wrong man is on trial here... Bush/Cheney's crimes are far worse, let's try them FIRST." Thanks for bringing me--and probably a lot of other people--closer to that point.

of a brutal, mass-murdering tyrant, then they have only themselves to blame.

You don't like the facts about Saddam? Boo fucking hoo.

the Iranians are sueing Iraq. The Iranians, strangely, wonder if they might have gassed the Kurds by accident. I guess Iran and Iraq were gassing each other and the Kurds might have been gassed by the wind. Wierd .

Why not? We forgot about Osama. The REAL problem is al-Zarqawi!!

snuck reporters across the border after the smoke cleared. It's amazing to me that nobody seems to question just how the film footage came about. I didn't read the article.

Not sure what's so odd about them flying reporters in.