What Happened at
Halabja?
April 23, 2002 |
Memo To: David Remnick, editor, The New Yorker
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Did Saddam Hussein Gas the Kurds at Halabja?
Yes, David, I know you are ticked at me for saying the article you
ran last month about Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds at Halabja,
back in 1988, was pure propaganda by your new writer Jeffrey
Goldberg. You also seem most distressed that I said you should have
told your readers that Jeffrey has dual citizenship with Israel and
served in the Israeli defence forces a few years back. I'm not
pursuing this to rub it in, but because I am really worried that
President
George
W. Bush read Goldberg's story and that it helped persuade him
that it would be a good thing for him to do to eliminate Saddam. He
did cite the story at a press conference, practically inviting the
world to read it. Good for circulation, but in the long run a bad
deal for civilization, if the story is bogus, as I believe it is.
I'm not saying Goldberg "made it up," David. I'm only saying he was
waltzed down a garden path toward false conclusions. It does not
help to run several photographs of people whose skin seems to be
coming off in chunks, I'm afraid. There is general agreement that
several hundred people died by gassing at Halabja, a Kurdish town of
30,000 or so inside Iraq near the Iranian border, five months before
the end of the eight-year Iran/Iraq war. Because your magazine said
these ugly photos were of Iraqi Kurds inflicted harm by the Iraqi
armed forces, your readers believed you, including Mr. Bush. Here
are some thoughts I have on what happened at Halabja, based on all
the work I've done over several years in trying to figure it out.
I'll append a letter I got from an Iraqi expatriate, a doctor who
lives in the UK, whose brother was at Halabja as an army colonel and
is now retired. The doctor, Mohammed Obeidi, is not a fan of Saddam,
but is not happy with the thought that his people could be falsely
accused of genocide, killing their own citizens for some evil
purpose.
* * * * *
First of all, remember the Iran/Iraq war began at the end of 1980.
By March 16, 1988, several hundred thousand soldiers had died in the
conflict. Iran, with 60 million people, was supposed to be able to
defeat Iraq, with 20 million. But Saddam Hussein proved to be
superior to the Ayatollah Khomeni in organizing resources.
Historians now agree that by the end of 1987, the advantage had
shifted to Iraq. The Iranians had in desperation thrown "human
waves" of soldiers against Iraq, and Iraq had used mustard gas to
turn that tide. They have acknowledged this use. In early 1988, Iraq
was using Scud missiles to hit Teheran, and the Iranian government
was reeling.
It was at this point that Halabja broke into the news. A relatively
small unit of the Iranian army broke into the town from a point only
a few miles from the border. They overwhelmed the Iraqi garrison.
Two days later they were driven out as Iraqi reinforcements arrived
from other points in the vicinity. At issue, David, is what happened
between the rock and the hard place. As far as Jeffrey Goldberg is
concerned, having interviewed citizens 14 years later, the Iraqis
bombed this Iraqi town with poison gas in order to drive out these
few Iranians. Now I might believe this, because I can believe almost
anything that occurs in wartime, but in order for Goldberg to make
the story hang together, he has to say the Iraqi Air Force dropped
chemical bombs on Halabja in order to conduct medical experiments on
their own citizens, as there were no reports from the Iranians that
they had suffered casualties by poison gas. More on this later.
From day one, the Iraqi government insisted it had nothing to do
with any poison gas being used on its own nationals, not even
accidentally in attacks on the Iranian adversaries. The defense
ministry said it would be ridiculous for them to use poison gas in
the town when their forces were going in the direction of the
Iranian retreat. The Army War College did conduct an inquiry soon
thereafter and in April 1990 concluded that both Iran and Iraq had
used gas in their warring exchanges, but that the horrible deaths at
Halabja were almost certainly the result of gas in the Iranian
inventory, gas not available to the Iraqis. You must admit, David,
that Jeffrey Goldberg never even mentioned this report. The War
College report had been widely reported in April 1990 and the
principal author, Dr. Stephen Pelletiere, to this day insists that
if there were citizens killed by Iraqi gas at Halabja, it was
collateral in the Iraqi engagement with the Iranian army. His report
says Iraq used gas, but he says he got this from the Defense
Intelligence Administration and it may or may not be true.
