In March 1991, two million Kurds fled Iraq, settling at camps on the border

SYRIA'S KURDISH REVOLUTION

Canadians Remember

1988: Thousands die in Halabja gas attack - BBC News

news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/16/.../4304853.stm

Thousands of people die in a poison gas attack in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja. ...that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's forces had launched the chemical gas attack. ...pro-Iranian Kurdish forces and Halabja's citizens during a major battle.

IRAQ KURDISH WOMEN FIGHTERS

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AUGUST 19 NEW UPDATES- GOD BLESS THE BEAUTIFUL KURDISH PEOPLE...

Iraq: Kurdish president proposes independence referendum

AUGUST 21, 2014- NEWS UPDATE-

BEST COMMENT: The pessimistic geopolitical message about Iraq's future, that was silently addressed by the US president Obama in his recent statements on Iraq changed the attitude of the world community in general and the Western countries in particular to the crisis and the horrible situation in this pseudo country. The common sense in the realistic estimate on hopeless prospects in Iraq has been predominating in positions of the Western states coalition. This is the main reason and motivation that led to increase collective humanitarian, military and peacekeeping support of the Western coaltion for and in favor of the people, the united native ethnocultural communities and the legitimate authorities of the integrated Southern Kutdistan. That is the rest of the dead Iraq which is in hard and sharp need of a new inclusive government of Arab national reconciliation to create their new smaller, but sovereign shiite-sunni islsmic state. The democratic, secular, multinational and multicultural state of Southern Kurdistan has nothing to do with the former and the future Iraq. Let Iran and "some" Arab countries help their shiite and sunni "brothers" to reach coexistence in a new muslim country with enough natural resources to live together in peace, if they wish and are ready and able to do that. They have to respect and recognize the Southern Kurdistan now as already independent and sovereign state.

Canada Steps in to Back Kurdish War Effort in Iraq

By Tessa Manuello 19/8/2014

Humanitarian aid bound for Iraq is loaded into an Air Force plane in Germany. Photo: AFP

MONTREAL, Canada – Canada, which opted out of the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, has joined in a rally started by the US, France and Britain to support the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in their war against the Islamic State (IS/ISIS/ISIL).

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Friday he is committing two cargo planes to move military supplies into northern Iraq as part of the international effort to bolster Kurdish forces in the embattled region.

“This support, which will be provided in close co-ordination with our allies, will enable Kurdish forces to provide effective protection to Iraqis faced with the barbarous attacks of ISIL,” Harper said in a statement.

Since US President Barack Obama authorized air strikes more than a week ago, France announced on Wednesday it is sending arms to the Peshmerga to fulfill an urgent need, and Britain has stepped up its role in northern Iraq, mainly to help with the refugees.

A Canadian CC-177 Globemaster and a CC-130J Hercules transport are to begin flying arms provided by other allies to Erbil. The flights, which include approximately 30 Canadian Forces personnel, will continue as long as there is equipment and supplies to send.

The effort seems to indicate that Canada has departed from its former policy of non-engagement in the Iraq war since 2003. Harper is taking Canada’s involvement in Iraq a step further, after Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird endorsed the US air strikes.

“Canada supports all efforts, including United States supply drops and air strikes, to protect civilians from ISIS terrorists. We continue to stand with those who support the Iraqi people, including the Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers who are bravely fighting this brutal terrorism,” Baird said in a statement.

In addition to helping with transport, the Canadian government has committed 5 million Canadian dollars in humanitarian aid to Iraq. That was announced two days after Yezidi-Canadians rallied on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, calling on the government to intervene and help.

Harper said the situation in Iraq will be closely monitored and further assistance may be provided in the future.

Canada had re-engaged in Iraq since April 2013, after 25 years of absence, with the opening of a diplomatic mission in Baghdad. The ‘’historic’’ opening was an important milestone in relations with Iraq, which Canada sees as an emerging regional partner.

Earlier this year, Canada opened a new trade office in Erbil to foster trade with Iraq, Canada’s largest two-way trading partner in the Middle East.

Harper expressed support to the new leadership in Iraq, hoping that the new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi can rally the country's factions behind him.

“We call on Iraq’s leadership to take immediate steps to counter ISIL and the terrorists that operate under that banner,” Harper said in a statement. “We stand ready to support a new Iraqi government that addresses the needs of all Iraqis, regardless of ethnic origin or religious belief.”

http://rudaw.net/english/world/19082014

COMMENT:

The ongoing surge of Islamist State is a revival of the 7 th Century Islamist expansión which went weswards till Spain and France and esatwards till the Chinese Wall.Its danger and virulence can not be stressed enough.There are no geographical limits to their ambitions and they want to subjugate the rest of the world.They are devoid of any moral or human values.They are spreading the cult of death and beheadings everywhere.They sexually do enslave women and female children .The Kurds we are in the forefront of the fight against these assasins.We are defending what is left from humanity,copassion and civilization.-"Resue us,resue us,rescue humanity or what is left of it",claim the voiceless Kurds.

COMMENT;

Kurdistan appreciates Canadian support. We look forward to establishing closer ties with Canada and other powers. A Kurdish state would be the most reliable ally of Canada in the region. Nice job and thank you Canada.

Coment:

I don't want to be too hopeful here. But it is hard to ignore how Canada is supporting a unified Iraq with words but Kurdistan with actions. Perhaps the concept of a unified Iraq is already beginning to diminish in the West. Perhaps we (the West) are beginning to see the importance of a strong Kurdistan in the Middle East. It has taken years of struggle for your people to accomplish this feat. You should all be very proud! May there be many more actions of goodwill to come.

Comment:

Bravo Canada et Merci

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Calgary Kurds rally at City Hall against ISIS brutality

Islamic State fighters overran nearly 12 towns and villages in Syria's Aleppo province this week

CBC News Posted: Aug 17, 2014 2:14 PM MT Last Updated: Aug 17, 2014 2:14 PM MT

Last Updated: Aug 17, 2014 2:14 PM MT

About 200 members of Calgary's Kurdish community rallied at City Hall Sunday to condemn brutality by ISIS fighters in Iraq and call for greater international support for Kurdish forces. (CBC)

Kurdish forces retake key towns in Iraq

Iraq News.Net - Sunday 17th August, 2014

Kurdish security forces Sunday carried out an offensive to retake control of Christian towns and Iraq's largest dam in the northern province of Nineveh, security and medical sources said. Peshmerga ...

- See more at: http://www.iraqnews.net/#sthash.QfOloN3b.dpuf

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ISIS reportedly lose Mosul Dam following a rampant counter offensive by Kurdish and US forces

Iraq News.Net - Sunday 17th August, 2014

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Supported by US airstrikes Sunday, Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have reported that they are in near complete control of the Mosul Dam, the largest dam in the country, which was ...

- See more at: http://www.iraqnews.net/#sthash.QfOloN3b.dpuf

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Egypt condemns terrorist acts by Islamic State

Iraq News.Net - Tuesday 19th August, 2014

Egypt has condemned all forms of terrorist acts conducted by the Islamic State (IS) Sunni extremists group in Iraq where scores of civilians have been killed and injured, the state-run MENA news ...

- See more at: http://www.iraqnews.net/#sthash.QfOloN3b.dpuf

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Kurds in Montreal Brave the Storm to Celebrate Newroz

rudaw.net/english/world/24032014 Cached

MONTREAL, Canada—Several hundred Kurds from across the French province of Quebec braved the unexpected snowstorm on Friday and gathered in a large ballroom outside ...

To Aid Kurdistan, Look Beyond Iraq

By ALIZA MARCUS and ANDREW APOSTOLOUAUG. 18, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has forced America to return to the battlefield in Iraq. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama ordered airstrikes against ISIS fighters nearing Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, while insisting that he wouldn’t allow the United States to be “dragged” back into Iraq. If Mr. Obama really wants to ensure no boots on the ground, he will have to rethink America’s policy toward Kurdish nationalism, and recognize the Kurds, and not only Iraqi ones, are his main ally against ISIS.

Mr. Obama, like previous presidents, has divided Kurdish interests by borders and subsumed Kurdish needs to the demands of states in the region. That policy is now out of date. Kurdish fighters are ignoring national borders to join the fight against ISIS. They are not doing this to defend Iraq — or Syria, where Kurds have been battling ISIS for over a year — but to defend this part of Kurdistan and its people.

In the past week, Syrian Kurdish fighters have saved thousands of Yazidis, a Kurdish religious minority, by helping them to escape ISIS attacks in Iraq. At the same time, Turkish Kurdish fighters have deployed their forces to protect the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdish city of Kirkuk and have helped defeat ISIS near the town of Makhmur.

Syrian and Turkish Kurdish fighters are motivated by the threat ISIS poses to the only internationally recognized Kurdish entity in the region, the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. Their arrival, however, was necessitated by the weakness of the K.R.G., which lacks a unified army.

America’s only partner in the Kurdish region is unlikely to deliver victory against ISIS on its own, even with American military aid. To stop ISIS, Washington needs to engage politically with all Kurdish forces, not just the Iraqi ones.

Indeed, Syrian and Turkish Kurdish fighters are gaining influence and a stronger foothold. America can no longer ignore them. Consideration of other assistance — whether financial or military — should depend on political developments and the urgency of the situation.

Although Washington has long been wary of Kurdish nationalism, it is a powerful mobilizing force. It also converges with America’s strategic interests. The Kurdish groups from Syria and Turkey reject radical Islamism. They are secular nationalists and natural American allies.

Washington’s hesitancy has largely been due to its relations with Turkey. The Syrian Kurdish fighters are from the Democratic Union Party, or P.Y.D., which has carved out autonomous zones in northern Syria and has been battling ISIS for more than a year. The P.Y.D. is affiliated with the Turkish Kurdish Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., the militant group that has been fighting for self-rule inside Turkey for almost 30 years and is on the United States terrorist list.

Turkey has long opposed Kurdish nationalist demands on its own territory and hasn’t wanted America to do anything that might boost the P.K.K.’s standing. But Turkey has held its own talks with the P.Y.D., and last year it embarked on a tentative cease-fire with the P.K.K.

Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

There is no reason for Washington to lag behind. America should directly engage with the P.Y.D. and reconsider its approach toward the P.K.K., especially since Turkey’s attitude is changing. Although peace negotiations between Turkey and the P.K.K. haven’t officially started, the Turkish Parliament passed a law in July that protects government officials from prosecution if such talks are held.

Engagement with the main Kurdish fighters on the ground in Iraq will help defeat ISIS and give Washington much-needed new influence by making clear its commitment to Kurdistan, while maintaining respect for national borders. The United States will also be better positioned to ensure that intermittent tensions among the Kurdish parties do not turn violent.

Ironically, American support for the Kurds could also help keep Iraq intact as a state. A few weeks ago the central Iraqi government was in a state of political paralysis and the K.R.G. president, Massoud Barzani, had announced plans to hold a referendum on independence. The ISIS offensive has forced re-evaluations all around.

Iraq is starting to understand that it needs a strong Kurdistan to defeat ISIS and survive. Mr. Barzani, who has since dropped talk of a referendum, sees that he needs partners inside Iraq and allies outside to ensure stability and protect Kurdish territory from assault.

The compromise that Iraqi Kurds accepted in 2005 — autonomy within a federal Iraq instead of holding out for independence — may prove more durable than expected. A new American approach to all of Kurdistan would help strengthen that compromise by strengthening the Kurds. It is an opportunity that should not be missed.

Aliza Marcus is the author of “Blood and Belief: The P.K.K. and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.” Andrew Apostolou is the former head of Iran human rights programs at Freedom House.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/opinion/to-aid-kurdistan-look-beyond-iraq.html?hp&_r=0

Pope OKs protecting Iraq minorities, wants UN OK

Daniel Dal Zennaro

Pope Francis prays during his meeting with journalists aboard the papal flight on the journey to Seoul, South Korea, after being informed by Father Federico Lombardi that Associated Press video journalist Simone Camilli, of Italy, died in Gaza, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014. Six people - including the Associated Press video journalist - were killed Wednesday when leftover ordnance believed to have been dropped in an Israeli airstrike blew up in the Gaza Strip. Camilli and his Palestinian translator, Ali Shehda Abu Afash, were covering the aftermath of the war between Israel and Islamic militants in Gaza when they were killed. The blast occurred as Gaza police engineers were trying to defuse unexploded ordnance fired by Israel. Four police engineers also were killed, police said. Three people, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa, were badly injured.

Posted: Monday, August 18, 2014 9:53 pm

Associated Press |

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis on Monday said efforts to stop Islamic militants from attacking religious minorities in Iraq are legitimate but said the international community — and not just one country — should decide how to intervene.

Francis was asked if he approved of the unilateral U.S. airstrikes on militants of the Islamic State group, who have captured swaths of northern and western Iraq and northeastern Syria and have forced minority Christians and others to either convert to Islam or flee their homes.

“In these cases, where there is an unjust aggression, I can only say that it is licit to stop the unjust aggressor,” Francis said. “I underscore the verb ’stop.’ I’m not saying ’bomb’ or ’make war,’ just ’stop.’ And the means that can be used to stop them must be evaluated.”

Francis also said he and his advisers were considering whether he might go to northern Iraq himself to show solidarity with persecuted Christians. But he said he was holding off for now on a decision.

The pope’s comments were significant because the Vatican has vehemently opposed any military intervention in recent years. Pope Paul VI famously uttered the words “War never again, never again war” at the United Nations in 1965 as the Vietnam War raged, a refrain that has been repeated by every pope since. St. John Paul II actively tried to head off the Iraq war on the grounds that a “preventive” war couldn’t be justified. He repeatedly called for negotiations to resolve the crisis over Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait a decade prior.

Francis himself staged a global prayer and fast for peace when the U.S. was threatening airstrikes on Syria last year.But in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks — in the Vatican’s mind an “unjust aggression” — John Paul defended the “legitimate fight against terrorism,” and the right of nations to defend themselves against terrorist attacks. He did though call for restraint and the Vatican subsequently focused its position on emphasizing the need to eradicate the root causes of terrorism: poverty and oppression.Recently, the Vatican has been increasingly showing support for military intervention in Iraq, given that Christians are being directly targeted because of their faith and that Christian communities, which have existed for 2,000 years, have been emptied as a result of the extremists’ onslaught.The U.S. began launching airstrikes against IS fighters on Aug. 8, allowing Kurdish forces to fend off an advance on their regional capital of Irbil and to help tens of thousands of religious minorities escape.When the Vatican’s ambassador to Iraq, Monsignor Giorgio Lingua, was asked about the U.S. airstrikes, he told Vatican Radio that it was unfortunate that the situation had gotten to this point “but it’s good when you’re able to at the very least remove weapons from these people who have no scruples.”The Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, went further, saying “Maybe military action is necessary at this moment.”Church teaching allows for “just wars,” when military force can be morally justified under certain circumstances. The four main criteria, all of which must be met, include that the damage inflicted by the aggressor must be “lasting, grave and certain,” that all other means haven’t worked, that there must be real prospects for success and that the intervention must not produce results that are worse than the original evil. Finally, church teaching holds that the responsibility for determining if the four conditions have been met rests with the judgment of “those who have responsibility for the common good.”Francis was thus essentially applying church teaching on the “just war” doctrine to the Iraq situation.But, he said, in history, such “excuses” to stop an unjust aggression have been used by world powers to justify a “war of conquest” in which an entire people have been taken over.“One nation alone cannot judge how you stop this, how you stop an unjust aggressor,” he said, apparently referring to the United States. “After World War II, the idea of the United Nations came about: It’s there that you must discuss ’Is there an unjust aggression? It seems so. How should we stop it?’ Just this. Nothing more.”Francis sent a personal envoy, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, to northern Iraq last week with an undisclosed amount of money to help people in flight and show the pope’s solidarity with those forced to flee their homes.In other comments Monday:—Francis confirmed he hoped to travel to the United States in September 2015 for a possible three-city tour: to attend a family rally in Philadelphia and to address Congress in Washington and the United Nations in New York. He said a Mexico stop on that trip was possible but not decided yet. He also said he might make one-day visit to Spain next year.—Francis said he would go “tomorrow!” to China and that he wanted a dialogue with Beijing. He said all the Catholic Church wanted was to be able to operate freely in the country.— Francis acknowledged that he “must be smarter” about over-extending himself after he was forced to cancel some appointments in the spring due to illness. He said the last time he took a vacation away from home was in 1975. “I’m very attached to my home,” he said, saying he takes “staycations” instead. “I change my daily rhythm, I sleep more, read more things that I like, listen to music, pray more. And in that way, I rest.”— Francis said he was hoping for a quick beatification for slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, saying there were no more doctrinal issues blocking the process for one of the heroes of the liberation theology movement in Latin America. Romero’s case had been held up for decades in the Vatican’s orthodoxy office which, under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, launched a crackdown on the movement in the 1980s over concerns about its Marxist excesses.—Francis refused to brand as a failure his high-profile June peace prayer at the Vatican with the Israeli and Palestinian presidents, even though weeks of violence erupted soon thereafter. Francis noted that the prayer initiative came from the two leaders, not him, and was designed to show that while there can be a political path for negotiation, there was also a separate path for prayer. “Now, the smoke of bombs, of war, isn’t letting them see the door, but the door has been open since that moment,” he said.___Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/news/pope-oks-protecting-iraq-minorities-wants-un-ok/article_df1d8c6e-8a32-5882-9288-92eff75fc570.html

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Gains in Kurdish counterattack but Iraq militants put up stiff resistance euronews.net 11:35

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Father Raymond J. de Souza: The battle of our century

Father Raymond J. de Souza | August 14, 2014 7:13 AM ET

AP PhotoIt is not a war between religions. It is a war within Islam that has lethal consequences for all those it touches.

