PM admits graves claim 'untrue' (UK)

[floda]

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's mass graves.

In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'

On 14 December Blair repeated the claim in a statement issued by Downing Street in response to the arrest of Saddam Hussein and posted on the Labour party website that: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings already found in mass graves.'

more

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1263830,00.html

[troublemaker]

1. This is a BIG story

A real back-breaker. Only 5,000 bodies found in mass graves? Jesus...We've killed a more than 5,000 Iraqi civilians in just the time we have been there!

[UpInArms]

3. which part?

that Bliar LIED?

or that there were not 400,000 in mass graves?

Oh - we (the US and the coalition of the bought) have murdered many more innocent Iraqis.

:sigh:

When will the world understand how dreadful this truly is?

[StandUpGuy]

69. The world already does

Know exactly how dreadful this is.

They are waiting for Americans to do something about it.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

13. Sounds just like Kosovo...

They only found 3000 bodies in Kosovo.

[VolcanoJen]

2. Freaking HUGE STORY. 400,000 downscaled to 5,000?

Shocking. Huge.

[Terran]

4. Okay, yes, this is a big deal.

But let's keep it in perspective. 5000 people in a mass grave is still horrific, and to say that they've "only found 5000" sounds foolishly partisan. I wouldn't go around trumpeting this too much. It's just another example of how willing these people are to distort the truth.

[troublemaker]

7. But we've killed about 10,000 civilians there (conservative figure)

It would be sort of crazy to point to mass graves with 5,000 as justification for killing more than 10,000.

[wtmusic]

18. Don't forget military casualties of 40,000+

who are dead as the result of our illegal invasion

[Terran]

25. Agreed. Crazy like everything else about Iraq.

I'm just sayin', don't hold yourself out as appearing to put a numerical value on life by saying that 5000 is a 'lot better' than 400,000.

[VolcanoJen]

9. It's not the number. It's the lie, the embellishment.

Of course 5,000 bodies in a mass grave is horrific. The point is that we didn't go to war (in the latest rationale-model provided) over 5,000 bodies, but, rather, 400,000+. Mass graves. 400,000 is a truly shocking and disturbing number; could they have sold it to the media with a 5,000 number?

I agree wholeheartedly that we shouldn't bicker over numbers per se, and I believe you've predicted the Republican spin quite accurately! However, Blair has again proven to be disingenuous and loose with his numbers, and therein lies the story.

[troublemaker]

12. You're quite right, but only in terms of the ambiance of dishonesty

This is a post-war embellishment. The specific 400,000 figure was not used to justify the war before the war, so that limits it's political force.

Also, though as a candidate I wouldn't say "only 5,000," as an individual I'm sayin' only 5,000? What the fuck? Before the war I didn't think Iraq had any WMD worth talking about but I expected some friggin' mass graves...

Our reliance on the same con artists for all intelligence is hilarious. Yeah, the WMD are about three miles past the mass grave... just hang a right at the Al Qeada trainging camp, you can't miss it.

[Terran]

26. I know that's the point, Jen. =]

I'm just saying, we shouldn't be too quick to differentiate 5000 deaths from 400,000, in and of themselves. I AM trying to anticipate the repug spin if the Left does such a thing: "Well, don't you CARE about the 5000 dead??"

[Cocoa]

58. how can you NOT differentiate 5000 deaths from 400,000

[NMDemDist2]

22. i'm thinking those 5000 were the insurgents that Bush Sr

encouraged then abandoned after Gulf War One

[shockingelk]

27. I'm wondering about bodies from the Iran/Iraq war

Lots more than 400K people died in that war, many of them very quickly in the "human wave" attacks which took place in Iraqi territory. The bodies had to go somewhere.

[Jazzgirl]

39. You got it shockingelk.

I had read about this last year (gotta dig that stuff up!). The graves they found were largely populated by soldiers killed during battle in the Iran/Iraq war. I assumed the 400,000 in mass graves was something different and didn't realize they were talking about the same thing.

