Report Suppressed: Iran Gassed Kurds, Not Iraq

[MariaS]

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.

by Raju Thomas

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5257.htm

I'm curious to hear some opinions on this article.

Maria

[Hoppin_Mad]

1. My understanding

is that this was US orchestrated DISinfo. At the time, we were buddies with Saddam, and the enemy was Iran.

There is a site with all the Iran Contra docs. There is more info there.

[La_Serpiente]

2. This information is radically different

So I would have to see more stories that back up this author's claim. If Iran did gas the Kurds, where did they get the weapons from?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. They got them from us...we were supplying both sides.

[SmokeyBlues]

3. Condemnation of Iran

Didn't the Administration issue an *official* or at least public condemnation of Iran for the gassing? I'm sure I read this somewhere, and it would make sense because Saddam was our man in Baghdad at that time.

[Old and In the Way]

4. There was a post here on DU before Shrub's war started.

It was a LTTE in the NYT from a CIA analyst who was in a position to know, at the time. He also claimed that the autopsy's were consistant with the chemical weapons that Iran had. I'm not sure if this was ever confirmed.

It wouldn't surprise me if this administration switches gears and now uses this to justify invading Iraq. Stay tooned.

[wellst0nev0ter]

5. Someone Posted An Op-Ed In The NYT About This

Here are the letters in reply:

To the Editor:

Re "A War Crime or an Act of War?" (Op-Ed, Jan. 31):

Stephen C. Pelletiere writes that Iran, not Iraq, might have been responsible for the 1988 gassing of Kurdish civilians in Halabja.

Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed survivors from Halabja and reviewed 18 tons of Iraqi state documents to establish beyond doubt that the attack was carried out by Iraq.

Iraqi forces used mustard and nerve gases, as well as mass executions, to kill some 100,000 Kurds in the genocidal 1988 Anfal campaign. The commander, Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, said of the Kurds, in a taped speech obtained by Human Rights Watch: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community?"

The evidence is incontrovertible: Iraq is responsible for the crime of genocide, committed against its own Kurdish population. The gassing at Halabja was part of that crime.

KENNETH ROTH
Executive Director
Human Rights Watch
New York, Feb. 3, 2003

To the Editor:

Re "A War Crime or an Act of War?," by Stephen C. Pelletiere (Op-Ed, Jan. 31):

In 1988, as a staff member working for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I documented Iraqi chemical weapons attacks on 49 Kurdish villages in Dihok Province along Iraq's border with Turkey. These attacks began on Aug. 25, 1988, five days after the Iran-Iraq war ended, and were specifically targeted on civilians.

As a result of the committee's report, the Senate unanimously approved comprehensive sanctions on Iraq.

Between March 1987 and August 1988, Iraq made extensive use of chemical weapons against Kurdish villages as part of a campaign aimed at depopulating rural Kurdistan. These attacks have been well documented by human rights groups, forensic investigators and the Kurds themselves. Many occurred in places far from the front line in the Iran-Iraq war.

The Kurdish survivors of the Halabja attack all blame Iraq, and many report seeing Iraqi markings on the low-flying aircraft that delivered the lethal gas. While the most deadly, the Halabja attack was one of between 60 and 180 such attacks that took thousands of civilian lives.

PETER GALBRAITH
Washington, Feb. 3, 2003

The writer is a former United States ambassador to Croatia.

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 Attache, Mission of Iran to the United Nations
New York, Feb. 3, 2003

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Here's something that was written in 2002 referencing a U.S. Army...

...War College Study completed in 1991:

Report Suppressed: Iran Gassed Kurds, Not Iraq
<http://www.the7thfire.com/Politics%20and%20History/GaseousLies.htm>

Excerpt:

"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."

...snip...

"Regarding the Halabjah incident where Iraqi soldiers were reported to have gassed their own Kurdish citizens, the USAWC investigators observed: “It appears that in seeking to punish Iraq, Congress was influenced by another incident that occurred five months earlier in another Iraq-Kurdish city, Halabjah. In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing 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 chemical weapons in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.” {The Iranians thought the Kurds had fled Halabjah and that they were attacking occupying Iraqi forces. But the Iraqis had already vacated Halabjah and the Kurds had returned. Iran gassed the Kurds by accident}"

...snip...

"However, in the Halabjah incident, the USAWC investigators discovered that the gas used that killed hundreds of Kurds was the non-persistent gas, the chemical weapon of choice of the Iranians. Note it was the Iranians who arrived at the scene first, who reported the incident to UN observers, and who took pictures of the gassed Kurdish civilians."
======================================

Here's another article that says basically the same thing:

Iraq & Iran: Rush to Judgment
October 1988, Page 51
<http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1088/8810051.htm>