It began dramatically on Sept. 11, 2001. Our century is characterized by a lethal theological war in the house of Islam, with brutal consequences for the whole world, whether it be lower Manhattan or northern Iraq.

Centuries are not exactly 100 years long. The late British historian Eric Hobsbawm proposed a more persuasive division of history with his “long 19th century,” which began with the French Revolution in 1789 and lasted until the Great War laid waste to the empires and their balances of power. That was followed by the “short 20th century,” inaugurated by the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and concluded by the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1989, and the erasure of the Soviet Union itself from the map in 1991.

What followed in the 1990s was a short “holiday from history,” as George F. Will put it on Sept. 12, 2001. A new century had begun that day, and whether it will be long or short remains to be seen. Last week, I wrote about how the settlement of the Great War eliminated Islam’s geopolitical expression on the global stage and divided up historic Muslim lands — including, in the Islamic view, the ancient capital of the world’s religious identity, Jerusalem — among European powers. While the Cold War occupied Western energies during the short 20th century, the Islamic world roiled with the question of what would replace the Ottoman empire as Islam’s geopolitical expression.

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One answer was given in 1979, from Shia Iran, where an Islamic Republic was established — state power at the service of Islam in a theocracy. Another answer was incubating in the Sunni world, which sought influence outside of the state system, even as it enjoyed the financial support of the Sunni powers. This latter option took the path of guerrilla war and terror, making itself manifest with al-Qaeda’s assault on the twin towers in New York.

So the 21st century opened with two options facing the Islamic world. On one hand, an Islamic jihad pursued through both state theocracy and non-state actors employing terrorism. These options overlapped both the Sunni and Shia worlds, as Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Nusra and now ISIS demonstrate. On the other hand, we see the continuation of monarchies and military rulers which are supportive of Islam but not wholly animated by it. The Arab Spring marked the rebellion of the former against the latter. The turn of Turkey away from its aggressive secularism toward a more explicitly Islamic posture is another indication of the rise of the jihadist view over the idea of a secular state.

It is not a war between religions, and not a war between Islam and Christianity. It is a theological war in Islam that has lethal consequences for all those it touches, including non-Muslims. The West was reluctant to concede that our century would be defined by a theological war within Islam. And so President George W. Bush spoke of a “war on terror”, which is a technique, not an idea or a movement. President Obama thought it was principally about America, and so his sweet words spoken in Cairo could make it all go away.

Its defeat will require from within Islam a century-long struggle involving theology, politics, social and cultural reform and sheer military power

One of the few to see these developments clearly — more clearly than either his predecessor or his successor it should be noted — was Pope Benedict XVI, who called the world’s attention to this Islamic theological-political crisis at Regensburg, Germany, in 2006. Many sought to evade the pointed questions he posed, but they did resonate in the Islamic world, where Muslims are the first to live with the consequences of jihadism.

All those evasions are no longer tenable. The unspeakable brutality taking place in ISIS-controlled Iraq — beheadings, crucifixions, killing of children, selling of women, mass graves, expulsions of entire populations — offers a clear picture of one option currently on offer. It is powerful and growing, manifesting itself in both Sunni and Shia forms in parts of the Islamic world. Its defeat will require from within Islam a century-long struggle involving theology, politics, social and cultural reform and sheer military power.

The task of the West is to protect its populations from the spillover effects when the jihadi cauldron overflows. Israel, as the most proximate Western nation, has learned this first, which is why it is reluctant to seek allies amid warring Islamic factions, and resigns itself instead to repeated small wars on its borders.

When the 21st century began with the carnage of September 11, it was tempting to ignore that a bloody new century had begun. Thirteen years into the jihadist century, it can no longer be ignored.

National Post

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/14/father-raymond-j-de-souza-the-battle-of-our-century/

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Islam’s dilemma over the Islamic State

Cooperation over confronting the threat is missing

Mosul Dam Airstrike Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

By Clare M. Lopez - - Monday, August 18, 2014

The jihadist forces of the Islamic State are strewing a path of atrocities, destruction and conquest across the heartland of the Middle East. They thrust down into Iraq from Syrian battlefields in June 2014, sweeping all before them, including thousands of Iraqi army troops who abandoned uniforms and top-of-the-line U.S. weaponry as they fled south to Baghdad.

Who stands between the Islamic State and its dream of a global caliphate? The Kurds are doing their best with a Peshmerga spirit but outdated weaponry. The United States and some European allies have begun to intervene militarily. Saudi King Abdullah gave a couple of speeches imploring his fellow Muslims to do something. Iran reportedly sent Gen. Qassem Suleimani and some Qods Force advisers to buck up its tottering puppet regime in Baghdad. The question is, where are the rest of the region’s Muslims, those supposedly so threatened by what the Islamic State represents? The silence from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been positively deafening. Above all, Gen. Suleimani and the Qods Force notwithstanding, what is Iran really doing to take the fight to the Islamic State and roll back its advances?

A directionless U.S. national security leadership helps explain why the United States can’t seem to figure out who’s the enemy (this week) or what to do about it all. As long as the Islamic State was still the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), fighting (at least occasionally) against the Iranian-backed regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, the U.S. along with assorted companions of dubious pedigree — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood — channeled aid, intelligence, training and weapons to Syrian rebels, some of whom were of likewise dubious pedigree. But now that ISIS has morphed into the far more ambitious and dangerous Islamic State (or simply, the Caliphate), it seems to be another story. In between rounds of golf, even President Obama has expressed something akin to alarm.

The problem, as Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy pointed out recently, is that the United States has no “overarching strategy.” What Mr. May and others term (the politically correct) “jihadism,” in fact is nothing other than the purest expression of Islamic doctrine, law and scripture that has been waging wars of conquest against the non-Muslim world for more than 1,300 years. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, after all, earned a doctorate in Islamic studies from a Baghdad university. Like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and others before him, he cites with specificity Islamic law and scripture to underscore the justification of his jihad. However, thanks to massive penetration of the top levels of U.S. national security leadership, which collaborated with affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to effect a governmentwide purge of training materials about such topics, the American ability to name the enemy and take the offense to confront and defeat his threat doctrine has been neutralized. So we see the Obama administration jerking from response to response, sending Libyan weapons and training future ISIS recruits in Jordan one day, bombing the Islamic State positions inside Iraq the next, too tongue-tied to identify the Islamic ideology at the root of the whole mess.

Video

Alarm, Ridicule For Declaration Of Islamic State

An al-Qaida breakaway group's formal declaration of an Islamic caliphate across the stretch of territory it controls in Syria and Iraq sparked celebrations among the group's followers Monday but condemnation and...

Andrew Bostom nailed it in an Aug. 17 tweet in which he asked, “Whither the Muslim-led coalition to crush ‘un-Islamic [Islamic State] drawn from vast, modern-equipped militaries of Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, et al?” Yousef al-Qaradawi, senior jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood, bleated something about how al-Baghdadi’s declaration of a caliphate was “void,” according to Islamic law. No call to arms here, though, and certainly nothing at the level of his thundering fatwas endorsing suicide bombings against American troops in Iraq or Israelis. Even when the Islamic State calls the Shia “rafidah,” meaning deviants (from the “true Islam”), and jihadis flock from all over the world to volunteer for suicide missions to blow up Shia shrines, the most Iran seems to be doing is helping defend the ones that are left and making sure the Islamic State doesn’t capture Baghdad.

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Mosul Dam Airstrike Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

That leads to the nagging concern at the back of all this: What if the reason neither the ostensibly petrified Arab Muslim regimes nor the supposedly directly targeted Shia have called an emergency session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to denounce the “un-Islamic” Islamic State is because it really isn’t all that “un-Islamic” to want to re-establish the caliphate or enforce Islamic law (Shariah)? None of them wants to lose his throne — or his head — to the bloodthirsty thugs, but how to condemn something that Muhammad and the Four Rightly Guided Caliphs who followed him did on a much grander scale?

Iran, for one, long ago made its own operational terrorist pact with the Sunni al Qaeda (which led to Sept. 11 and beyond) and has openly supported Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, for decades. It surely will be recalled that the closest sponsor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Shia-hating al Qaeda commander who tore Iraq’s mixed Sunni-Shiite communities apart in the mid-2000s, was none other than the Iranian Qods Force. In fact, when the Islamic State first emerged as ISIS is the Syrian war in 2012, it arrived out of Iraq as the direct descendant of al-Zarqawi’s savage fighters. Even then, as long as ISIS was slaughtering fellow anti-Assad rebels among the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra and other militias, Iran, Syria and its proxy terrorist group Hezbollah held back from going after it full force.

The chaos in the Middle East plays out on several levels. At one level, the most easily seen, it is an intra-Islamic sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. Such fitna dates to the death of Muhammad in 632, when his followers couldn’t agree on who should succeed him. However, as the obvious reluctance of the broader Muslim world to forge that pan-Islamic coalition allows Islamic State to advance and consolidate, committing unspeakable atrocities against Christians, Shiites, Yazidis and anyone else in its way, and Westerners once again step into the middle of an Islamic jihad on the march, it would be wise to look at the macro-level of these developments.

The very top level of what may be called “balanced opposition” plays out in Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations.” It is at this level that America’s leaders must remain alert. As five intelligence officials told Bloomberg News, elements of the Islamic State already are looking outward with the intention of organizing sleeper cells to carry out future terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States. The Islamic State, pan-Islamic or “merely” Sunni, eventually will pose a direct national security threat to U.S. interests abroad as well as to the homeland. Bing West, writing in National Review Online on Aug. 14, urges a sober assessment of this jihadist army, now the richest and most capable Islamic force since the high point of the Ottoman Empire. He is right to declare that only a “warrior resolve” to physically destroy this jihad army will halt its inexorable advance.

Even more important in the long run, though, is the “warrior resolve” to name, confront and destroy the allure of the Shariah-based ideology that drives jihad. That’s the only way “we get to win this time.”

Clare M. Lopez is the vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/18/lopez-islams-dilemma-over-the-islamic-state/#ixzz3AqQPY5MK

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COMMENT:

santiago • 12 hours ago

I doubt very much that Iran had anything to do with any Sunni's much less in terrorism, they hate each other more than can be imagined, specially among extremists. Why not say the truth that Al qaeda is Sunni, and mostly Saudi with financial backing from all those Sunni Middle Eastern countries, specially Saudi Arabia. Why not say the truth that the US has been backing these groups for decades, training them and then getting the scorpions sting. Maybe it is time to back the other guys, whom in their 30% share of terrorist operations and deaths, have been more moderate and mostly military and government in nature instead of mostly civilian targeting. Not saying that going shia is the answer, but Sunni is definitely not the answer.

comment:

A very obviously biased article and one wonders who this writer is funded by. It is no secret that the 19 hijackers responsible for 9/11 were all Saudis. It is also no secret that the funding for these extremist groups comes predominantly from KSA and Qatar and that Turkey by opening its borders to Syria has facilitated the rise of these groups. And guess whose best allies are these countries????

Pope seeks UN action to stop violence in Iraq

August 19, 2014 11:14 pm

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE: Pope Francis has called for collective action through the United Nations to “stop unjust aggression” in Iraq, in an implicit criticism of unilateral US air strikes there.
The pope, speaking to reporters aboard his flight back from a trip to South Korea on Monday, said he was ready to visit Iraq “if necessary,” providing that it would help people under threat there.
When asked about the recent US strikes against Islamic State (IS) targets in the north of the country, Francis said “in the case where there is unjust aggression, it is acceptable to stop an unjust aggressor. I emphasize the word ‘stop’. I am not saying ‘bombard’ or ‘make war upon’.”
“One nation cannot decide” alone how to end the aggression, he added.
“The idea of the United Nations came after World War II. That is where we should be having the discussion and saying, ‘There is an unjust aggressor. How are we going to stop it?’”
Last week, as thousands from Iraq’s Yazidi and Christian minorities fled attacks by IS jihadists, Francis made a plea to the UN to do all it could to stop the violence.
The Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations, Silvano Tomasi, had voiced support days earlier for the US air strikes, in a rare exception to papal policy promoting peaceful conflict resolution.
“Military action might be necessary,” Tomasi had said.
The United States has launched nearly 70 air strikes in Iraq since early August to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces pushing back IS militants in the north.
The pope told reporters on Monday that he wanted to clarify his position on the right to a legitimate defense in the face of genocide.
Church figures on the ground in Iraq have warned that persecution of Christian by militants could become a genocide.
Hundreds of thousands of people including many of Iraq’s Christian minority have fled their homes in the north due to the rapid advance of the jihadists.
Francis said he and his staff were considering different options to help those threatened by the jihadists, including a potential trip to Iraq.
“We said, if necessary, when we return from [South] Korea we can go there, but right now it is not the best thing to do,” he told reporters.
“I am available, and I am ready,” the 77-year-old pontiff added.
Francis was returning from a five-day stay in South Korea, the first papal visit to Asia in 15 years.
AFP http://www.manilatimes.net/pope-seeks-un-action-stop-violence-iraq/120194/

Muslim intellectuals slam ISIS brutality in Iraq

Tuesday, 19 August 2014 - 8:39pm IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: PTI

The violence being perpetrated by jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) against minorities in Iraq was "worse than genocide", a section of Indian Muslims said on Tuesday as they condemned it for carrying out "brutality" in the name of Islam. "Indian Muslims are shocked by the brutality being perpetrated by ISIS against Christians, Shias, Kurds, Yazidis and other minorities in the regions now under their control," said astatement here today.

Signed by more than 80 Muslim intellectuals, activists and religious leaders, the statement also condemns Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph of the Muslim world for claiming that he was acting in the name of Islam. "ISIS not only conducts atrocities against minorities, but against everyone who is against their policies, all in the name of Islam. This violence based on the wrong interpretation of Islam is unacceptable," said Navaid Hamid of the Movement for Empowerment of Muslim Indians.

"Their brutality is worse than genocide. They are killing women, elderly and children who are respected in Islam. Their conduct is against... Islam," he said, adding that ISIS is a danger to Muslims all over the world. The intellectuals also blamed the USA, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait for fuelling the flames in strife-torn Syria and Iraq.
"The worsening plight of Iraq's Christians is but a legacy of US' illegal, unwarranted and criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its subsequent engineering of sectarian strife to divide the Iraqi resistance to the occupation," the statement adds.

The group also urged United Nations to intervene and hold ISIS accountable for its acts which, it was alleged, are nothing short of a "crime against humanity" and "religious cleansing".
Joining the Muslim intellectuals in condemning ISIS, John Dyal, former president of the All India Christian Council, said the jihadists were carrying out a "civilisational crime". "Indian Christians have strong relations with people of our community in Syria. Christians, too, are being expunged. This is a reaffirmation that we do not believe in sectoral global rights," he said.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-muslim-intellectuals-slam-isis-brutality-in-iraq-2012096
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Robert Fulford: Slavery’s modern face in the Middle East

Robert Fulford | August 16, 2014 7:00 AM ET

More from Robert Fulford

photo

Labour practices in Middle East nations show the meanness lying deep in their societies.