I was contacted last month by an Iraqi expatriate, a doctor who
lives in the UK. He informed me his brother, who had just retired as
a general in the Iraqi army, was a colonel in 1988 when his regiment
was sent to Halabja on the news that it had been occupied by the
Iranians. I asked him for his brothers recollections and here is
what Dr. Mohammed Obaidi e-mailed me last week:
* * * * *
Dear Jude,
Let me start this report by telling a little bit about the attitude
and behaviour of the Ba'ath regime when it comes to defending
themselves against a mistake they have committed or were about to
commit. They initially prepare all their media by injecting them
with false information regarding any particular act they did or were
about to do, and once they committed that action, they release their
media to defend the regime. In addition, all party members will be
served with strict information of how to deny the action that took
place and how to convince the people that the Iraqi regime DID NOT
committed that mistake or error or anything else. In other words,
the party members plus the media are ready.
What surprised the Iraqi people after gassing the Kurds in Halabja
was that the Iraqi regime was not prepared at all to defend itself
against the allegations that they were behind these gassings at a
time when they were able to do so. It seems that they were taken by
a surprise as the only thing they could do was to show on the
national TV the result of that failed offence by the Iranians in
Halabja. This was also confirmed to me by lot of people who were in
Iraq at that time. However, the opposition to the Iraqi regime in
Iraq, and particularly the Shiite (supported and supplied by Iran)
turned the story to be as an act by the Iraqi regime against the
Kurds.
As you will see from the map that I sent you, my brother was in
Mosul, which is more than 100 kilometers from Halabja, when he
received an order to move to Halabja a day before the attack by the
Iranians. Although the distance was relatively short, but preparing
a full regiment to move to a different area, it took them about two
days to arrive to Halabja. The reason for the order to my brother's
regiment to move to that area was based on military information that
the Iranians were preparing to launch an attack from that particular
region possibly with the help of fighters from one of the Kurd
parties.
In that area, Iraq had two infantry regiments and one artillery
battalion scattered on the hills surrounding Halabja. They were over
3000 soldiers.
On the other hand, however, it was well known even to the simple
Iraqi's that during each attack by the Iranians, they usually send
first the "revolutionary guards" to open the way for the military
units by detonating the mines (if any) and also to absorb the first
reaction from the Iraqi Army. For this reason, innocent Iranian
civilians were killed in hundreds if not in thousands during each
attack by the Iranian Army. My brother could not confirm the number
of Iranians entered into the Iraqi territory at Halabja. But he
thinks that after they bombarded Halabja with that kind of "gas" and
entered the town, they were shocked to see what happened to the
Kurds, and because of the heavy resistance by the Iraqi Army in the
area who was in control (by being on the hillsides of the town), the
Iranian and the Kurds (if any) were defeated within a few hours.
My brother could not add any more to what I have told you before.
But what he told me today is that when his regiment arrived to the
area, everything had finished and the Iraqis were back in control.
By briefing from other Iraqi commanders who were already there, he
learnt that no Iraqi aircraft or any other Iraqi military machines
or units had started the fire before the Iranians attacked them. He
also mentioned that the day his regiment arrived to Halabja, General
Nezar Al-Khazraji, who then was deputy chief of staff, was in the
area and had a meeting with all the commanders, where he was also
very shocked and surprised of what happened to the Kurds.
My brother also mentioned to me that the allegation against Iraq
must be untrue, as he believes if Iraq had used any sort of gas
against the Kurds, they should have used it first against the
invading Iranians, particularly when Iraq knew that they are about
to launch an attack on that area, and second, Iraq should have used
these "gases" against the Iranians when they occupied Um Kasr, the
Iraqi harbour. (Legitimate questions with no answers!!!!!!)