[wtmusic]

5. So we put 8x as many people in mass graves as Saddam

Let's get it straight.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Amazing, isn't it? Completely consistant with what we've already seen.....

From the article:

The USAID website, which quotes Blair's 400,000 assertion, states: 'If these numbers prove accurate, they represent a crime against humanity surpassed only by the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields in the 1970s, and the Nazi Holocaust of World War II.'

It is an issue that Human Rights Watch was acutely aware of when it compiled its own pre-invasion research - admitting that it had to reduce estimates for the al-Anfal campaign produced by Kurds by over a third, as they believed the numbers they had been given were inflated.

Hania Mufti, one of the researchers that produced that estimate, said: 'Our estimates were based on estimates. The eventual figure was based in part on circumstantial information gathered over the years.'

A further difficulty, according to Inforce, a group of British forensic experts in mass grave sites based at Bournemouth University who visited Iraq last year, was in the constant over-estimation of site sizes by Iraqis they met. 'Witnesses were often likely to have unrealistic ideas of the numbers of people in grave areas that they knew about,' said Jonathan Forrest.
(snip)

Yeah, the WITNESSES told them these lies. They NEVER invent schemes to sell to the public, to justify their war profiteering, do they?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. 5,000 is not a small amount

but I've seen the alleged number rise gradually over time. First it was about 250,000. Then it went up to 400,000. After that, I've seen websites claim 500,000 in mass graves and lately, even the 1 million figure tossed around.

While 5,000 people in a mass grave is extremely ugly and indecent, we could probably throw a dart at a map of the middle east, including our close allies, and find other countries that have done equally bad deeds or worse in the recent past. This doesn't establish Saddam Hussein as a threat to the very peace of the planet, justifying the thousands of Iraqi civiliians who have now died in this U.S. led war.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

14. The only fact in this entire story is that 5000 were found in a mass....

...grave. We don't know their nationality, and we don't know why or how they ended up in a mass grave. Are they Iraqis who died of natural causes? Did they die violently? Are they Iranians that died inside Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War? Are they Kurds?

Who knows?

[MisterP]

21. it also mentions locations: Kurdistan and the Saudi border

the latter of which the U.S. probably buried alive (Highway of Death).

[burrowowl]

51. Also during Gulf War I

The U$ apparently bulldozed over soldiers in bunkers, they suffocated to death.

[markses]

43. It does not say 5000 were found in "a" mass grave

The idea is that of all the different mass graves so far uncovered, the total dead is around 5,000. This is, of course, far different than 1 mass grave holding 5,000 bodies. In either case, it is horrific, but hardly the stuff of even the Rwandan genocide of a few years ago.

[Judi Lynn]

48. I remembered reading your post yesterday when I heard this remark

on Meet the Press today.

This piece of crap Republican Representative Chris Cox from California loudly announced that Hussein had murdered over a million of "his own people."


(the Republican on the left)

The moment he started trying to pass this off, I recalled your post and had to tell you they're STILL doing it today!

I don't think it's because they don't know the facts. That's their job. I think they DO know they are lying and simply are hoping large numbers of Americans won't find out.

[troublemaker]

54. apalling (too bad NBC doesn't read the papers)

[LittleApple81]

10. And the rape rooms...we are competing there too...Wow! Hurra for American

"can do" attitude!!!!

[liberalpragmatist]

11. To be fair -

I need more convincing that Saddam didn't kill more than 5,000. BY ALL accounts, he has killed hundreds of thousands, mass graves or no mass graves.

Now, I still opposed the war b/c it was totally unnecessary, as Saddam wasn't committing genocide at the time we entered - it wasn't urgent, and he was a threat that could've been contained. The no-fly zones were plenty of protection for the Shiites and Kurds

[Media_Lies_Daily]

16. None of us posting in this forum know if Saddam killed anyone,....

...or ordered anyone killed for that matter. All we know is what we've been told, and everything we've been told so far are lies.

I suspect that Saddam is responsible for some number of deaths in Iraq, but I have no way of knowing how many.