KHALED FAZAA/AFP/Getty

The world doesn’t need more reasons to be angry at the governments of the Middle East, but the West should nevertheless know about their cruel treatment of labour. When we deal with these states, we should understand the meanness that lies deep in their societies — beginning with how they construct their gleaming buildings and how they treat their maids and nannies.

Much of the manual labour in these countries, and much of the domestic work, is performed by people who in the 19th century were known as indentured bond-slaves or coolies. The British Empire abolished slavery in the 1830s, the U.S. in the 1860s, but in 2014 much of the Middle East treats foreign workers as slaves. This week a journalist in Nepal wrote that “the kafala system keeps hundreds of thousands of Nepali in slave labour conditions.” It is widely accepted — and the more you learn about it, the worse it looks.

Kafala is a system that governs construction and domestic migrant labourers in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf States. When workers arrive, they must immediately surrender their passports to their employers. In Saudi Arabia that applies as well to professionals, such as doctors.

Related

Chris Selley: Is Qatar’s World Cup fiasco the end of megasport as we know it?

Geoffrey Clarfield: The slaves of Sinai

From that point on, their rights resemble those of illegally imported prostitutes from Eastern Europe. Companies spend money to recruit workers, and claim that holding their passports guarantees they’ll fulfill their obligations. But Human Rights Watch says the system gives employers so much control that some of them force domestic workers to continue working against their will and prevent them from returning to their home countries. HRW believes that the kafala system makes some Saudi Arabians believe they have purchased “ownership.”

Andrew Gardner, an anthropologist at the University of Puget Sound and a specialist in Gulf States migration, notes that many migrants are simply not paid the wages promised to them. So they “abscond” from the only job they are legally allowed to hold and try to find something else. That makes them “illegals” under kafala rules, and they become targets of the police. Gardner says, “This is a vicious circle that I’ve been observing for over a decade.”

Some workers are so desperate to get back their passports that they sign false statements that they have received their wages

The secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, Sharan Burrow, has said that the Gulf States have the most regressive labour relations. The employer decides when a worker can get a driver’s licence, rent a home, open a bank account or leave the country. Amnesty International reports some workers are so desperate to get back their passports that they sign false statements that they have received their wages. Nasser Beydoun, an Arab-American businessman from Detroit, went to Qatar to open a chain of restaurants and ended up writing a book, The Glass Palace: Illusions of Freedom and Democracy in Qatar, published in 2012. He said, “Foreign workers in Qatar are modern-day slaves to their local employers. The local Qatari owns you.”

The award of the 2022 World Cup has focused international attention on Qatar’s abusive labour practices, but there’s no sign it has improved them. For several months a cluster of international artists (including figures such as Janet Cardiff and Krzysztof Wodiczko) have been boycotting the Guggenheim Museum because of inhuman labour conditions in Abu Dhabi, where a new Guggenheim is going up. “Workers can’t come and go at will,” says an organizer of the boycott. “It’s like a prison.” They believe the scandal threatens to sully the Guggenheim’s reputation, but no plans to reform the operation in Abu Dhabi have been reported.

There are employers who don’t like their nannies to have separate lives. Some forbid them to leave the house, even on their breaks

A sense of entitlement governs many Middle East employers. They feel they deserve to have their work done at rock-bottom prices by otherwise indigent foreigners. This attitude emerged clearly when the Insan Association, a human rights NGO in Lebanon, persuaded 250 employers of domestic workers to be interviewed.

Many of the respondents clearly lack the skills to manage others. When a problem arises, one employer said, “I solve the problem cordially. Sometimes I threaten her to go to the Employment Agency and sometimes I deduct from her salary.” Another said, “I call the agency and they give me tips like, ‘Threaten her with sending her back to Ethiopia.'”

Migrant domestics apparently make their employers uneasy. There are employers who don’t like their nannies to have separate lives. Some forbid them to leave the house, even on their breaks. As elsewhere, employers retain the passports.

The most striking fact in this little survey dealt with the kafala system itself. More than half the respondents said it should be changed. They felt it was simply too burdensome for employers.

National Post

robert.fulford@utoronto.ca

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/16/robert-fulford-slaverys-modern-face-in-the-middle-east/

comment:

Arabs use the word, 'Abd' to describe slaves. They also use the term to describe black people. In other words, to them slaves and black people are synonymous. So, when all the willfully ignorant students and "academics" throw around the word 'racism' to describe everything that it doesn't mean, they can now focus on the true sense of the word and which nations practice it.

comment

The Liberal perception of the world is one of cultural equivalency, and Justin Trudeau certainly makes no effort to counteract that view. In the world today there are many individuals who believe a great number of different things, and some of these beliefs will be true, others false. Under the equivalence mantra, it doesn't matter. This mantra further extends to value systems and how people choose to behave or behave because of some allegedly "universal" convention. And again, not all conventions are equal. Under the old monarchical system in Europe, the system was top down. Before the Reformation, Catholicism generally gave support to hierarchical social arrangements, and monarchs believed in "divine right." Before the Revolution in France, monarchical control was absolute which is why of course there was a revolution. In England there was a slow break down of feudalism, as middle class Protestantism pushed for the stronger role of parliament.

The point is that while there has been much change in the West, vestiges for feudalism still remain in the Middle East, and the persisting problem with Islam that the tenets of the ideology are not democratic nor debatable. As the system continues to be top down, the kafala system is not a moral or political issue.

comment:

Very interesting post. My compliments.

Just one twist to add is that, as you've pointed out, the social structure of Islamic societies has remained top down (very feudal in nature) even when modern-looking facades are painted over them (such as in many of the Gulf states) and that these structure are supported by the highly undemocratic and rigid principles of the Islamic doctrine.

Interestingly, the same does not apply to the Islamic doctrine itself. There is no hierarchical Islamic clergy and doctrinal control seems to be some loose, consensus form of indignation. Step out of line in some perceived serious manner, such as the Ahmadi's, or perhaps the Shia have done, and there's hell to pay, otherwise interpretation of the doctrine is entirely between every Muslim and their god. This lack of doctrinal discipline has also been useful to Muslims through the ages, as it always allows them to attack non-believers with one hand and have the other hand waggle a finger stating that such actions are not those of "true Muslims".

Ironic, is it not?

comment:

Your comment about Muslim belief was helpful. That having been said there would seem to be an intolerance of different interpretive perspectives, very obviously against those beliefs that are not Muslim. Public comments by Muslims tend to be absolutist rather than philosophical, and rhetoric only adds to the confusion. Christian metaphysics has been extensively discussed, even in the secular world, but Muslim metaphysics seem to be off limits. This is a pity, as in the West, there is a distrust of beliefs that seek obscurity. Buddhism is popular in the West, and is seen as a shrewd

philosophy, and the West does have delusions it could usefully shed. There is a place for metaphysics in philosophy, but Islam sadly seems more preoccupied with militancy rather than explaining their metaphysics, for we can certainly not assume a belief must be true, just because it is devoutly held. (But then it was statements like this, that got Socrates into trouble.) In the 21st century we should be well beyond threatening people who disagree, or might just want to discuss things. After all, what is true is worth sharing, but what is false needs discarding. As Buddhism would point out, we are easily deluded by our own representative thinking, and getting beyond it, is the real challenge.

--- ---

kurdish family i just want to know what you guys

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National Geographic

1. Iraqi Kurds Declare Plans For Breakaway State - The Daily Beast

www.thedailybeast.com/.../iraqi-kurds-declare-plans-for-breakaway-state.html - Cached

2 days ago ... Any hopes that Iraq's politicians might quickly forge an agreement and pull the ... During the weekend a defiant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ... fears Iraqi Kurdish statehood will encourage unrest among their own Kurds. .... Although Sanders may not want to talk about Clinton, it is impossible ...

And...

1. Spokesman Indicates Turkey Ready to Accept Kurdish State in Iraq

rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/29062014 - Cached

4 days ago ... in the past, an independent Kurdish state in Iraq would be a 'reason for war' ... the situation in Iraq is not good and it looks like it is going to be divided.' ... in which Celik said that Iraqi Kurds had the right to decide their own ...

And.

1. Israel would welcome Kurdish state - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the ...

www.al-monitor.com/.../iraq-crisis-israel-welcome-kurdish-state-us-turkey.html - Cached

1 day ago ... When there is a raging serious issue of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham ... Turkey doesn't want to get entangled in the Iraq turmoil without first solving its own Kurdish issue. ... Reactions of Iran, another regional country with its own Kurdish ... While the 1970 autonomy agreement between the Kurds and ...

Navigation

Prayer Resources

The resources below are provided to encourage you to join in praying for the Kurds. Please feel free to download, print, and share them.

To download the following prayer resources, right-click and choose “Save As.”

Virtual Prayerwalk (PPT)
2.5 MB

Seven Day Prayer Guide (PDF)
344 KB

31 Day Prayer Calendar (PDF)
283 KB

31 Day Prayer Calendar (Hi-Res PDF)
34 MB

Bulletin Insert 1 and Insert 2
3.7 KB and 2.9 KB

Brochure 1 and Brochure 2
10 MB and 14 MB

Bookmark 1 and Bookmark 2
3 KB and 1 KB

Bookmark for Kids 1 and Bookmark 2
2 KB and 1 KB

http://thekurds.net/?page_id=155

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INTERESTING HOW IRAQ HAD NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION... AND NOW IRAN AND SYRIA HAVE SO MANY..... Beautiful Kurds deserve their own State- Israel and Jordan agree- Iraq didn’t have Chemical Weapons of Mass Destruction.... the everyday people of this world aren’t fooled.... God bless our Kurds.

http://www.kdp.pp.se/old/chemical.html

Prepared by Alex Atroushi
March 11, 1994

This page is dedicated to the people of Halabja who on March 16th, 1988 suffered the worst chemical attacks committed by the Iraqi regime. On that day, 5,000 innocent civilians, 75% women and children, immediately perished. This was not the only chemical attack ordered by Saddam, it was just the worst.

Bloody Friday
Chemical massacre of the Kurds by the Iraqi regime

The pictures are said to have been taken in the aftermath of Saddam's attack using chemical weapons and cluster bombs on the Kurdish city of Halabja (population estimated at 70,000) on March 17, 1988. Halabja is located about 150 miles northeast of Baghdad and 8-10 miles from the Iranian border. The attack, said to have involved mustard gas, nerve agent and possibly cyanide, killed an estimated 5,000 of the town's inhabitants. The attack on Halabja took place amidst the infamous al-Anfal campaign, in which Saddam brutally repressed yet another of the Kurdish revolts during the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam is also said to have used chemical weapons in attacking up to 24 villages in Kurdish areas in April 1987.

Of all the atrocities committed against the Kurds during the Anfal, Halabja has come to symbolize the worst of the repression of the Iraqi Kurds. Halabja was a town of 70,000 people located about 8-10 miles from the Iranian border. It became the target of conventional and chemical bomb attacks over three days in March of 1988.

During those three days, the town and the surrounding district were unmercifully attacked with bombs, artillery fire, and chemicals. The chemical weapons were the most destructive of life. The chemicals used included mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun, and VX. At least 5,000 people died immediately as a result of the chemical attack and it is estimated that up to 12,000 people in all died during the course of those three days.

We were burnt as newly-grown plants,
In the current of poisonous winds,
And showed our dreadful wounds,
From one side of the world to the other.
But the unjust eyes of the world
Were never opened truly towards the oppressed.
The world only confined itself to a false regret, And once again,
We became a target as heaps and heaps of martyrs, We were the target of poisonous bombardments, We were the target of destructive bombs, And we remained the lonely oppressed ones of the world.
We rose from under tons of debris,
And stood up in the lands of poisonous bombings,
And we kept up standing and fighting,
Believe it, you people of tomorrow,
Believe such a history and learn a lesson,
Learn how to fight oppression in this way.*

* From the poem "Khaibar" by Mohammed Reza Abdol-Malakian

Halabja, standing against oppression

Joy and happiness permeated the air in Halabja.
Smiles never faded from the lips of the ever oppressed people of this town.
The Iraqi fighter planes carried out the chemical bombing of Halabja,
and some hours later the news came that Khormal, too, had suffered
chemical bombing.
The sound of laughter died down.
Children sought the shelter of their mothers' arms.
March 16, was the beginning of the great crime of history.
On Thursday March 17, 1988, and on Friday March 18, there took place one of
the most shameful and fearful inhumane crimes of history in Halabja. The town of
Halabja was bombed with chemical and cluster bombs more than twenty times
by Iraqi fighter planes.
In every street and alley women and children rolled over one another.
The sound of crying and groans rose from every house in the town.
Many families who were sleeping happily in their beds in their liberated town,
were subjected before sunrise to chemical bombing,
and poisonous gases did not even allow them to rise from their beds.
Such was the situation on the bloody Friday of Halabja.

A Glance at the position of the town of Halabja

City of Halabja, with a population of about 70,000 is in the province of Sulaimanya, 260 kilometers north-east
of the city of Baghdad. It is surrounded by the heights of Suran, Balambu, Shireh-roudi and Shaghan in the north,
south and east. The lake of the dam of Darbandikhan is to the west of this town. Halabja which is within 11 kilometers of the nearest Iranian borderline occupies a green and fertile area covered with forest vegetation. Most of the people of Halabja are farmers or cattle breeders. Halabja and its surrounding villages such as Khormal and Dojeyleh have for long witnessed the struggles of the Kurds against the Iraqi regime.

What happened to Halabja on the Bloody Friday?

The brutal massacre of the oppressed and innocent people of Halabja began before the sunrise of Friday, 18th of
March 1988. The Iraqi regime committed its most tragic and horrible crime from the beginning of the imposed war until now against the civilian people on Friday, 18th of March. On that day, Halabja was bombarded more than twenty times by Iraqi regime's warplanes with chemical and cluster bombs. That Friday afternoon, the magnitude of Iraqi crimes became evident. In the streets and alleys of Halabja, corpses piled up over one another. Tens of children, while playing in front of the their houses in the morning, were martyred instantly by cyanide gases. The innocent children did not even have time to run back home. Some children fell down at the threshold of the door of their houses and never rose again.

A mother who embraced her one-year-old baby, fell down two steps from her house and was martyred. In a 150 meter area in the main street of Halabja, at least fifty women and children were martyred as a result of the deployment of the chemical weapons. A father was sitting over the bodies of his wife and ten of his children in one of the alleys of Halabja and was wailing. The sound of his wailing touched any cruel human being. The crimes were huge, very huge.

In a Simorgh Van, the corpses of 20 women and children who had been prepared to leave the town and the chemical bombardment of the town had deprived them of this opportunity, made any observer stop and ponder about the depth of the catastrophe. Fatal wounds on the corpses of these innocent people were evident.

The doors of most houses were left open and inside of each house, there were some martyred and wounded people.
The enemy had heightened the cruelty and heart-handedness to its peak and took no pity on its own people.
Saddam's crime in the chemical bombardment of Halabja has indeed been unprecedented in the history of
the imposed war. Saddam's crime in Halabja can never be compared to the tragedy of the chemical bombardment of Sardasht. In Halabja more than five thousand people were martyred and over seven thousand more people were wounded.
Women and children formed 75 percent of the martyrs and wounded of the bloody Friday of Halabja.

Along with Halabja, Khormal, Dojaileh and their surrounding villages were also chemically bombarded frequently
but the center of the catastrophe was Halabja.

Nadriyeh Mohammed Fattah, a 15 year-old girl who
studied in the technical high school of Halabja

The Repetition of a Crime which Has Been Condemned Several Times

The Iraqi regime signed the 1925 protocol of Geneva of the prohibition of the deployment of the chemical and biological weapons in wars in 1931. The regulations of the 1972 Convention of Geneva requesting all countries to cease production, completion and conservation of all kinds of chemical and biological weapons and to demolish them and the UN 37/98 resolution emphasizing the necessity of observing the articles and contents of the 1925 protocol and the 1972 Convention of Geneva have also been accepted by the UN member countries including Iraq.

In late April 1987, twenty four villages of Iraq's Kurdistan were targeted by the chemical bombardment These villages were chemically bombarded twice in less than 48 hours. Saber Ahmad Khoshnam, one of the inhabitants of the bombarded villages in Loqmanodulleh Hospital in Tehran on 28th of April 1987, told reporters that the Iraqi warplanes dropped 18 chemical bombs at Sheikh Dassan, Kani Bard, Pasian and Tuteman villages. He said that more than one hundred people of these villages were wounded and that he had witnessed that an entire family in Parsian village lost their sight. In the course of the chemical bombardment of the late April 1987 of the Iraqi villages, more than 130 innocent villagers were martyred and about five hundred of them were wounded.

