1000 bodies, mostly Kurds found buried near Kirkuk

~snip~

One still cannot tune into a discussion of Iraq without a neo-con bringing up The Gassing of His Own People as a reason to go to war. Yes, it was a terrible thing. I remember the photographs of the bloated bodies of mothers, their arms still wrapped around their dead children. This happened in 1988. So why didn't the United States react then?

And, more to the point, what actually happened, and how did the U.S. respond at the time?

~snip~

Shortly after the massacre at Halabja, Senators Claiborne Pell, Al Gore, and Jesse Helms introduced legislation to impose sanctions on Iraq for its use of chemical weapons. The Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 unanimously passed the US Senate just one day after being introduced.

So what did the Reagan Administration do? Reagan vetoed this Act, of course. Conventional Wisdom says that he did this because in those days Iran was the Bad Guy, and anyone who was an enemy of Iran was on Our Side.

~snip~