What I do know for a fact is that our invasion of Iraq was based on a pack of lies, and it has cost the lives of tens of thousands of American, British, Iraqi, and other nationalities.

[Ravy]

23. To be REALLY fair...

as you said... ALL ACCOUNTS have bantered about MUCH higher figures.

Where are the bodies? ALL ACCOUNTS have been leading us to believe that they were uncovering hundreds of thousands of bodies.

Who provides us with these accounts? Our appointed leaders.

[stickdog]

67. All accounts had tons and tons of WMDs as well.

It looks like "all accounts" have been massively overdrawn.

[LSK]

77. I DO KNOW SOME THINGS

I know that Iraq has seen a lot of warfare in the past 2 decades. Can ANYONE determine when exactly these people died? Or when these graves were dug? That might clue us in as to whether these people are war victims.

[TahitiNut]

15. Just 5,000 "bad apples" huh?

After all, the abuse of about 100 children and the torture of dozens (or more) of 'detainees' isn't so bad - just because it's not more, right? Uh-huh. Riiight. :eyes:

Then why do people get all upset about folks who only kill one person?

In my book, when it's done by a "legitimate" regime, even though it may be one or two, it's worse than when done by an individual. Why isn't this clear?

[Gruenemann]

17. How many mass graves

are full of bodies of Iraqi soldiers slaughtered on the road trying to retreat from Kuwait in GW I?

[TahitiNut]

29. Uh-huh -- and let's never mention the "Highway of Death"

(oops, I guess I just did.)

Isn't it strange as hell that our atrocities are always so much more "exceptional" than their atrocities? Easier to rationalize, too. I guess that's why we get so dismissive of the ICC. :shrug:

[VolcanoJen]

19. Encouraging: When I Google "400,000 - Iraq - Blair"...

.. I get this article:

Protesters stage anti-war rally - BBC


Organisers estimate 400,000 took part

[VolcanoJen]

20. USA Today - 12/2003 - Blair claims 400,000 already found in mass graves

Tony Blair hails Saddam's capture as start of new era for Iraq - December 14, 2003 - USA Today

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the capture of Saddam Hussein Sunday, saying the deposed leader "has gone from power, he won't be coming back." The arrest, he said, created an opportunity to forge unity and peace in Iraq and could mark the start of a new era there.

<snip>

"Let's remember all those Iraqis who died under Saddam, the remains of 400,000 human beings already found in mass graves," he said. "So this is a time for celebration, but it's also a time to look forward, to unify and to reconcile."

Who fed him the "400,000 already found in mass graves" number?

See... this is the issue at hand. Not the number itself, but, rather, the disinformation, and what led a prominent world leader to cite it.

[Career Prole]

24. This is wild!

Another board I post on has just a handful of shrubfans, and they started a topic for "Good News From Iraq" because they felt the rest of us were over-emphasizing the negative.:eyes:
I'm going to post this story in that topic right now...
under the header "395,000 Iraqis Rescued From Saddam's Mass Graves!"
Bwaaahahahahaha!
:bounce:

[MasonJar]

28. Recently I saw a new story which stated the the Kurds were killed

by Iranian poison not Iraqi. The source had analyzed the chemicals and had determined that they were the ones Iran was using in the Iran/Iraq war. This WMD was not the same as that used by the Iraqis. And we know that the Shite uprising in S. Iraq was GHWB encouraged and that despite promises the uprising was not supported by the elder Bush. Typical US doctrine.

[Jack Rabbit]

30. Blair is no less a liar than Bush

Aznar
Berlusconi
Blair
Bush
Howard

[Matilda]

31. The point that apologists for the Iraq invasion miss completely

is that even if there were 400,000 bodies, it still does not justify
other countries deciding to invade.