The Iraqi regime has deployed chemical weapons against its own people while the UN general secretary's representatives during their visits to Iran in two occasions, prepared detailed reports from the deployment of the chemical weapons against the civilian people and submitted them to the United Nations in reports number S/1 6433 and S/18852 and after the submission of these reports by the general secretary to the Security Council, eventually this council, too, joined those individuals and organizations who condemned Iraq's deployment of chemical weapons. But despite all these condemnations, Baghdad's rulers have continued their crimes.

Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.

The Gases Deployed against the People of Halabja

The Iraqi regime, in the chemical bombardment of Halabja and the surrounding towns and villages, has deployed
three kinds of chemical gases. According to the findings of Iranian physicians, the mustard, nerve and cyanide gases have been used against civilians in Halabja and its surroundings. A group of the martyrs of the chemical bombardment of Halabja, after inhaling the cyanide gas, were suffocated immediately. Post-mortem examination of the bodies of the chemical bombardment of Halabja, has proved that the suffocation of the most of the martyrs has been due to the inhalation of cyanide gas.

Mass media and Iraq's crimes in Halabja

The Iraqi regime's crimes in chemically bombing the Halabja town were too grave for any human being to overbook.
Correspondents of the western and American mass media who have visited Halabja, found out some facts about
the horrible crimes committed by the Iraqi regime.

Also, the radio and televisions network in the United States, France, and Britain, by broadcasting a short film of
the chemical massacre of the Halabja residents, made their audiences familiar with the most horrible crimes in
the history after the atomic bombardment of Hiroshima and Nakazaki Some of the materials reelected by
the world press concerning the chemical bombardment of Halabja are as follows:

Article by the correspondent of the London Daily., the independent, published on 23rd of March, 1988:
" ... The reported slaughter of 5,000 Kurds in Iraqi poison gas attacks underlines a dangerous new dimension
in the volatile middle east: the growth of the chemical warfare capability of several important regional powers, and the fear that, despite efforts to curb these weapons, they could be used more widely.

".. (in producing chemical weapons) Iraq has apparently been helped by British, west German, Indian, Austrian, Belgian, and Italian companies, despite bans on the sale of chemical that could have military use...

"... There is evidence that the Iraqis did drop poison gas bombs on the towns because the traditionally rebellious Kurds, who have been fighting for autonomy from Baghdad for years, welcomed the Iranian (troops)."

French Television m 23rd, and 24th of March, 1988

Different French Television networks, on Thursday and Wednesday on 23rd and 24th of March 1988, the first pictures of corpses of thousands of those martyred and wounded of the chemical bombing in Halabja were broadcast.

The commentators of the French Television, described these crimes as intolerable, disgusting and horrible. Some commentators considered the crimes of Saddam as even more horrible than some of Hittler's crimes.

The first channel of the French Television noted that it is not the first time that the Baghdad regime had deployed chemical weapons, however this is the first time that Iraq, is so vastly deploying them against the civilians.

Andrew Gowers, middle east editor, and Richard Johns of the London Daily, Financial Times, writing on 23rd of March, 1988:

"... What has been happening in the last year, especially the last week, in a remote corner of north-east Iraq reveals unplumbed depths of savagery...

Alistair Hay, pathology professor at Leeds university, England, speaking on BBC Television News, and BBC Radio
World Service oh 22nd and 23rd of March, 1988:

" The Kurds have claimed for a number of months, perhaps over a year, that Iraq has been using chemical agents against them. But this latest occasion seems to be the first really documented case that we have where chemical agents have been used.

Iraq has used chemical agents against Iran on a very large scale for three years now. And although the west and other countries have been condemnatory about that use, the country (Iraq) still felt secure enough to use chemical agents.
They have used them because these agents are very effective against and opposition that has no protection and until such time as there is perhaps an end to war, or sufficient sanctions against Iraq to persuade it not to use chemical agents, I'm afraid they will continue to use them or so it seems."

"The United Nations have had three investigations into the use of chemical warfare agents in the Iraq-Iran war and they have said unequivocally on all three occasions that Iraq has used chemical warfare agents. They have said that mustard gas was certainly used on all three occasions, that is in 1984, 1986 and 1987. And they have also said that they have evidenced that a nerve agent, tabun, was also used. The investigation was carried by a well qualified team, so l have no doubt in my mind that they have been used."

Article from Halabja by David Hirt, Middle East correspondent of London Daily, the Guardian, published on March 23, 1988:

" No wounds, no blood, no traces of explosions can be found on the bodies - scores of men, women and children,
livestock and pet animals - that litter the flat-topped dwellings and crude earthen streets in this remote and neglected
Kurdish town...

The skin of the bodies is strangely discolored, with their eyes open and staring where they have not disappeared into their sockets, a grayish slime oozing from their mouths and their fingers still grotesquely twisted.

" Death seemingly caught them almost unawares in the midst of their household chores. They had just the strength, some of them, to make it to the doorways of their homes, only to collapse there a few feet beyond. Here a mother seems to clasp her children in a last embrace, there an old man shields an infant from he cannot have known what...

Crimes which committed by Saddam regime 1986

"It is hard to conceive of any explanation for the chemical bombardment of Halabja other than the one which
Iranians and Kurds offer - revenge...

"As artillery continues to rumble round the hills, Halabja stands silent and deserted except for what they can
find and a dazed old man, absent during the bombing, who has come back in search of his family..."

On the borders of Kurdistan
On the borders
Where throats are
Choked with good-byes
And eagerness is
Suspended in the eyes
And people asked
When.. where are we ? why..?!

Here a child dies..
There a baby lies, and
Another face-down cries:

My wound is hurting
My breath is hurting
My stomach is hurting,
Mother: Am I to die ?
And my white pigeon ?!
Are we going to die ?

In tears she said:
There beyond the border posts..
Only days: we won't die
For us, God will try..

Again, the child cries:

Will my pigeon die ?
Mother: I love her..
She is my life
Because I love,
She does not deserve to die
I love her...

All broke in tears

Dear.. your pigeon died
When the planes pried

And she broke in tears
My white pigeon was gassed ?!
My Kurdish pigeon died

Mother.. my hair is falling
why ? Am I do die ?

Some water please..
W-a-t-e-r ...

President Bush Remembers Halabja

Saturday, 15 March 2003
President's Radio Address (Remembering Halabja)

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This weekend marks a bitter anniversary for the people of Iraq. Fifteen years ago, Saddam Hussein's regime ordered a chemical weapons attack on a village in Iraq called Halabja. With that single order, the regime killed thousands of Iraq's Kurdish citizens. Whole families died while trying to flee clouds of nerve and mustard agents descending from the sky. Many who managed to survive still suffer from cancer, blindness, respiratory diseases, miscarriages, and severe birth defects among their children.

The chemical attack on Halabja -- just one of 40 targeted at Iraq's own people -- provided a glimpse of the crimes Saddam Hussein is willing to commit, and the kind of threat he now presents to the entire world. He is among history's cruelest dictators, and he is arming himself with the world's most terrible weapons.

Recognizing this threat, the United Nations Security Council demanded that Saddam Hussein give up all his weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Gulf War 12 years ago. The Security Council has repeated this demand numerous times and warned that Iraq faces serious consequences if it fails to comply. Iraq has responded with defiance, delay and deception.

The United States, Great Britain and Spain continue to work with fellow members of the U.N. Security Council to confront this common danger. We have seen far too many instances in the past decade -- from Bosnia, to Rwanda, to Kosovo -- where the failure of the Security Council to act decisively has led to tragedy. And we must recognize that some threats are so grave -- and their potential consequences so terrible -- that they must be removed, even if it requires military force.

As diplomatic efforts continue, we must never lose sight of the basic facts about the regime of Baghdad.

We know from recent history that Saddam Hussein is a reckless dictator who has twice invaded his neighbors without provocation -- wars that led to death and suffering on a massive scale. We know from human rights groups that dissidents in Iraq are tortured, imprisoned and sometimes just disappear; their hands, feet and tongues are cut off; their eyes are gouged out; and female relatives are raped in their presence.

As the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, said this week, "We have a moral obligation to intervene where evil is in control. Today, that place is Iraq."

We know from prior weapons inspections that Saddam has failed to account for vast quantities of biological and chemical agents, including mustard agent, botulinum toxin and sarin, capable of killing millions of people. We know the Iraqi regime finances and sponsors terror. And we know the regime has plans to place innocent people around military installations to act as human shields.

There is little reason to hope that Saddam Hussein will disarm. If force is required to disarm him, the American people can know that our armed forces have been given every tool and every resource to achieve victory. The people of Iraq can know that every effort will be made to spare innocent life, and to help Iraq recover from three decades of totalitarian rule. And plans are in place to provide Iraqis with massive amounts of food, as well as medicine and other essential supplies, in the event of hostilities.

Crucial days lie ahead for the free nations of the world. Governments are now showing whether their stated commitments to liberty and security are words alone -- or convictions they're prepared to act upon. And for the government of the United States and the coalition we lead, there is no doubt: we will confront a growing danger, to protect ourselves, to remove a patron and protector of terror, and to keep the peace of the world.

Thank you for listening.

THE GREAT TERROR

By JEFFREY GOLDBERG

In northern Iraq, there is new evidence of Saddam Hussein's genocidal war on the Kurds—and of his possible ties to Al Qaeda.

Issue of 2002-03-25
Posted 2002-03-25

In the late morning of March 16, 1988, an Iraqi Air Force helicopter appeared over the city of Halabja, which is about fifteen miles from the border with Iran. The Iran-Iraq War was then in its eighth year, and Halabja was near the front lines. At the time, the city was home to roughly eighty thousand Kurds, who were well accustomed to the proximity of violence to ordinary life. Like most of Iraqi Kurdistan, Halabja was in perpetual revolt against the regime of Saddam Hussein, and its inhabitants were supporters of the peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters whose name means "those who face death."

A young woman named Nasreen Abdel Qadir Muhammad was outside her family's house, preparing food, when she saw the helicopter. The Iranians and the peshmerga had just attacked Iraqi military outposts around Halabja, forcing Saddam's soldiers to retreat. Iranian Revolutionary Guards then infiltrated the city, and the residents assumed that an Iraqi counterattack was imminent. Nasreen and her family expected to spend yet another day in their cellar, which was crude and dark but solid enough to withstand artillery shelling, and even napalm.

"At about ten o'clock, maybe closer to ten-thirty, I saw the helicopter," Nasreen told me. "It was not attacking, though. There were men inside it, taking pictures. One had a regular camera, and the other held what looked like a video camera. They were coming very close. Then they went away."

Nasreen thought that the sight was strange, but she was preoccupied with lunch; she and her sister Rangeen were preparing rice, bread, and beans for the thirty or forty relatives who were taking shelter in the cellar. Rangeen was fifteen at the time. Nasreen was just sixteen, but her father had married her off several months earlier, to a cousin, a thirty-year-old physician's assistant named Bakhtiar Abdul Aziz. Halabja is a conservative place, and many more women wear the veil than in the more cosmopolitan Kurdish cities to the northwest and the Arab cities to the south.

The bombardment began shortly before eleven. The Iraqi Army, positioned on the main road from the nearby town of Sayid Sadiq, fired artillery shells into Halabja, and the Air Force began dropping what is thought to have been napalm on the town, especially the northern area. Nasreen and Rangeen rushed to the cellar. Nasreen prayed that Bakhtiar, who was then outside the city, would find shelter.

The attack had ebbed by about two o'clock, and Nasreen made her way carefully upstairs to the kitchen, to get the food for the family. "At the end of the bombing, the sound changed," she said. "It wasn't so loud. It was like pieces of metal just dropping without exploding. We didn't know why it was so quiet."

A short distance away, in a neighborhood still called the Julakan, or Jewish quarter, even though Halabja's Jews left for Israel in the nineteen-fifties, a middle-aged man named Muhammad came up from his own cellar and saw an unusual sight: "A helicopter had come back to the town, and the soldiers were throwing white pieces of paper out the side." In retrospect, he understood that they were measuring wind speed and direction. Nearby, a man named Awat Omer, who was twenty at the time, was overwhelmed by a smell of garlic and apples.

Nasreen gathered the food quickly, but she, too, noticed a series of odd smells carried into the house by the wind. "At first, it smelled bad, like garbage," she said. "And then it was a good smell, like sweet apples. Then like eggs." Before she went downstairs, she happened to check on a caged partridge that her father kept in the house. "The bird was dying," she said. "It was on its side." She looked out the window. "It was very quiet, but the animals were dying. The sheep and goats were dying." Nasreen ran to the cellar. "I told everybody there was something wrong. There was something wrong with the air."

The people in the cellar were panicked. They had fled downstairs to escape the bombardment, and it was difficult to abandon their shelter. Only splinters of light penetrated the basement, but the dark provided a strange comfort. "We wanted to stay in hiding, even though we were getting sick," Nasreen said. She felt a sharp pain in her eyes, like stabbing needles. "My sister came close to my face and said, 'Your eyes are very red.' Then the children started throwing up. They kept throwing up. They were in so much pain, and crying so much. They were crying all the time. My mother was crying. Then the old people started throwing up."

Chemical weapons had been dropped on Halabja by the Iraqi Air Force, which understood that any underground shelter would become a gas chamber. "My uncle said we should go outside," Nasreen said. "We knew there were chemicals in the air. We were getting red eyes, and some of us had liquid coming out of them. We decided to run." Nasreen and her relatives stepped outside gingerly. "Our cow was lying on its side," she recalled. "It was breathing very fast, as if it had been running. The leaves were falling off the trees, even though it was spring. The partridge was dead. There were smoke clouds around, clinging to the ground. The gas was heavier than the air, and it was finding the wells and going down the wells."

The family judged the direction of the wind, and decided to run the opposite way. Running proved difficult. "The children couldn't walk, they were so sick," Nasreen said. "They were exhausted from throwing up. We carried them in our arms."

Across the city, other families were making similar decisions. Nouri Hama Ali, who lived in the northern part of town, decided to lead his family in the direction of Anab, a collective settlement on the outskirts of Halabja that housed Kurds displaced when the Iraqi Army destroyed their villages. "On the road to Anab, many of the women and children began to die," Nouri told me. "The chemical clouds were on the ground. They were heavy. We could see them." People were dying all around, he said. When a child could not go on, the parents, becoming hysterical with fear, abandoned him. "Many children were left on the ground, by the side of the road. Old people as well. They were running, then they would stop breathing and die."

Nasreen's family did not move quickly. "We wanted to wash ourselves off and find water to drink," she said. "We wanted to wash the faces of the children who were vomiting. The children were crying for water. There was powder on the ground, white. We couldn't decide whether to drink the water or not, but some people drank the water from the well they were so thirsty."

They ran in a panic through the city, Nasreen recalled, in the direction of Anab. The bombardment continued intermittently, Air Force planes circling overhead. "People were showing different symptoms. One person touched some of the powder, and her skin started bubbling."

A truck came by, driven by a neighbor. People threw themselves aboard. "We saw people lying frozen on the ground," Nasreen told me. "There was a small baby on the ground, away from her mother. I thought they were both sleeping. But she had dropped the baby and then died. And I think the baby tried to crawl away, but it died, too. It looked like everyone was sleeping."

At that moment, Nasreen believed that she and her family would make it to high ground and live. Then the truck stopped. "The driver said he couldn't go on, and he wandered away. He left his wife in the back of the truck. He told us to flee if we could. The chemicals affected his brain, because why else would someone abandon his family?"

As heavy clouds of gas smothered the city, people became sick and confused. Awat Omer was trapped in his cellar with his family; he said that his brother began laughing uncontrollably and then stripped off his clothes, and soon afterward he died. As night fell, the family's children grew sicker—too sick to move.

Nasreen's husband could not be found, and she began to think that all was lost. She led the children who were able to walk up the road.

In another neighborhood, Muhammad Ahmed Fattah, who was twenty, was overwhelmed by an oddly sweet odor of sulfur, and he, too, realized that he must evacuate his family; there were about a hundred and sixty people wedged into the cellar. "I saw the bomb drop," Muhammad told me. "It was about thirty metres from the house. I shut the door to the cellar. There was shouting and crying in the cellar, and then people became short of breath." One of the first to be stricken by the gas was Muhammad's brother Salah. "His eyes were pink," Muhammad recalled. "There was something coming out of his eyes. He was so thirsty he was demanding water." Others in the basement began suffering tremors.