My brother told me that one has to ask TWO VERY BIG questions, that
is (A) since Iraq always knew from where the Iranians are about to
launch an attack, why did the Iraqi Army not use its chemical
weapons to stop the Iranians before they launch their attack? He
thinks that the answer to this question is: (1) Either Iraq did not
possess this kind of weapon at that time to use it against the
Iranians, or (2) Iraq had these weapons but could not use them
fearing a retaliation by the Iranians of using their own chemical
weapons against the Iraqis. In all cases this means that Iran had
definitely the chemical weapons before Iraq, which they have used in
Halabja; and (B) Iraq lost during the war hundreds of thousands of
soldiers, a large percent of them were University graduates, the
brains of the country, and since Saddam's aim was to bring Iran to
its knees, therefore, he could have used his chemical weapons to
achieve his goal, similar to what the U.S. did to Japan when they
used the atomic bombs. So, why did he not use it against the
Iranians, but instead, if it was true, he used it against the Kurds?
It seems to me that the above questions are very logical ones;
however, the answers to them will be left to those who think that
Iraq had used chemical weapons against the Kurds.
* * * * *
If you would take the trouble to read Pelletiere's 2001 report on
why oil played such an important role in the Gulf War, you would
find he covers other specious information that Goldberg had spoon
fed to him by the Kurd rebels, who have a vested interest in keeping
alive the story that Saddam had slaughtered as many as 100,000 Kurds
at the end of the war with Iran. It was our Secretary of State,
George Shultz, who leveled this charge at Iraq as soon as the
Iran/Iraq war was over, as it was convenient for our government to
join Israel in making Iraq an enemy. In his book, Pelletiere says
this was a "hoax, a non-event," as no bodies were ever discovered.
In his March 25 report, David, Goldberg does go with the updated
version of this hoax, peddled by Human Rights Watch, which is that
Iraq actually used conventional weapons, i.e., bullets, to kill
100,000 Kurds, men and boys, and then bury them "in mass graves."
Goldberg also notes the graves have never been found. Surely you
must have raised an eyebrow in editing this material. There are only
4 million Iraqi Kurds, half of them women, another quarter
youngsters or seniors. To wipe out 10% of the remainder in a few
days with weapons and burials in mass graves should at least have
produced some witnesses who escaped, or soldiers with remorse at
slaughtering their fellow Iraqis in this fashion. Here is an account
of Milton Viorst, a Washington Post reporter, who went to
Kurdistan a few days after Shultz made his charge:
-
- From what I saw, I would conclude that if lethal gas was used,
it was not used genocidally -- that is, for mass killing. The
Kurds compose a fifth of the Iraqi population, and they are a
tightly knit community. If there had been large-scale killing, it
is likely they would know and tell the world. But neither I nor
any Westerner I encountered heard such allegations.
Nor did Kurdish society show discernible signs of tension. The
northern cities, where the men wear Kurdish turbans and baggy
pants, were as bustling as I had ever seen them. I talked to armed
Kurds near the border, members of Iraqi military unites mobilized
against the rebels.
On the other hand, Iraq probably used gas of some kind in air
attacks on rebel positions. Journalists visiting the Turkish camps
saw refugees with blistered skin and irritated eyes, symptoms of
gassing. But doctors sent by France, the United Nations and the
Red Cross have said these symptoms could have been produced by a
powerful, but non-lethal tear gas.
Citing national security, Mr. Shultz has declined to submit the
U.S. data to scrutiny, even by America's NATO allies, though State
Department sources say it is the sort of information that the
United States routinely shares with them. American officials
acknowledge that Mr. Shultz's evidence, chiefly radio intercepts,
may be subject to conflicting interpretations.
I hope you begin to see why you should not be ticked off at me for
questioning the accuracy of the Goldberg piece. I actually could
write several other pages of criticism of the piece, where it seems
obvious he allowed himself to be managed by those in our government
and in Israel who are eager to have a "regime change" in Baghdad as
soon as possible. If I were you, I would conduct an independent
inquiry, and if necessary alert your audience that they were misled.
They were.
http://wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=1967 |
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