Events in Sudan are not being given the coverage they normally would
get due to the events in Iraq and coming elections. But there can
be no doubt that genocide and ethnic cleansing are being carried
out there on a massive scale, which if it continues, would match the
most exaggerated claims made by Blair and Bush about Saddam. But
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch are not calling for anyone to invade
Sudan to take control there, because that would be a breach of
Sudanese sovereignty. However tempting it might be and however much
it would appear to be justified, there are lines drawn regarding
these situations, and it's not hard to imagine why. If the U.N. or
any other body were to take it upon themselves to invade any country
where perceived injustices are taking place, not only would they
find it impossible to find sufficient troops to do the job, they
would also be seen as an occupying force in other countries, with the
consequent resentment and resistance that we are now seeing in Iraq.

That is why Human Rights Watch is calling for urgent talks with the
Sudanese government by both the U.N. and other African states to
cease its backing of the Jinjawid in their campaign of ethnic
cleansing and killing, raping, and burning of native people and their
villages, and to take measures to persuade the Sudanese government
to accept respnsibility for the care and rehousing of the refugees
who have fled to Chad.

And this is why it makes no difference what Bush and Blair claim
that Saddam did to his people, and whether they claim they invaded
because of WMD or killing of the civilian population - even if they
were true, there was never any legal justification for war, because
Saddam in 2003 was not threatening any other country, and had not
done so for ten years. And that is the only legal justification for
invading a sovereign nation - even though there are times we all wish
it could be done, when we are forced to sit by and watch dictators
run amok amongst their own people.

[geek tragedy]

32. Wow, the Saddam apologists are out in full force on this thread

1. Saddam did gas his own people. The crackpot theory that it was the Iranians who gased Halabja(a lie originated by the REAGAN administration) was debunked before the PNAC got going. Saddam used gas on multiple occasions in Kurdistan--not just Halabja.

2. Introductory course in logic:

If all apples are shiny, it does not follow that all shiny things are apples. Similarly,

All people who are found in mass graves are dead: True.

All people who are dead are found in mass graves: False.

Logic is your friends, folks.

[Ravy]

33. And yet,

it seems that some have used some flawed logic to equate outrage over being (yet again)lied to by our leaders as being "Saddam apologists".

Tell me, how exactly do you correlate those?

[geek tragedy]

34. Without naming names,

we now see the familiar canards being thrown out that "Saddam didn't gas his own people" and that "we don't know that he did anything wrong" and "Saddam only killed 5000" people.

That's bullshit, and anyone who's been paying attention knows it. There are no mass graves of Iraqis killed by Americans. Does that mean we didn't kill any?

As far as outrage is concerned, this was a misstatement that was made after the war was launched.

To put it another way, by the logic being employed here, the sanctions regime imposed on Iraq killed at most 5000 people.

Blast Blair all you want for fudging his numbers, but let't not act like Saddam's defense attorneys.

[Ravy]

35. I'm just reading these differently from you I guess...

One person said that they saw a news article that it was Iranian gas, another correctly stated that we have no idea who/how many Saddam ordered killed.

That doesn't make anyone an apologist. It makes them a skeptic.

How do you know there are no mass graves of Iraqis killed by Americans? Do you have a source for that statement?

And, not only was this (Blair's) "misstatement" made after the war started, it was widely reported and repeated/embellished by friends of the US administration without the slightest hint of a correction!

It is a story, imho, much bigger than a misstatement. It was a lie. It was not fudging. It was a LIE.

It was not corrected until now (to my knowledge), by the British or the US government, who should be in a position to know. That makes it an overt attempt to mislead the public.

Pass it off if you will, but please spare us the name calling.

[Redleg]

40. "Fudging" numbers?

Overstating the body count by 395,000 bodies is not a fudge.

I do agree that some of the posters are less hard on Saddam than they should be. However, if we can't believe our elected "leaders" about the circumstances in Iraq, some people will find it hard to believe that Saddam was as bad as the "leaders" claimed.

You have to admit that 400,000 dead makes the case that Saddam is really a genocidal monster better than 5,000 dead.

[geek tragedy]

44. Again,

the case that Saddam is a genocidal monster was closed even before Clinton became president.

I'm not gonna defend Blair here--this issue is too damn important to be playing carelessly with.