March 16th was supposed to be Muhammad's wedding day. "Every preparation was done," he said. His fiancée, a woman named Bahar Jamal, was among the first in the cellar to die. "She was crying very hard," Muhammad recalled. "I tried to calm her down. I told her it was just the usual artillery shells, but it didn't smell the usual way weapons smelled. She was smart, she knew what was happening. She died on the stairs. Her father tried to help her, but it was too late."

Death came quickly to others as well. A woman named Hamida Mahmoud tried to save her two-year-old daughter by allowing her to nurse from her breast. Hamida thought that the baby wouldn't breathe in the gas if she was nursing, Muhammad said, adding, "The baby's name was Dashneh. She nursed for a long time. Her mother died while she was nursing. But she kept nursing." By the time Muhammad decided to go outside, most of the people in the basement were unconscious; many were dead, including his parents and three of his siblings.

Nasreen said that on the road to Anab all was confusion. She and the children were running toward the hills, but they were going blind. "The children were crying, 'We can't see! My eyes are bleeding!' " In the chaos, the family got separated. Nasreen's mother and father were both lost. Nasreen and several of her cousins and siblings inadvertently led the younger children in a circle, back into the city. Someone—she doesn't know who—led them away from the city again and up a hill, to a small mosque, where they sought shelter. "But we didn't stay in the mosque, because we thought it would be a target," Nasreen said. They went to a small house nearby, and Nasreen scrambled to find food and water for the children. By then, it was night, and she was exhausted.

Bakhtiar, Nasreen's husband, was frantic. Outside the city when the attacks started, he had spent much of the day searching for his wife and the rest of his family. He had acquired from a clinic two syringes of atropine, a drug that helps to counter the effects of nerve agents. He injected himself with one of the syringes, and set out to find Nasreen. He had no hope. "My plan was to bury her," he said. "At least I should bury my new wife."

After hours of searching, Bakhtiar met some neighbors, who remembered seeing Nasreen and the children moving toward the mosque on the hill. "I called out the name Nasreen," he said. "I heard crying, and I went inside the house. When I got there, I found that Nasreen was alive but blind. Everybody was blind."

Nasreen had lost her sight about an hour or two before Bakhtiar found her. She had been searching the house for food, so that she could feed the children, when her eyesight failed. "I found some milk and I felt my way to them and then I found their mouths and gave them milk," she said.

Bakhtiar organized the children. "I wanted to bring them to the well. I washed their heads. I took them two by two and washed their heads. Some of them couldn't come. They couldn't control their muscles."

Bakhtiar still had one syringe of atropine, but he did not inject his wife; she was not the worst off in the group. "There was a woman named Asme, who was my neighbor," Bakhtiar recalled. "She was not able to breathe. She was yelling and she was running into a wall, crashing her head into a wall. I gave the atropine to this woman." Asme died soon afterward. "I could have used it for Nasreen," Bakhtiar said. "I could have."

After the Iraqi bombardment subsided, the Iranians managed to retake Halabja, and they evacuated many of the sick, including Nasreen and the others in her family, to hospitals in Tehran.

Nasreen was blind for twenty days. "I was thinking the whole time, Where is my family? But I was blind. I couldn't do anything. I asked my husband about my mother, but he said he didn't know anything. He was looking in hospitals, he said. He was avoiding the question."

The Iranian Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the Red Cross, began compiling books of photographs, pictures of the dead in Halabja. "The Red Crescent has an album of the people who were buried in Iran," Nasreen said. "And we found my mother in one of the albums." Her father, she discovered, was alive but permanently blinded. Five of her siblings, including Rangeen, had died.

Nasreen would live, the doctors said, but she kept a secret from Bakhtiar: "When I was in the hospital, I started menstruating. It wouldn't stop. I kept bleeding. We don't talk about this in our society, but eventually a lot of women in the hospital confessed they were also menstruating and couldn't stop." Doctors gave her drugs that stopped the bleeding, but they told her that she would be unable to bear children.

Nasreen stayed in Iran for several months, but eventually she and Bakhtiar returned to Kurdistan. She didn't believe the doctors who told her that she would be infertile, and in 1991 she gave birth to a boy. "We named him Arazoo," she said. Arazoo means hope in Kurdish. "He was healthy at first, but he had a hole in his heart. He died at the age of three months."

I met Nasreen last month in Erbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is thirty now, a pretty woman with brown eyes and high cheekbones, but her face is expressionless. She doesn't seek pity; she would, however, like a doctor to help her with a cough that she's had ever since the attack, fourteen years ago. Like many of Saddam Hussein's victims, she tells her story without emotion.

During my visit to Kurdistan, I talked with more than a hundred victims of Saddam's campaign against the Kurds. Saddam has been persecuting the Kurds ever since he took power, more than twenty years ago. Several old women whose husbands were killed by Saddam's security services expressed a kind of animal hatred toward him, but most people, like Nasreen, told stories of horrific cruelty with a dispassion and a precision that underscored their credibility. Credibility is important to the Kurds; after all this time, they still feel that the world does not believe their story.

A week after I met Nasreen, I visited a small village called Goktapa, situated in a green valley that is ringed by snow-covered mountains. Goktapa came under poison-gas attack six weeks after Halabja. The village consists of low mud-brick houses along dirt paths. In Goktapa, an old man named Ahmed Raza Sharif told me that on the day of the attack on Goktapa, May 3, 1988, he was in the fields outside the village. He saw the shells explode and smelled the sweet-apple odor as poison filled the air. His son, Osman Ahmed, who was sixteen at the time, was near the village mosque when he was felled by the gas. He crawled down a hill and died among the reeds on the banks of the Lesser Zab, the river that flows by the village. His father knew that he was dead, but he couldn't reach the body. As many as a hundred and fifty people died in the attack; the survivors fled before the advancing Iraqi Army, which levelled the village. Ahmed Raza Sharif did not return for three years. When he did, he said, he immediately began searching for his son's body. He found it still lying in the reeds. "I recognized his body right away," he said.

The summer sun in Iraq is blisteringly hot, and a corpse would be unidentifiable three years after death. I tried to find a gentle way to express my doubts, but my translator made it clear to Sharif that I didn't believe him.

We were standing in the mud yard of another old man, Ibrahim Abdul Rahman. Twenty or thirty people, a dozen boys among them, had gathered. Some of them seemed upset that I appeared to doubt the story, but Ahmed hushed them. "It's true, he lost all the flesh on his body," he said. "He was just a skeleton. But the clothes were his, and they were still on the skeleton, a belt and a shirt. In the pocket of his shirt I found the key to our tractor. That's where he always kept the key."

Some of the men still seemed concerned that I would leave Goktapa doubting their truthfulness. Ibrahim, the man in whose yard we were standing, called out a series of orders to the boys gathered around us. They dispersed, to houses and storerooms, returning moments later holding jagged pieces of metal, the remnants of the bombs that poisoned Goktapa. Ceremoniously, the boys dropped the pieces of metal at my feet. "Here are the mercies of Uncle Saddam," Ibrahim said.

THE AFTERMATH

The story of Halabja did not end the night the Iraqi Air Force planes returned to their bases. The Iranians invited the foreign press to record the devastation. Photographs of the victims, supine, bleached of color, littering the gutters and alleys of the town, horrified the world. Saddam Hussein's attacks on his own citizens mark the only time since the Holocaust that poison gas has been used to exterminate women and children.

Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who led the campaigns against the Kurds in the late eighties, was heard on a tape captured by rebels, and later obtained by Human Rights Watch, addressing members of Iraq's ruling Baath Party on the subject of the Kurds. "I will kill them all with chemical weapons!" he said. "Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."

Attempts by Congress in 1988 to impose sanctions on Iraq were stifled by the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and the story of Saddam's surviving victims might have vanished completely had it not been for the reporting of people like Randal and the work of a British documentary filmmaker named Gwynne Roberts, who, after hearing stories about a sudden spike in the incidence of birth defects and cancers, not only in Halabja but also in other parts of Kurdistan, had made some disturbing films on the subject. However, no Western government or United Nations agency took up the cause.

In 1998, Roberts brought an Englishwoman named Christine Gosden to Kurdistan. Gosden is a medical geneticist and a professor at the medical school of the University of Liverpool. She spent three weeks in the hospitals in Kurdistan, and came away determined to help the Kurds. To the best of my knowledge, Gosden is the only Western scientist who has even begun making a systematic study of what took place in northern Iraq.

Gosden told me that her father was a high-ranking officer in the Royal Air Force, and that as a child she lived in Germany, near Bergen-Belsen. "It's tremendously influential in your early years to live near a concentration camp," she said. In Kurdistan, she heard echoes of the German campaign to destroy the Jews. "The Iraqi government was using chemistry to reduce the population of Kurds," she said. "The Holocaust is still having its effect. The Jews are fewer in number now than they were in 1939. That's not natural. Now, if you take out two hundred thousand men and boys from Kurdistan"—an estimate of the number of Kurds who were gassed or otherwise murdered in the campaign, most of whom were men and boys—"you've affected the population structure. There are a lot of widows who are not having children."

Richard Butler, an Australian diplomat who chaired the United Nations weapons-inspection team in Iraq, describes Gosden as "a classic English, old-school-tie kind of person." Butler has tracked her research since she began studying the attacks, four years ago, and finds it credible. "Occasionally, people say that this is Christine's obsession, but obsession is not a bad thing," he added.

Before I went to Kurdistan, in January, I spent a day in London with Gosden. We gossiped a bit, and she scolded me for having visited a Washington shopping mall without appropriate protective equipment. Whenever she goes to a mall, she brings along a polyurethane bag "big enough to step into" and a bottle of bleach. "I can detoxify myself immediately," she said.

Gosden believes it is quite possible that the countries of the West will soon experience chemical- and biological-weapons attacks far more serious and of greater lasting effect than the anthrax incidents of last autumn and the nerve-agent attack on the Tokyo subway system several years ago—that what happened in Kurdistan was only the beginning. "For Saddam's scientists, the Kurds were a test population," she said. "They were the human guinea pigs. It was a way of identifying the most effective chemical agents for use on civilian populations, and the most effective means of delivery."

The charge is supported by others. An Iraqi defector, Khidhir Hamza, who is the former director of Saddam's nuclear-weapons program, told me earlier this year that before the attack on Halabja military doctors had mapped the city, and that afterward they entered it wearing protective clothing, in order to study the dispersal of the dead. "These were field tests, an experiment on a town," Hamza told me. He said that he had direct knowledge of the Army's procedures that day in Halabja. "The doctors were given sheets with grids on them, and they had to answer questions such as 'How far are the dead from the cannisters?' "

Gosden said that she cannot understand why the West has not been more eager to investigate the chemical attacks in Kurdistan. "It seems a matter of enlightened self-interest that the West would want to study the long-term effects of chemical weapons on civilians, on the DNA," she told me. "I've seen Europe's worst cancers, but, believe me, I have never seen cancers like the ones I saw in Kurdistan."

According to an ongoing survey conducted by a team of Kurdish physicians and organized by Gosden and a small advocacy group called the Washington Kurdish Institute, more than two hundred towns and villages across Kurdistan were attacked by poison gas—far more than was previously thought—in the course of seventeen months. The number of victims is unknown, but doctors I met in Kurdistan believe that up to ten per cent of the population of northern Iraq—nearly four million people—has been exposed to chemical weapons. "Saddam Hussein poisoned northern Iraq," Gosden said when I left for Halabja. "The questions, then, are what to do? And what comes next?"

HALABJA'S DOCTORS

The Kurdish people, it is often said, make up the largest stateless nation in the world. They have been widely despised by their neighbors for centuries. There are roughly twenty-five million Kurds, most of them spread across four countries in southwestern Asia: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The Kurds are neither Arab, Persian, nor Turkish; they are a distinct ethnic group, with their own culture and language. Most Kurds are Muslim (the most famous Muslim hero of all, Saladin, who defeated the Crusaders, was of Kurdish origin), but there are Jewish and Christian Kurds, and also followers of the Yezidi religion, which has its roots in Sufism and Zoroastrianism. The Kurds are experienced mountain fighters, who tend toward stubbornness and have frequent bouts of destructive infighting.

After centuries of domination by foreign powers, the Kurds had their best chance at independence after the First World War, when President Woodrow Wilson promised the Kurds, along with other groups left drifting and exposed by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a large measure of autonomy. But the machinations of the great powers, who were becoming interested in Kurdistan's vast oil deposits, in Mosul and Kirkuk, quickly did the Kurds out of a state.

In the nineteen-seventies, the Iraqi Kurds allied themselves with the Shah of Iran in a territorial dispute with Iraq. America, the Shah's patron, once again became the Kurds' patron, too, supplying them with arms for a revolt against Baghdad. But a secret deal between the Iraqis and the Shah, arranged in 1975 by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, cut off the Kurds and brought about their instant collapse; for the Kurds, it was an ugly betrayal.

The Kurdish safe haven, in northern Iraq, was born of another American betrayal. In 1991, after the United States helped drive Iraq out of Kuwait, President George Bush ignored an uprising that he himself had stoked, and Kurds and Shiites in Iraq were slaughtered by the thousands. Thousands more fled the country, the Kurds going to Turkey, and almost immediately creating a humanitarian disaster. The Bush Administration, faced with a televised catastrophe, declared northern Iraq a no-fly zone and thus a safe haven, a tactic that allowed the refugees to return home. And so, under the protective shield of the United States and British Air Forces, the unplanned Kurdish experiment in self-government began. Although the Kurdish safe haven is only a virtual state, it is an incipient democracy, a home of progressive Islamic thought and pro-American feeling.

Today, Iraqi Kurdistan is split between two dominant parties: the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Massoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, whose General Secretary is Jalal Talabani. The two parties have had an often angry relationship, and in the mid-nineties they fought a war that left about a thousand soldiers dead. The parties, realizing that they could not rule together, decided to rule apart, dividing Kurdistan into two zones. The internal political divisions have not aided the Kurds' cause, but neighboring states also have fomented disunity, fearing that a unified Kurdish population would agitate for independence.

Turkey, with a Kurdish population of between fifteen and twenty million, has repressed the Kurds in the eastern part of the country, politically and militarily, on and off since the founding of the modern Turkish state. In 1924, the government of Atatürk restricted the use of the Kurdish language (a law not lifted until 1991) and expressions of Kurdish culture; to this day, the Kurds are referred to in nationalist circles as "mountain Turks."

Turkey is not eager to see Kurds anywhere draw attention to themselves, which is why the authorities in Ankara refused to let me cross the border into Iraqi Kurdistan. Iran, whose Kurdish population numbers between six and eight million, was not helpful, either, and my only option for gaining entrance to Kurdistan was through its third neighbor, Syria. The Kurdistan Democratic Party arranged for me to be met in Damascus and taken to the eastern desert city of El Qamishli. From there, I was driven in a Land Cruiser to the banks of the Tigris River, where a small wooden boat, with a crew of one and an outboard motor, was waiting. The engine spluttered; when I learned that the forward lines of the Iraqi Army were two miles downstream, I began to paddle, too. On the other side of the river were representatives of the Kurdish Democratic Party and the peshmerga, the Kurdish guerrillas, who wore pantaloons and turbans and were armed with AK-47s.

"Welcome to Kurdistan" read a sign at the water's edge greeting visitors to a country that does not exist.

Halabja is a couple of hundred miles from the Syrian border, and I spent a week crossing northern Iraq, making stops in the cities of Dahuk and Erbil on the way. I was handed over to representatives of the Patriotic Union, which controls Halabja, at a demilitarized zone west of the town of Koysinjaq. From there, it was a two-hour drive over steep mountains to Sulaimaniya, a city of six hundred and fifty thousand, which is the cultural capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. In Sulaimaniya, I met Fouad Baban, one of Kurdistan's leading physicians, who promised to guide me through the scientific and political thickets of Halabja.