We don't know the exact body count. But this idea that there's no mass murder if there's no mass grave is idiocy. How many mass graves for the "disappeared" of Argentina or Chile were found? How many for Stalin's crimes or Mao's? Imperial Japan's? The US in Vietnam?

[stickdog]

68. Yes, and the case that Hussein had WMDs was equally CLOSED.

Yes, Hussein murdered many. But it seems your (and HRW's) estimates were WAY off. Now doesn't it?

Will you at least admit that?

[geek tragedy]

75. The numbers certainly have less support than before.

But, there's a lot of unknowns still, including: a full forensic evaluation of all suspected grave sites never took place--they were discovered and then left unguarded in many instances; how many mass graves have yet to be discovered (maybe not that many--the same argument is used for the mythical WMD's); how many people were murdered and then buried in smaller graves by the gov't or family members; and how many people "disappeared" under Saddam's rule.

The best evidence for the scope of such atrocities is, imo, interviews with families, eyewitnesses, government documents, etc.

Is the number for sure as high as the estimates? No.

Remember, though, that some of Saddam's crimes--the destruction of the marshes and through that the Marsh Arabs' entire society being an example--can't be measured in a body count from mass graves.

[stickdog]

79. Right, I read all the HRW stuff. I'm convinced that Hussein treated

several groups like the US treated Native Americans. Just because his atrocities were in the thousands or perhaps tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands doesn't make them OK.

But this "Saddam murdered millions of his own people" has always been a Kuwaiti/Kurdish/Exile/H&K PR invention. Repukes are still trying to pretend that this invasion was justified on the grounds that the 50,000-60,000 Iraqis we've killed so far is NOTHING compared to the number Hussein killed every year.

And that's just bullshit in every way.

[geek tragedy]

80. If Saddam treated them the way the US treated Native Americans,

he's even worse than I thought. That was genocide.

To be honest, we'll probably never know how many people Saddam directly or indirectly killed.

Most of Saddam's killings, if I were to speculate, happened in small groups and invidually in thousands of incidents, as opposed to mass slaughters.

This is the problem that Bush creates by lying so regularly. Even things that aren't in real dispute seem less likely because he says they're true.

[TankLV]

41. And, like clockwork, YOU crawl out of the woodwork to post these

"pearls of wisdom"!

Thanks for the laugh of the day.

[LivingInTheBubble]

49. Maybe those are the graves of those killed by americans.

"There are no mass graves of Iraqis killed by Americans. Does that mean we didn't kill any?"

Maybe those are the graves of those killed by americans.

What does happen to the tens of thousands that the coaltion kills?

[geek tragedy]

50. They get buried by their families or communities, I would guess.

Or in unmarked individual graves. Or their bodies are burned.

[Minstrel Boy]

56. you're killing me here...

"There are no mass graves of Iraqis killed by Americans"

Not up on your Desert Storm history, eh?

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon of Feb. 25 that the press pool was permitted to see where the attack occurred. There were groups of Iraqi prisoners. About 2,000 had surrendered. But there were no bodies, no stench of feces that hovers on a battlefield, no blood stains, no bits of human beings. “You get a little firefight in Vietnam and the bodies would be stacked up like cordwood,” Daniel said. Finally, Daniel found the Division public affairs officer, an Army major.

“Where the hell are all the bodies?” Daniel said.

“What bodies?” the officer replied.

Daniel and the rest of the world would not find out until months later why the dead had vanished. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers, some of them alive and firing their weapons from World War I-style trenches, were buried by plows mounted on Abrams main battle tanks. The Abrams flanked the trench lines so that tons of sand from the plow spoil funneled into the trenches. Just behind the tanks, actually straddling the trench line, came M2 Bradleys pumping 7.62mm machine gun bullets into the Iraqi troops.

“I came through right after the lead company,” said Army Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the lead brigade during the 1st Mech’s assault. “What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people’s arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands.”
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0211/sloyan.html

Rinse, and repeat.

[geek tragedy]

57. What's your point?

That we killed a shitload of Iraqis during the Gulf War? These were not graves (they are destroyed military facilities), and they were not civilians in there.