Baban, a pulmonary and cardiac specialist who has survived three terms in Iraqi prisons, is sixty years old, and a man of impish good humor. He is the Kurdistan coördinator of the Halabja Medical Institute, which was founded by Gosden, Michael Amitay, the executive director of the Washington Kurdish Institute, and a coalition of Kurdish doctors; for the doctors, it is an act of bravery to be publicly associated with a project whose scientific findings could be used as evidence if Saddam Hussein faced a war-crimes tribunal. Saddam's agents are everywhere in the Kurdish zone, and his tanks sit forty miles from Baban's office.

Soon after I arrived in Sulaimaniya, Baban and I headed out in his Toyota Camry for Halabja. On a rough road, we crossed the plains of Sharazoor, a region of black earth and honey-colored wheat ringed by jagged, snow-topped mountains. We were not travelling alone. The Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, is widely reported to have placed a bounty on the heads of Western journalists caught in Kurdistan (either ten thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars, depending on the source of the information). The areas around the border with Iran are filled with Tehran's spies, and members of Ansar al-Islam, an Islamist terror group, were said to be decapitating people in the Halabja area. So the Kurds had laid on a rather elaborate security detail. A Land Cruiser carrying peshmerga guerrillas led the way, and we were followed by another Land Cruiser, on whose bed was mounted an anti-aircraft weapon manned by six peshmerga, some of whom wore black balaclavas. We were just south of the American- and British-enforced no-fly zone. I had been told that, at the beginning of the safe-haven experiment, the Americans had warned Saddam's forces to stay away; a threat from the air, though unlikely, was, I deduced, not out of the question.

"It seems very important to know the immediate and long-term effects of chemical and biological weapons," Baban said, beginning my tutorial. "Here is a civilian population exposed to chemical and possibly biological weapons, and people are developing many varieties of cancers and congenital abnormalities. The Americans are vulnerable to these weapons—they are cheap, and terrorists possess them. So, after the anthrax attacks in the States, I think it is urgent for scientific research to be done here."

Experts now believe that Halabja and other places in Kurdistan were struck by a combination of mustard gas and nerve agents, including sarin (the agent used in the Tokyo subway attack) and VX, a potent nerve agent. Baban's suggestion that biological weapons may also have been used surprised me. One possible biological weapon that Baban mentioned was aflatoxin, which causes long-term liver damage.

A colleague of Baban's, a surgeon who practices in Dahuk, in northwestern Kurdistan, and who is a member of the Halabja Medical Institute team, told me more about the institute's survey, which was conducted in the Dahuk region in 1999. The surveyors began, he said, by asking elementary questions; eleven years after the attacks, they did not even know which villages had been attacked.

"The team went to almost every village," the surgeon said. "At first, we thought that the Dahuk governorate was the least affected. We knew of only two villages that were hit by the attacks. But we came up with twenty-nine in total. This is eleven years after the fact."

The surgeon is professorial in appearance, but he is deeply angry. He doubles as a pediatric surgeon, because there are no pediatric surgeons in Kurdistan. He has performed more than a hundred operations for cleft palate on children born since 1988. Most of the agents believed to have been dropped on Halabja have short half-lives, but, as Baban told me, "physicians are unsure how long these toxins will affect the population. How can we know agent half-life if we don't know the agent?" He added, "If we knew the toxins that were used, we could follow them and see actions on spermatogenesis and ovogenesis."

Increased rates of infertility, he said, are having a profound effect on Kurdish society, which places great importance on large families. "You have men divorcing their wives because they could not give birth, and then marrying again, and then their second wives can't give birth, either," he said. "Still, they don't blame their own problem with spermatogenesis."

Baban told me that the initial results of the Halabja Medical Institute-sponsored survey show abnormally high rates of many diseases. He said that he compared rates of colon cancer in Halabja with those in the city of Chamchamal, which was not attacked with chemical weapons. "We are seeing rates of colon cancer five times higher in Halabja than in Chamchamal," he said.

There are other anomalies as well, Baban said. The rate of miscarriage in Halabja, according to initial survey results, is fourteen times the rate of miscarriage in Chamchamal; rates of infertility among men and women in the affected population are many times higher than normal. "We're finding Hiroshima levels of sterility," he said.

Then, there is the suspicion about snakes. "Have you heard about the snakes?" he asked as we drove. I told him that I had heard rumors. "We don't know if a genetic mutation in the snakes has made them more toxic," Baban went on, "or if the birds that eat the snakes were killed off in the attacks, but there seem to be more snakebites, of greater toxicity, in Halabja now than before." (I asked Richard Spertzel, a scientist and a former member of the United Nations Special Commission inspections team, if this was possible. Yes, he said, but such a rise in snakebites was more likely due to "environmental imbalances" than to mutations.)

My conversation with Baban was suddenly interrupted by our guerrilla escorts, who stopped the car and asked me to join them in one of the Land Cruisers; we veered off across a wheat field, without explanation. I was later told that we had been passing a mountain area that had recently had problems with Islamic terrorists.

We arrived in Halabja half an hour later. As you enter the city, you see a small statue modelled on the most famous photographic image of the Halabja massacre: an old man, prone and lifeless, shielding his dead grandson with his body.

A torpor seems to afflict Halabja; even its bazaar is listless and somewhat empty, in marked contrast to those of other Kurdish cities, which are well stocked with imported goods (history and circumstance have made the Kurds enthusiastic smugglers) and are full of noise and activity. "Everyone here is sick," a Halabja doctor told me. "The people who aren't sick are depressed." He practices at the Martyrs' Hospital, which is situated on the outskirts of the city. The hospital has no heat and little advanced equipment; like the city itself, it is in a dilapidated state.

The doctor is a thin, jumpy man in a tweed jacket, and he smokes without pause. He and Baban took me on a tour of the hospital. Afterward, we sat in a bare office, and a woman was wheeled in. She looked seventy but said that she was fifty; doctors told me she suffers from lung scarring so serious that only a lung transplant could help, but there are no transplant centers in Kurdistan. The woman, whose name is Jayran Muhammad, lost eight relatives during the attack. Her voice was almost inaudible. "I was disturbed psychologically for a long time," she told me as Baban translated. "I believed my children were alive." Baban told me that her lungs would fail soon, that she could barely breathe. "She is waiting to die," he said. I met another woman, Chia Hammassat, who was eight at the time of the attacks and has been blind ever since. Her mother, she said, died of colon cancer several years ago, and her brother suffers from chronic shortness of breath. "There is no hope to correct my vision," she said, her voice flat. "I was married, but I couldn't fulfill the responsibilities of a wife because I'm blind. My husband left me."

Baban said that in Halabja "there are more abnormal births than normal ones," and other Kurdish doctors told me that they regularly see children born with neural-tube defects and undescended testes and without anal openings. They are seeing—and they showed me—children born with six or seven toes on each foot, children whose fingers and toes are fused, and children who suffer from leukemia and liver cancer.

I met Sarkar, a shy and intelligent boy with a harelip, a cleft palate, and a growth on his spine. Sarkar had a brother born with the same set of malformations, the doctor told me, but the brother choked to death, while still a baby, on a grain of rice.

Meanwhile, more victims had gathered in the hallway; the people of Halabja do not often have a chance to tell their stories to foreigners. Some of them wanted to know if I was a surgeon, who had come to repair their children's deformities, and they were disappointed to learn that I was a journalist. The doctor and I soon left the hospital for a walk through the northern neighborhoods of Halabja, which were hardest hit in the attack. We were trailed by peshmerga carrying AK-47s. The doctor smoked as we talked, and I teased him about his habit. "Smoking has some good effect on the lungs," he said, without irony. "In the attacks, there was less effect on smokers. Their lungs were better equipped for the mustard gas, maybe."

We walked through the alleyways of the Jewish quarter, past a former synagogue in which eighty or so Halabjans died during the attack. Underfed cows wandered the paths. The doctor showed me several cellars where clusters of people had died. We knocked on the gate of one house, and were let in by an old woman with a wide smile and few teeth. In the Kurdish tradition, she immediately invited us for lunch.

She told us the recent history of the house. "Everyone who was in this house died," she said. "The whole family. We heard there were one hundred people." She led us to the cellar, which was damp and close. Rusted yellow cans of vegetable ghee littered the floor. The room seemed too small to hold a hundred people, but the doctor said that the estimate sounded accurate. I asked him if cellars like this one had ever been decontaminated. He smiled. "Nothing in Kurdistan has been decontaminated," he said.

· THE DAYS OF QALA DIZA AND HALABJA

On 24 April 1974 at 9.15 am, two Iraqi airforce planes launched an air attack
on the town of Qala Diza, first with bombs, then with rockets and finally with
cannon fire.They hit the school, the hospital and the surrounding houses as
well as a temporary University building, killing at least 135 civilians and
injuring many more. One father of 9 lost every member of his family
during this attack.
Two days later, on 25 April 1974, the town of Halabja was strafed
and bombed, causing the death of 33 Kurds and injuring over 40 others.
Similar actions, callously calculated to produce maximum terror, have
been resorted to by the various Iraqi governments in their attempts to
isolate the Kurdish national liberation movement from the people as
a measure of eventually crushing the movement. However, these acts
of terror by successive Iraqi regimes have failed to produce their desired
objectives. The Kurdish people embrace their liberation movement
because it is the genuine expression of their aspirations and
the instrument of their struggle to achieve their legitimate
national and demoeratic rights.

Chemical Ali sentenced to death for genocide of Kurds

(Darko Vojinovic/AP)

Ali Hassan al-Majid - "Chemical Ali" - in court today. He and co-defendants once terrified Iraq, but they cut pathetic figures in court

Mark Sellman, and Richard Beeston in Baghdad

June 24, 2007

Chemical Ali, the cousin of Saddam Hussein who masterminded the brutal campaign of genocide against Iraq's Kurds in the 1980s, was sentenced to death today by a court in Baghdad.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, 66, along with five others from the Saddam regime, were convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for the slaughter of up to 180,000 Kurds on the border with Iran from 1987-88. Three co-defendants were also sentenced to death, two received life sentences and one was acquitted.

Al-Majid, using a cane and who appeared as a pathetic and reduced figure from the days when he commanded the Baath Party’s Northern Bureau, trembled in the dock as the judge read out the charges and the sentence: death by hanging. Dressed in traditional Arab clothes, his only words in response were: “Thanks be to God.”

During the short hearing at the Iraqi High Tribunal in the palatial surrounds of a former Baath Party building, each of the defendents shuffled into court, and were dealt with quickly by the judge, Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa. When two tried to protest and the guards tried to stop them, the judge signalled that they should be allowed to continue, and simply ignored the men who once terrorised the country.

“Thousands of people were killed, displaced and disappeared,” the judge said at a post-trial press conference.“They were civilians with no weapons and nothing to do with war."

The Amman-based defence team vowed to appeal, describing the verdicts issued after the 10-month trial “unjust and political and have nothing to do with the law."

The decisions, if upheld, would bring to a close the second trial against former regime officials since Saddam was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion. Lawyers have 30 days to lodge and appeal, which, if it is not upheld, means the death sentence must be carried out within 30 days of that decision.

Majid, whose very name once sparked fear among Iraqis, directed a military campaign against the Kurdish north in which chemical weapons were used, villages demolished, agricultural lands destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

Kurds have long sought justice for the so-called Anfal or “Spoils of War” campaign that has left lasting scars on their mountainous region.

Prosecutors say up to 180,000 people were killed in the seven-month scorched-earth” operation in 1988. The populations of entire villages disappeared

Prosecutors say up to 180,000 people were killed in the seven-month scorched-earth” operation in 1988. The populations of entire villages disappeared. Majid was viewed as Saddam’s main enforcer, a man with a reputation for brutality who was used by the president to crush dissent. He also played a leading role in stamping out a Shia rebellion in the south after the 1991 Gulf War.

During Anfal, thousands of villages declared “prohibited areas” were razed and bombed. Thousands of villagers were deported, many executed. Mustard gas and nerve agents were used to clear villages, earning Majid his grim nickname “Chemical Ali”. Many of those killed in the poison gas attacks were women and children.

Majid admitted during the trial he ordered troops to execute all Kurds who ignored orders to leave their villages but did not confirm ordering the use of chemical weapons.

“I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages and relocate the villagers,” he said at one hearing. “I am not defending myself. I am not apologising. I did not make a mistake."

The defendants have said Anfal had legitimate military targets -- Kurdish guerrillas who had sided with Iran during the last stage of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war. The trial heard evidence from survivors, some still bearing the scars of the poison gas attacks, and prosecutors presented forensic data unearthed from mass graves across Iraq.

Of the other five defendants today:

Sentenced to death: Sultan Hashim al-Tai, a defence minister who headed “Task Force Anfal” and reported directly to Chemical Ali

Sentenced to death: Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, ex-armed forces deputy chief of operations, orchestrated a large-scale attack against the Kurds and taking part in ordering chemical gas strikes against civilians.

Life sentence: Farhan al-Juburi, a former military intelligence commander, guilty of murder, genocide and crimes against humanity by providing intelligence to Majid. He received an additional 10 years for his role in the deportation of Kurdish civilians.

Life sentence: Sabir al-Duri, a former military intelligence chief, provided Saddam with studies on how to use chemical arms to maximum effect.

Charges dropped: Taher al-Ani, former governor of the northern city of Mosul, because of a lack of evidence.

Human Rights Watch expressed concern last week that the Anfal verdicts could be flawed as it said they were in the previous trial of Saddam over the killing of Shias from the village of Dujail in the 1980s.

The analysis of the Dujail trial “shows serious flaws in the application of basic international criminal law principles,” said Richard Dicker, who heads the watchdog’s International Justice Programme.

“This raises concerns such errors will be repeated in the Anfal judgement and it therefore won’t withstand scrutiny or the test of time."

It said the Anfal trial has also been marred by procedural flaws, including the Government’s removal of the first presiding judge, Abdallah al-Ameri, a few weeks after the start of the trial

Al-Majid was Saddam Hussein's hatchet man. He was involved in some of the worst crimes of the Iraqi government, including genocide and crimes against humanity.

Kenneth Roth
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch

FILES) Forensic specialists work at a mass grave discovered in al-Samawa desert in Muthanna province, 270 kms south of Baghdad, 25 April 2005. Dates on medicine found in the graves indicate the people were killed around the time of the 1987-1988 "Anfal campaign" that saw Kurdish villages razed and hundreds of people relocated south. An Iraqi court sentenced "Chemical Ali," Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of Saddam Hussein's notorious top former aides, to death by hanging for genocide over the mass killing of tens of thousands of Kurds in 1988.
5:03 a.m. ET, 6/24/07

Al-Majid represented the worst of the Iraqi government, and that's saying quite a lot," said (Kenneth Roth
Executive Director of Human Rights Watch). "He was a key figure in the 1988 genocide, and was responsible for other crimes against humanity, too."

"Chemical Ali" in his own words

According to a 1988 audiotape of a meeting of leading Iraqi officials published by Human Rights Watch, al-Majid vowed to use chemical weapons against the Kurds, saying:

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! the international community, and those who listen to them!

"I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days."

The six defendents in the Anfal trial sit in the dock at a courtroom in Baghdad June 24, 2007. The defendents are Hussein Rashid (Top L), the former deputy of operations for the Iraqi military, Ali Hassan al-Majid (bottom L), also known as "Chemical Ali", Sabir al-Douri (centre L), former director of military intelligence, Sultan Hashim (centre R), commander of Task Force Anfal and Iraqi Army First Corps and later defence minister, Farhan Salih (top R), a regional director of military intelligence, and Former Mosul governor Taher al-Ani. An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Hashim and Radhid to death for their role in a genocidal campaign against Iraq's ethnic Kurds that killed tens of thousands in the 1980s. Al-Douri and Farhan Salih received life sentences. REUTERS/Joseph Eid/Pool (IRAQ)
9:20 a.m. ET, 6/24/07

Rubbar Mohammed visits the grave of her family members who were killed in a chemical attack by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1998, in Halabja, Iraq, Sunday, June 24, 2007 . Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, Saddam Hussein's cousin and the former head of the Baath Party's Northern Bureau Command, and two other former regime officials were sentenced to death by hanging for their roles in a 1980s scorched-earth campaign that led to the deaths of 180,000 Kurds, by an Iraqi court in Baghdad Sunday. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1989/WR89/Iraq.htm

IRAQ

State Department officials insist that human rights are a consideration in the formulation of U.S. policy toward Iraq. "We want as good relations with Iraq as are sustainable," one official said, "and human rights are a factor in what is sustainable." The stated intention is laudable, but U.S. actions have fallen far short. Except in the matter of Iraq's use of chemical weapons -- and even then with little consistency -- the Reagan and Bush administrations have paid scant attention to human rights in their dealings with Iraq. Both have put the nurturing of newly friendly U.S. relations with President Saddam Hussein's government well ahead of concerns over the violent and repressive nature of his regime.

In recent years there has been a dramatic turnabout in relations between the United States and Iraq. For more than two decades following the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in l958, U.S.-Iraqi relations were marked by suspicion and hostility. By l982, however, the Iraqi government was beginning to rethink its stand toward the United States. Iraq had suffered serious reverses in its war with Iran and was still smarting from the Soviet decision at the beginning of the war to stop supplying heavy arms to it. In l982 and l983, Iraq put out feelers to Washington.

These found ready acceptance, for the U.S., too, was beginning to reassess its view of Iraq. Human rights obviously were not a major part of this reassessment for, even putting aside Iraq's use of chemical weapons, the war brought an intensification of repression at home, including executions, disappearances, torture and widespread arrests of perceived opponents. Instead, geopolitical considerations were the moving force in Washington. Many in the Reagan administration had already begun to look at the Hussein regime as the main bulwark against Iranian domination of the entire Near East and its vital oil reserves. U.S. policy-makers are reported to have concluded that an Iranian defeat of Iraq would not only put Iraq's vast oil resources under the control of the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini but would also threaten the oil-rich, pro-Western governments of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf emirates. In l984 formal diplomatic relations were restored and the following year ambassadors were accredited in Washington and Baghdad.

The U.S. also weighed in heavily on Iraq's side in the war with Iran, a process that had begun even before diplomatic relations were restored. In the ensuing years, the U.S. led a campaign to cut off the flow of Western arms to Iran (while at the same time secretly providing sophisticated weaponry to Tehran), reportedly gave Iraq access to intelligence on Iranian military dispositions, spearheaded the drive for a U.N. Security Council resolution ordering a halt to the fighting, and provided naval escort for tankers of Iraq's neighbor and ally Kuwait. The naval escort operation led to clashes between U.S. and Iranian forces in the Gulf in l987 and l988.

With the warming of relations, the United States began providing Iraq billions of dollars in credits to purchase agricultural and industrial products. The war with Iran caused Iraq to borrow on a massive scale, which in turn caused Iraq's credit rating to drop. U.S. and other Western banks, concerned over Iraq's mounting foreign debt and increasingly uncertain whether the government in Baghdad would be able to withstand Iran's onslaught, became reluctant to loan to Iraq. In l983, the U.S. government stepped in to ease Iraq's burden by providing credits through the United States Commodity Credit Corporation ("CCC") credit-guarantee program, for the purchase of U.S. agricultural products. Through l988, Iraq acquired more than $2.8 billion in U.S. agricultural products under the CCC credit-guarantee program. In l989, the year following the Reagan administration's public rebuke of Iraq for using chemical weapons against its Kurdish population, the Bush administration doubled the CCC program for Iraq, raising credits to a level exceeding one billion dollars in 1989. In addition to credit guarantees, the CCC program has also included some interest-free loans and some direct sales at prices subsidized by the U.S. government, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials.

In l984 the U.S. Export-Import Bank began extending short-term -- up to one-year -- loans to Iraq for the purchase of U.S. manufactured goods. In the 1970s, the Export-Import Bank had been authorized to do business with Iraq, but that authority was terminated when, in l979, the U.S. State Department placed Iraq on the list of countries found to be sponsoring terrorism. In l983, the State Department removed Iraq from this list after Iraq expelled the Abu Nidal Black June terrorist group. By then, however, the Export-Import Bank shared many of the commercial banks' reservations about lending to Iraq. It resumed operations only at the insistence of the Reagan administration, under what one Bank official described to Middle East Watch as "political pressure." In l984 and l985, the Bank made some $35 million in short-term loans to Iraq but discontinued the program after Iraqi borrowers failed to meet repayment schedules. In l987, again as a result of administration pressure, the Bank resumed short-term lending to Iraq. In July of that year a $200 million revolving fund was set up, out of which approximately $235 million in short-term credit was made available in the next two years for the purchase of U.S. products, at U.S. government-subsidized interest rates. This time as well, the Bank found the Iraqi government delinquent in meeting some of its repayment schedules. The United States has long maintained an embargo on the sale of military equipment to Iraq. The ban appears to have been strictly enforced on weaponry itself. Around the periphery, however, there have been at least occasional breaches. In l985, Washington approved the sale of 45 Bell helicopters to Iraq, a $200 million deal. The sale was conditioned on Iraqi government assurances that the helicopters would be used only for civilian transport. In September l988, it was learned that some, if not all, of the aircraft had been transferred to the Iraqi military. A group of U.S. reporters who visited the Kurdish areas of Iraq that month at Baghdad's invitation were flown in one of these helicopters. The craft was painted in military colors and piloted by an Iraqi military officer who, reporters noted, was clearly familiar with the terrain. The reporters saw another six to ten U.S.-made Bell helicopters parked on the aprons of military airfields in northern Iraq.

The State Department's annual country report on human rights practices in Iraq have, with minor exceptions, been candid and accurate since l979, when reporting on Iraq began. The report on l988, drafted by the Reagan administration and issued in February l989, stated forthrightly: "Iraq's abysmal human rights record remained unacceptable in l988." It pointed out that political killing, torture and disappearance were routinely practiced by the Iraqi government.

With regard to Iraq's actions against its Kurdish minority, the report noted "the grave human rights violations when the Iraqi armed forces moved to crush a longstanding Kurdish rebellion.... The campaign was marked by the use of chemical weapons against guerrillas and civilians alike." The report also pointed out that in l988 the Iraqi government intensified its destruction of Kurdish and Assyrian villages in northern Iraq and its relocation of their inhabitants.

The report failed, however, to provide significant information on the conditions in which the estimated 500,000 displaced Kurds now live. Nor did it discuss the serious ramifications of their expulsion from their native homes and their resettlement in unfamiliar surroundings where few opportunities for regular employment exist. The country report also failed to mention the proliferation of Iraqi laws that call for the death penalty, many of them for crimes clearly of a political nature or of insufficient gravity to warrant capital punishment under generally accepted international standards.

In a few instances, the report resorted to understatement. For example, political and individual rights were described only as "sharply limited" when in fact they are nonexistent. The same misleading term was used to describe the right of peaceful assembly and association. In the section on workers rights, the report merely noted that "no strikes have been reported for almost 20 years," rather than acknowledging that strikes are prohibited.

Despite the abuses described in the country reports on Iraq, the Reagan and Bush administrations have fallen disappointingly short when it comes to matching words with action. It is almost as though, having issued its annual report on Iraq, the administration considers its duty done and the matter dropped for the rest of the year, unless particularly egregious new violations take place.

During interviews with Middle East Watch, State Department officials, both in the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, which has direct operational responsibility for relations with Iraq, and in the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, showed themselves keenly aware of the abusive and repressive nature of the Iraqi regime. One senior State Department official described the Iraqi government as "possibly the worst violator of human rights anywhere in the world today." Yet, when asked, these same officials expressed considerable reluctance to press Iraq on human rights issues. Some argued that the Iraqi government is "uniquely impervious" to criticism or pressure on human rights grounds. Others argued that despite the substantial political support and trade credits extended by the United States in recent years, there is little or nothing Washington can do that would make a difference.

As a result, the United States has failed to act, or has acted only inadequately, on a series of issues:

Despite the forthright statement in the most recent country report that Iraq's record is "abysmal" and "unacceptable, the Bush administration did not raise with Iraqi authorities the report's findings of murder, extra-legal detention, torture and disappearance of political opponents and government critics, according to State Department sources.

Although the U.S. government has repeatedly denounced forced internal relocation in Nicaragua and Ethiopia, for example, there has been no public expression of concern over the Iraqi government's relocation of at least 500,000 Kurds and Assyrians, although State Department sources said that the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad privately discussed this issue with Iraqi officials during l988 and l989.

So far as it has been possible to determine, no formal consideration was given to human rights criteria in the U.S. government's decision to provide CCC credit guarantees and Export-Import Bank short-term credits to Iraq. Section ll2 of the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act provides that human rights practices should be taken into account in decisions on financing the sale of agricultural commodities. Evidently this provision of the law was ignored.

The State Department chose simply to ignore and to excuse Iraq's prima facie breach of faith in transferring U.S.-supplied helicopters to military control, despite U.S. law barring military sales to "any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." State Department officials took the position that the transfer was not a violation of the conditions of sale because there was no evidence that the craft had been used in combat. When the issue became public, Representative Howard Berman pointed out that the painting of the helicopters in military colors clearly suggested military use. The State Department, however, did not file a protest with the Iraqi government over the transfer or seek to investigate it, according to officials interviewed by Middle East Watch.

Iraq's use of poison gas against its Kurdish citizens in late August and early September l988 drew a vigorous protest from then Secretary of State George Shultz. During a visit to Washington on September 8 by Iraqi Minister of State Saadoun Hammadi, a member of President Saddam Hussein's inner circle, Shultz made known publicly, in extraordinarily candid and undiplomatic terms, his and the Reagan administration's dismay over Iraq's action. In the end, however, Shultz acceded to pressure from the State Department's Middle East professionals and approved a recommendation that the administration oppose Congressionally mandated sanctions against Iraq. A sanctions bill, which at first seemed assured of passage, died in the House.>

The U.S. took no other concrete step to manifest displeasure. The administration did not recall the newly arrived U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, By contrast, on August 29, l989, the State Department recalled Ambassador Sol Polansky from Sofia in protest of Bulgaria's mistreatment of its ethnic Turkish minority. and U.S.-government trade credits and guarantees were not eliminated or reduced, but instead were doubled the following year.

Nonetheless, Shultz's protest to Hammadi, the September 8, 1988 press statement and the momentary threat of Congressionally mandated sanctions succeeded in capturing the attention of the Iraqi government. On September l7, 1988, Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, speaking in Baghdad, declared that Iraq respects and abides by all provisions of international law, including the l925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of poison gas. Three days later, the State Department called this "a positive step" and added: "We take this statement to mean that Iraq foreswears the use of chemical weapons in internal as well as international conflicts." Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Richard Murphy told Congress on October l3 that Tariq Aziz had personally confirmed to Shultz that Tariq Aziz's September l7 statement meant that Iraq intended to renounce the use of chemical weapons against domestic and foreign enemies.

In the closing months of 1989, the State Department began an effort to show greater concern over the human rights situation in Iraq. In September, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Richard Schifter met in Washington with the legal advisor to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry for a discussion of human rights. While information available to Middle East Watch suggests that the outcome of this meeting was far from satisfactory, it has been billed by State Department officials as a "broadening" of the U.S. "human rights dialogue" with Iraq. At the end of November, Schifter met with Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations for further talks on human rights issues. But in a major address on U.S. policy in the Middle East delivered on October 27, 1989, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs John Kelly ignored entirely the matter of Iraq's human rights violations. He stated simply: "Iraq is an important state with great potential. We want to deepen and broaden our relationship."

Despite the defeat of the sanctions bill in the fall of 1988, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Claiborne Pell and other legislators have continued to press the case for sanctions. In June l989 Senator Pell presented an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act that would require the President to make a determination whether Iraq consistently commits gross abuses of human rights. Aware that such a determination, if honestly made, would have to be in the affirmative, the Bush administration opposed the amendment, arguing once again that Iraq is "impervious to leverage." The State Department's Iraqi desk officer, Philip Remler, lamented that "Congress is not very protective of our relationship with Iraq."

At the end of September 1989, Senator Daniel Inouye put a rider on the Foreign Assistance Appropriations Act that barred the bank from further dealings with Iraq. The Inouye amendment, itself later amended to allow a Presidential override of the ban, became law in November. At year's end, the fate of the Pell amendment was still uncertain.

Having escaped penalty in its relations with the United States, the Iraqi government managed also to escape censure in international fora. Its success was due at least in part to slack U.S. efforts to secure international condemnation.

Iraq's use of poison gas against the Kurds prompted President Reagan in a September l988 speech before the U.N. General Assembly to call for an international conference on chemical weapons. French President Mitterand, who went so far as to propose an international embargo on weapons sales to any country using poison gas, immediately picked up the Reagan proposal, and it was agreed that France would host the conference. It quickly became apparent, however, that neither the United States nor France intended to use the conference to condemn or even censure Iraq. Instead, the French decided and the United States agreed that the conference would aim for an international consensus in principle against chemical warfare and for the strengthening of the l925 Geneva Protocol barring the use of chemical weapons.

The conference was held in Paris at the beginning of January l989. Its closing declaration, issued January 11, reaffirmed "the importance and continuing validity" of the l925 Protocol and stated that the participating states were "determined to prevent any recourse to chemical weapons by completely eliminating them." Iraq was not mentioned by name but did receive an indirect slap on the wrist, in a passage that recalled the conferees' "serious concern at recent violations as established and condemned by the competent organs of the United Nations." This, however, was a reference only to Iraq's -- and Iran's -- use of poison gas in their war against each other, not to Iraq's chemical attacks on its own Kurds. The U.N. never had the opportunity to "establish and condemn" the attacks on the Kurds because both Iraq and Turkey rejected the Secretary General's request to send a U.N. investigative team.

The final irony is that the Kurds were barred altogether from the Paris conference because one of the ground rules laid down by the French specified that only states could attend. The United States failed, during and after the conference, even to take up the issue of amending the l925 Protocol to bar states explicitly from using chemical weapons against their own citizens. Jurists interpret the l925 Protocol as prohibiting the use of poison gas only in international armed conflict. The Protocol does not address itself to the possibility that a state might use chemical weapons against its own citizens. A letter that Human Rights Watch sent Secretary of State Shultz on December 29, l988 urging that the U.S. delegation raise this matter at the Paris conference went unanswered.

Despite Iraq's record of arbitrary detention, murder and torture, the Reagan administration did not press for action against Iraq at the l988 session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Even more surprising, at the Commission's l989 session the Bush administration stood back and let others take the initiative in trying to call Iraq to account for its use of chemical weapons against its Kurdish population and for its other serious abuses. The U.S. did not join in sponsoring the strongly worded resolution put forward by twelve other Western states, which called for the appointment of a special rapporteur to "make a thorough study of the human rights situation in Iraq." The resolution was submitted by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain later joined as sponsors. Of the sponsors, Belgium, Canada, West Germany, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain were actual members of the Human Rights Commission. The other sponsors acted in their observer capacity. Commission rules permit observers to sponsor resolutions but not to vote on them.

This resolution was prompted not only by Iraq's use of chemical weapons against the Kurds but also by Western governments' concern over the Commission's dismissal of a series of human rights complaints made against Iraq under the confidential l503 procedure. This is a procedure created by Economic and Social Council resolution l503 under which individuals and non-governmental organizations may submit complaints against U.N. member states for consistent patterns of gross violations of human rights. If deemed admissible by the Subcommission on Discrmination and the Protection of Minorities, these complaints are forwarded to the Human Rights Commission for examination in closed session. The Commission may, however, as it did in the case of Iraq, reject the Subcommission's recommendation<%-20 <%0>. Most Western European delegates felt it important, in light of these developments, that something be done to call attention to the situation in Iraq. The United States, however, evidently did not share this view.

The explanation offered officially for the U.S. failure to sponsor the resolution was that U.S. sponsorship would make the resolution an East-West issue and thereby diminish its chances of success. Behind this unpersuasive rationale evidently lay at least two considerations. One was the fear that too heavy identification with the resolution would detract from U.S. efforts, considered politically more important, to obtain a resolution condemning Cuban human rights abuses. The other had to do with U.S. bilateral relations with Iraq. There was, one official candidly acknowledged to Middle East Watch, concern that U.S. sponsorship of the resolution would be "too confrontational" toward Iraq.

On March 8, the Iraqi delegation moved under the rules of procedure to block the Western resolution from coming to a vote. In the ensuing ballot, the resolution was defeated 13 to 17. The United States joined its Western partners in opposing the Iraqi procedural motion but did not make the serious lobbying effort that might have saved the resolution.