If you can find a examples of the US killing a bunch of civilians and dumping their bodies into mass graves, please provide that.

Otherwise, the logic used by those in this thread still stands for the proposition that the US didn't kill any innocent civilians in its attack on Iraq.

[Minstrel Boy]

59. Of course they are mass graves. Filled with 1000s buried alive, at that.

That you can glibly talk about killing "a shitload of Iraqis" says much regarding the value you place on Iraqi life. Whitewashing America's battle flags seems more your concern.

the US didn't kill any innocent civilians in its attack on Iraq

And your point is obvious, groundless and quite sad.

[geek tragedy]

64. Wow, you are quite the psychic.

The argument being offered in this thread was that:

A) They have discovered only about 5,000 people in mass graves in Iraq after the fall of Saddam (never mind those discovered in Kurdistan before hand, or those sites that have not been protected and inspected); therefore

B) Saddam killed at most 5,000 people--less than the Americans killed.


This reasoning is completely illogical. That is a fact that I have demonstrated here. By that same reasoning:

A) They have discovered no mass graves in Iraq of people killed by the US in the war to overthrow Saddam (2003 onward); therefore

B) The US hasn't killed anyone in Iraq.


The statements being made were based on false assumptions and logically untrue. Of course Saddam and his regime killed many, many, many people in Iraq. And of course the US has killed thousands in its current war there.

The main point is that people are reading FAR too much into the relative lack of people found in mass graves so far.

[Cocoa]

65. where?

go ahead, "name names," who said that?

[geek tragedy]

66. If you can't summon the effort to read the posts in this thread, that's

your problem.

I can PM them to you if you want. But I'm not going to call out other people because you're not willing to read the posts.

[sistersofmercy]

71. WRONG!

During GWI, the US military hit a bomb shelter in Baghdad which had several hundred women and children inside. Not one woman or child survived. Men were not allowed in the bomb shelter or boys over the age of fourteen.
It's worth noting that included in those "mass graves" are government employees who were viciously murdered by the Shia in the south and the Kurds in the north. Some of the Iraqi government employees were just clerks etc. They were strung up on bridges etc, sound familar?
About the "missing thousands," Iraqi army deserters and civilians from GWI were allowed in Saudi, some eventually and quietly immigrated to the US but there is an estimated just under two thousand who are being held in internment camps in SA since GWI.

[geek tragedy]

73. Of course we killed innocent civilians in the bombing

My point is that thinking that there are no mass atrocities without mass graves is stupid.

[Cocoa]

61. of course you don't "name names"

because those are straw men you are "quoting."

[JNelson6563]

72. Blair apologist

Blast Blair all you want for fudging his numbers

It's called lying.

So funny to see you take issue with posters who are outraged at the lies being propagated and yet you will soften terms in order to paint Blair, one of those doing the lying, in a better light.

Here's a clue for you, when did they discover these "mass graves" that they felt compelled to "fudge" the numbers? Was it about when we weren't finding any WMDs?? Were we in search of justification of the war?

Bush lied. Blair lied. They all lied. Er, I mean "fudged" the facts.

But those of us taking issue with the lies are "Saddam apologists". How very interesting.

Julie

[IndianaGreen]

36. HINT: The British were firstto use using poison gas in Iraq in 1920

Should I mention how Clinton's Plan Colombia resulted in the use of chemical agents in the fields of Colombia resulting in deaths and birth defects in humans and cattle?

When it comes to crimes against humanity, you better start by saying USA! USA! USA!

[geek tragedy]

45. Q: What does that have to do with Saddam?

A: Not a damn thing.

[Cooley Hurd]

38. Um... no.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0703-01.htm
<snip>
A report prepared by the top CIA official handling the matter says Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the massacre, and indicates that it was the work of Iranians. Further, the Scott inquiry on the role of the British government has gathered evidence that following the massacre the United States in fact armed Saddam Hussein to counter the Iranians chemicals for chemicals.

<snip>
The CIA officer Stephen C. Pelletiere was the agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. As professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, he says he was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf.

<snip>
Pelletiere says the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report following the Halabja gassing, 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,” he wrote in The New York Times.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the battle around Halabja, he said. ”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.”

Pelletiere writes that these facts have ”long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned.”

Pelletiere wrote that Saddam Hussein 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.”
</snip>

Also, see:
A War Crime or an Act of War? By Stephen C. Pelletiere

Now, about the "debunking..." can you provide links?:shrug:

I'm not a "Saddam apologist." I'm just fond of the truth...:eyes:

[geek tragedy]

46. Google Pelletiere.

You'll find plenty on this guy.

You do know that he's been peddling this line since 1986, right? I can also assume that he started peddling it to excuse the REAGAN ADMINISTRATION's support.

http://reason.com/hitandrun/000722.shtml

It's really sad to see progressives, ignorant of history, parroting the stale propaganda of the Reagan administration.

[pschoeb]

70. Halabja happened in 1988

so it would be hard for him to peddle it from 86. Pelletiere was career CIA, and has written many critical things about Bush Sr. Iraq actions and Bush Jr.'s Iraq actions, hardly likely if he was just a Republican stooge. Since the "Iraq did it" story is the popular meme with Republicans, why would he keep bringing it up?

By the way he did not write the report on Halajba for the CIA, he had formerly bean a CIA Analyst in Iraq, but he was a Professor at the Army War College when he wrote this. The Reagan State Department at the time placed the blame on Iraq. It's hard to imagine that a career analyst working for the War College, was a Reagan apologist, but Reagan's own State Dept were working against Reagan? Also this War College report did not come out until 1990 - hardly what Bush Sr. would be interested in, as gassing the Kurds was part of the Desert Storm talking points.

Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II, and Leif R. Rosenberger, Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1990

Pelletiere would write about this again in 1991 - hardly an oppurtune time, if we thought he was an administration stooge.

Stephen C. Pelletiere and Douglas V. Johnson II, Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War, Carlisle Barracks, PennU.S. Army War College, 1991

[cureautismnow]

55. According to the C.I.A. ...

http://www.odci.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm#05

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Documented Iraqi Use of Chemical Weapons

Date Area Used Type of Agent Approx. Casualties Target Pop.

Aug 1983 Hajj Umran Mustard fewer than 100  Iranians/Kurds
Oct-Nov 1983 Panjwin Mustard 3,000 Iranian/Kurds
Feb-Mar 1984 Majnoon Island Mustard 2,500 Iranians
Mar 1984 al-Basrah Tabun 50 to 100 Iranians
Mar 1985 Hawizah Marsh Mustard/Tabun 3,000 Iranians
Feb 1986 al-Faw Mustard/Tabun 8,000 to 10,000 Iranians
Dec 1986 Umm ar Rasas Mustard thousands Iranians
Apr 1987 al-Basrah Mustard/Tabun 5,000 Iranians
Oct 1987 Sumar/Mehran Mustard/nerve agents 3,000 Iranians
Mar 1988 Halabjah Mustard/nerve agents 100s Iranians/Kurds
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Notice that in the 3 targeted instances of Kurds, Iranians appear, also.

2. In the Kurd/Iranian citations, the total number of casualties is less than 4000.

3. The C.I.A. provides "pretty darn good intelligence." Or so I've heard! :D

[Cocoa]

60. thanks for the logic lesson

you've given a PERFECT illustration of the straw man fallacy.

:toast:

[bleedingheart]

74. Iraq and Iran were at war for a while and it is quite possible

that those graves are Iranian and Iraqi soldiers who died in combat.

[kentuck]

37. Blair been listening to the American media again....

or Bush and Cheney? They say this all the time..

[AP]

47. Actually, if you read article, he was listening to HRW and Iraqis.

It is an issue that Human Rights Watch was acutely aware of when it compiled its own pre-invasion research - admitting that it had to reduce estimates for the al-Anfal campaign produced by Kurds by over a third, as they believed the numbers they had been given were inflated.

Hania Mufti, one of the researchers that produced that estimate, said: 'Our estimates were based on estimates. The eventual figure was based in part on circumstantial information gathered over the years.'

A further difficulty, according to Inforce, a group of British forensic experts in mass grave sites based at Bournemouth University who visited Iraq last year, was in the constant over-estimation of site sizes by Iraqis they met. 'Witnesses were often likely to have unrealistic ideas of the numbers of people in grave areas that they knew about,' said Jonathan Forrest.

[mithnanthy]

42. I'm watching Meet The Press......

...and Chris Cox (R-Calif.) just repeated the claim that Saddam had killed one million people and that we've found 400,000 in mass graves. Dr. Steven Flynn was great. He really emphasized the Homeland Security flaws and addressed the issues in a new book, America the Vulnerable.

[peekaloo]

52. saw that part, too. Silly me was waiting for Tiny Tim to challenge him...

but, alas, I turned blue. :silly:

[Cocoa]

63. I knew that figure sounded familiar

thanks for reminding me, it was Cox that uttered it, just yesterday.

[daleo]

53. Now that Saddam may go to trial, these claims will be scrutinized

This seems to me to be the first stage in what might be called de-propaganda. The public has to have its expectations damped down about what constitutes a sufficient human rights outrage or violation to justify invasion. The figures of 400,000 or one million cannot be supported by evidence. Perhaps 5000 can, so 5000 will be the new threshold for the need to invade. The fact that the U.S. has probably killed 10 times that number of Iraqis in this war and 20 times that number in the last war will be brushed aside as irrelevant.

Allawi has been reported to have killed 6 already. If he works at it, he can eventually have his own personal mass graveyard.

[The_Casual_Observer]

62. A few weeks ago I commented that I hadn't yet bought in to the

mass graves story, simply because the whole thing fit the profile of typical Chalabi created and CIA supported myth. Naturally, I was criticized for being uninformed and insensitive. We will see.

[PATRICK]

81. So how do we spot the "truth"?

Good point.

You have hit upon a problem we have had living under the spin of lies and still trying to keep our head above water, gasping in the truth. The lies are so legion, so instinctive, the real skill is trying to observe what is the truth.

How do we now when one of their talking points is valid? When it is muted, not trumpeted with lightning speed in the parrot echo chamber of national forums, emotionally dull and unsatisfying? When it comes from certain trusted individuals who have never been fooled or been liars themselves?

It is a rare gem nowadays to find any truth in any statement coming from the WH down into the gutter of talk radio and airhead TV or lazy daisy chain thin newspapers relying on wire services and propaganda outlets. It is so easy to distrust this fraudulent government with its fraudulent unrepresentative party and fraudulent media support, etc. that we look like geniuses by never taking the sucker bait which is still good or required form for the loyal opposition party bowing to the need to conform to mass deception.

But what is the truth besides the sordid agenda and lies of the web we are stuck in? Any truth that is not a distraction from root causes and blame associated with the LACK of truth in the national consciousness?

If the right says it in the "typical way" we actually have few rational choices. It is a lie, a distraction or an exaggeration, but most likely- all three. The speed and volume is to cover the truth over pre-emptively, almost as if the shred of reality, the logic of the point is a matter of scornful insignificance in its own right. The shreds of truth do not in fact matter except that the suckers are supposed to lap it up and give ready access to the poison injection.

The converse is that simply shouting liar, simply never granting them a point makes the victim look like the unreasonable treasonable fellow. It makes fools of forums trying to use their data or proposals as starting points.

It will be hard to shift gears when Kerry is elected and IF the lie machine itself gets muted.

[LSK]

76. more lies from the repukes exposed

How many times did repukes throw that in my face? More lies from them. Repukes disgust me to no end.

[DubyaSux]

78. The irony...

When we supplied Saddam all that chem and bio WMD to help defeat Iran, about this same amount of Kurds were killed in the "crossfire" (saddam did not target his own people. The repub rant makes it sound like he dropped a WMD weapon in downtown Bagdad) on the northern Iraq border.

So basically, we killed more innocent Iraqis then Saddam did.