Until such time as the Iraqi government takes steps to show sincere and meaningful progress toward respect of the fundamental rights of its citizens, the Bush administration should publicly condemn serious Iraqi abuses. The administration should sponsor, speak out for, actively support and lobby for resolutions in the United Nations, particularly in the Commission on Human Rights and, to the extent appropriate, in the General Assembly, of resolutions censuring Iraq for its consistent gross violations of human rights. The State Department should seek to engage the Iraqi government in a dialogue on human rights, including discussing with Iraqi officials the findings of the annual country report. All Commodity Credit Corporation and Export-Import Bank credits should be terminated. And U.S. exports to Iraq of any product or technology that could contribute to Iraq's military capabilities, or to the maintenance or strengthening of Iraq's internal security forces, should be banned.

Top 5 Crimes of Saddam Hussein

By Jennifer Rosenberg

Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq from 1979 until 2003, has gained international notoriety for torturing and murdering thousands of his own people. Hussein believes he ruled with an iron fist to keep his country, divided by ethnicity and religion, intact. However, his actions bespeak a tyrannical despot who stopped at nothing to punish those who opposed him.

Having been captured, Saddam Hussein will now be tried for his past crimes. Though prosecutors have hundreds of crimes to choose from, these five are some of Hussein's most heinous.

Reprisal Against Dujail

On July 8, 1982, Saddam Hussein was visiting the town of Dujail (50 miles north of Baghdad) when a group of Dawa militants shot at his motorcade. In reprisal for this assassination attempt, the entire town was punished. More than 140 fighting-age men were apprehended and never heard from again. Approximately 1,500 other townspeople, including children, were rounded up and taken to prison, where many were tortured. After a year or more in prison, many were exiled to a southern desert camp. The town itself was destroyed; houses were bulldozed and orchards were demolished.

Though Saddam's reprisal against Dujail is considered one of his lesser-known crimes, it has been chosen as the first for which he will be tried.

Anfal Campaign

Officially from February 23 to September 6, 1988 (but often thought to extend from March 1987 to May 1989), Saddam Hussein's regime carried out the Anfal (Arabic for "spoils") campaign against the large Kurdish population in northern Iraq. The purpose of the campaign was ostensibly to reassert Iraqi control over the area; however, the real goal was to permanently eliminate the Kurdish problem.

The campaign consisted of eight stages of assault, where up to 200,000 Iraqi troops attacked the area, rounded up civilians, and razed villages. Once rounded up, the civilians were divided into two groups: men from ages of about 13 to 70 and women, children, and elderly men. The men were then shot and buried in mass graves. The women, children, and elderly were taken to relocation camps where conditions were deplorable. In a few areas, especially areas that put up even a little resistance, everyone was killed.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled the area, yet it is estimated that up to 182,000 were killed during the Anfal campaign. Many people consider the Anfal campaign an attempt at genocide.

Chemical Weapons Against Kurds

As early as April 1987, the Iraqis used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from their villages in northern Iraq during the Anfal campaign. It is estimated that chemical weapons were used on approximately 40 Kurdish villages, with the largest of these attacks occurring on March 16, 1988 against the Kurdish town of Halabja.

Beginning in the morning on March 16, 1988 and continuing all night, the Iraqis rained down volley after volley of bombs filled with a deadly mixture of mustard gas and nerve agents on Halabja. Immediate effects of the chemicals included blindness, vomiting, blisters, convulsions, and asphyxiation. Approximately 5,000 women, men, and children died within days of the attacks. Long-term effects included permanent blindness, cancer, and birth defects. An estimated 10,000 lived, but live daily with the disfigurement and sicknesses from the chemical weapons.

Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid was directly in charge of the chemical attacks against the Kurds, earning him the epithet, "Chemical Ali."

Invasion of Kuwait

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded the country of Kuwait. The invasion was induced by oil and a large war debt that Iraq owed Kuwait. The six-week, Persian Gulf War pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991. As the Iraqi troops retreated, they were ordered to light oil wells on fire. Over 700 oil wells were lit, burning over one billion barrels of oil and releasing dangerous pollutants into the air. Oil pipelines were also opened, releasing 10 million barrels of oil into the Gulf and tainting many water sources. The fires and the oil spill created a huge environmental disaster.

Shiite Uprising & the Marsh Arabs

At the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, southern Shiites and northern Kurds rebelled against Hussein's regime. In retaliation, Iraq brutally suppressed the uprising, killing thousands of Shiites in southern Iraq.

As supposed punishment for supporting the Shiite rebellion in 1991, Saddam Hussein's regime killed thousands of Marsh Arabs, bulldozed their villages, and systematically ruined their way of life. The Marsh Arabs had lived for thousands of years in the marshlands located in southern Iraq until Iraq built a network of canals, dykes, and dams to divert water away from the marshes. The Marsh Arabs were forced to flee the area, their way of life decimated.

By 2002, satellite images showed only 7 to 10 percent of the marshlands left. Saddam Hussein is blamed for creating an environmental disaster.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/a/husseincrimes.htm

Saddam Hussein's Iraq
Prepared by the U.S. Department of State
Released September 13, 1999 (updated 2/23/00)
CONTENTS
Executive Summary
Impact of Sanctions
Iraqi Obstruction of Oil-for-Food
Misuse of Resources by the Regime
Repression of the Iraqi People
Evading U.N. Resolutions and Failure to Disarm
Iraq is a Regional Threat
U.S. Policy
War Crimes
Holds On Oil-For-Food Contracts
Iraq Omnibus Resolution
Palaces and Oil Smuggling

Executive Summary

The purpose of this report is to present the facts concerning Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

There are a wealth of charges and counter-charges concerning actions undertaken by Saddam and by the international community towards Iraq.

Based on publicly available information, the facts contained in this report demonstrate that under the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iraq continues to repress its people, threaten the region, and obstruct international efforts to provide humanitarian relief.

We are helping the Iraqi people in their efforts to bring about a regime that is committed to living in peace with its neighbors and respecting the rights of its citizens.

We want to see Iraq return as a respected and prosperous member of the international community, and as the evidence shows, this is unlikely to happen as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.

As long as Saddam Hussein is in power, we are determined to contain the Iraqi regime and prevent it from threatening the region or its own people. We will also continue our efforts to increase humanitarian relief for the people of Iraq, over the obstructions of the regime.

Impact of Sanctions

Summary
Sanctions were imposed on Iraq by the international community in the wake of Iraq's brutal invasion of Kuwait. They are intended to prevent the Iraqi regime access to resources that it would use to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions can only be lifted when Iraq complies fully with all relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

Saddam Hussein's regime remains a threat to its people and its neighbors, and has not met any of its obligations to the UN that would allow the UN to lift sanctions.

The international community, not the regime of Saddam Hussein, is working to relieve the impact of sanctions on ordinary Iraqis.

Impact of Sanctions

Sanctions are not intended to harm the people of Iraq. That is why the sanctions regime has always specifically exempted food and medicine. The Iraqi regime has always been free to import as much of these goods as possible. It refuses to do so, even though it claims it wants to relieve the suffering of the people of Iraq.

• Iraq is actually exporting food, even though it says its people are malnourished. Coalition ships enforcing the UN sanctions against Iraq recently diverted the ship M/V MINIMARE containing 2,000 metric tons of rice and other material being exported from Iraq for hard currency instead of being used to support the Iraqi people.

• Baby milk sold to Iraq through the oil-for-food program has been found in markets throughout the Gulf, demonstrating that the Iraqi regime is depriving its people of much-needed goods in order to make an illicit profit.

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• Kuwaiti authorities recently seized a shipment coming out of Iraq carrying, among other items, baby powder, baby bottles, and other nursing materials for resale overseas (see photo 1).

Saddam Hussein's priorities are clear. If given control of Iraq's resources, Saddam Hussein would use them to rearm and threaten the region, not to improve the lot of the Iraqi people.

There is ample proof that lifting sanctions would offer the Iraqi people no relief from neglect at the hands of their government

• Sanctions prevent Saddam from spending money on rearmament, but do not stop him from spending money on food and medicine for Iraqis.

• Saddam's priorities are clear: palaces for himself, prisons for his people, and weapons to destroy Iraq's citizens and its neighbors. He has built 48 palaces for himself since the Gulf War. He would not use Iraq's resources to improve the lives of Iraqis. Saddam Hussein would use them to rearm and threaten the region.

Iraqi Obstruction of Oil-For-Food

Summary
Thanks to the oil-for-food program, the people of Iraq, especially those in the north, are getting needed foods and medicines.

The program would be even more effective if the Iraqi regime were cooperating. Iraqi obstruction of the oil-for-food program, not United Nations sanctions, is the primary reason the Iraqi people are suffering.

Oil-for-Food Program Helps Iraqis

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• Iraqi oil exports are now at near pre-war levels and revenues are above what Iraq was receiving during the Iran-Iraq war. For the six-month period June-November 1999, Iraqi oil exports are projected to exceed $6 billion (see chart 1).

• Previously Iraq had said it was unable to produce enough oil to meet oil-for-food ceilings because the UN refused to approve contracts for spare parts for its petroleum industry. The facts demonstrate otherwise.

• In the two and a half years that the oil-for-food program has been functioning, Iraq has been able to sell over $14.9 billion in oil. Iraqi oil exports are near pre-war levels, and rising world oil prices are allowing more oil-for-food goods to be purchased.

• The oil-for-food program has delivered $3.7 billion worth of food, $691 million worth of medicine, and more than $500 million worth of supplies for electrical, water/sanitation, agricultural, education, oil industry, settlement rehabilitation and demining projects.

• Despite Iraqi obstructionism, oil-for-food has raised by 50% the daily caloric value of the ration basket and has steadily improved health care for Iraqis. Infrastructure repair in areas such as agriculture, electricity, and water and sanitation is being undertaken.

Iraq has claimed it was unable to produce enough oil to meet oil-for-food ceilings because the UN refused to approve contracts for spare parts for its petroleum industry. The fact is that hundreds of millions of dollars of spare parts have been delivered and Iraqi oil production is expected to exceed pre-Gulf war levels.

• Since the start of the oil-for-food program, of the 7,560 contracts received, 5,901, or 78.1%, have been approved. Their total value is $7.7 billion.

• The 448 contracts on hold as of August 1999 include requests for items that can be used to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. Many of these items are on the list described in UNSCR 1051, the list of goods which must be notified to and inspected by UNSCOM and the IAEA. As Iraq is not permitting either organization to perform its UN-mandated functions, there can be no assurance that Iraq would not divert these dual-use items.

Iraqi Obstruction, not Sanctions, Hinders Effectiveness

For five years, Iraq resisted international efforts to establish the oil-for-food program.

• Concerned about the welfare of the Iraqi people, the Security Council attempted to create an oil-for-food program in 1991 that would allow Iraqi oil to be sold, with proceeds deposited in a UN-controlled account and used to purchase humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people. Iraq rejected the Security Council's original proposal.

• In 1995,over Iraq's protests--the Security Council adopted another oil-for-food resolution. Again, Iraq refused to accept it. It was only after another year and a half of Iraqi delays and international pressure that the Iraq regime agreed to accept oil-for-food.

The August 1999 UNICEF Report on Child Health demonstrates that Iraqi mismanagement, -- if not also deliberate policy -- not sanctions, is responsible for malnutrition and deaths.

• In Northern Iraq, where the UN administers humanitarian assistance, child mortality rates have fallen below pre-Gulf War levels. Rates rose in the period before oil-for-food, but with the introduction of the program the trend reversed, and now those Iraqi children are better off than before the war.

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• Child mortality figures have more than doubled in the south and center of the country, where the Iraqi government -- rather than the UN -- controls the program. If a turn-around on child mortality can be made in the north, which is under the same sanctions as the rest of the country, there is no reason it cannot be done in the south and center (see chart 2).

The fact of the matter is, however, that the government of Iraq does not share the international community's concern about the welfare of its people. Baghdad's refusal to cooperate with the oil-for-food program and its deliberate misuse of resources are cynical efforts to sacrifice the Iraqi people's welfare in order to bring an end to UN sanctions without complying with its obligations.

• The UN has reported that, despite Iraqi claims of infant malnutrition, the government of Iraq has ordered only a fraction of the nutrition supplies for vulnerable children and pregnant and nursing mothers recommended by the UN and for which money has been set aside under the oil-for-food program. Only $1.7 million of $25 million set aside for nutritional supplements has been spent by Iraq. In the past eighteen months, Iraq has ordered no nutritional supplements.

• The United Nations has reported that $200 million worth of medicines and medical supplies sit undistributed in Iraqi warehouses. This is about half the value of all the medical supplies that have arrived in Iraq since the start of the oil-for-food program. Saddam can move his troops and missiles around the country, but claims that he doesn't have enough transportation to distribute these medicines, even as he alleges that children are dying due to sanctions.

• Despite a 50% increase in oil revenues, Iraq has increased the amount earmarked for food purchases by only 15.6%.

• Baghdad has reduced from $8 million to $6 million the amount allocated to the supplemental nutritional support program for malnourished children and pregnant and lactating mothers.

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Misuse of Resources by the Regime

Summary
Rather than spend money to help its people, Iraq's leaders enrich themselves.

Mismanagement

With Iraqi oil revenues burgeoning, it's hard to understand why the people of Iraq aren't better off. The reason is because the government of Iraq is mismanaging the oil-for-food program, either deliberately or through incompetence.

• Despite reports of widespread health problems, the government has still not spent the full $200 million for medical supplies allocated under phase five of the oil-for-food program (which ended in May). Only 40% of the money was used to purchase medicines for primary care, while 60% was used to buy medical equipment.

• While the average Iraqi needs basic medicines and medical care, the government of Iraq spent $6 million on a gamma knife, an instrument used for complicated neurosurgery that requires extremely advanced training to use. Another several million was spent on a MRI machine, used for high-resolution imaging. Such exotic treatment is reserved for regime bodyguards and other members of the elite. This total of $10 million could instead have benefited thousands of Iraqi children if it had been spent on vaccines, antibiotics, and the chemotherapeutics necessary to treat the large numbers of children that are allegedly dying due to lack of medicine.

Personal Enrichment

While the people of Iraq go wanting, their leaders enrich themselves.

• In July 1999, Forbes Magazine estimated Saddam Hussein's personal wealth at $6 billion, acquired primarily from oil and smuggling.

• Medicines received through the oil-for-food program are sold by the regime to private hospitals at exorbitant prices.

• Members of the government and top military and security officials are provided with extra monthly food rations, Mercedes automobiles, and monthly stipends in the thousands of dollars. By comparison, the average monthly government salary is 6,500 dinars, or about $3.50.

Saddam's Excesses

In addition to the revenues generated under the oil-for-food program, the government of Iraq earns money from other sources which it controls. Rather than spend these funds to help the people of Iraq, Saddam Hussein chooses to build monuments to himself. In addition, he deprives those in need of water and other scarce resources in order to favor elites and other supporters of the regime.

• Saddam celebrated his birthday this year by building a resort complex for regime loyalists. Since the Gulf War, Saddam has spent over $2 billion on presidential palaces. Some of these palaces boast gold-plated faucets and man-made lakes and waterfalls, which use pumping equipment that could have been used to address civilian water and sanitation needs.

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• In April 1999, Iraqi officials inaugurated Saddamiat al Tharthar. Located 85 miles west of Baghdad, this sprawling lakeside vacation resort contains stadiums, an amusement park, hospitals, parks, and 625 homes to be used by government officials. This project cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There is no clearer example of the government's lack of concern for the needs of its people than Saddamiat al Tharthar (see photo 2).

• In July, Baghdad increased taxes on vehicle ownership and marriage dowries, after earlier increases in taxes, fees, and fuel and electricity prices. This is in part what pays for Saddam's palaces. Saddam also uses food rations, medical care, and other state resources to buy the loyalty of his inner circle and security forces.

• Iraq is facing its worst drought in 50 years. As a result, the government is restricting the planting of rice and told farmers not to plant summer crops without permission from the Ministry of Irrigation. The water levels of the reservoirs supplying Saddam Hussein's region of Tikrit, however, were at normal seasonal levels, while the flow of water to the southern cities was dramatically lower than during the previous two years. Saddam is diverting water to serve his political objectives, at the expense of the general population.

Repression of the Iraqi People

Summary
Saddam Hussein's repression of the Iraqi people has not stopped.

He is draining the southern marshes, causing grave environmental damage and forcible relocation of civilians in an attempt to eliminate opposition to the regime.

He is murdering Shi'a clerics.

He is destroying villages and forcibly relocating people in both the north and the south and destroying villages in the south.

International human rights groups and others are gathering evidence and working to establish an international criminal court to try Saddam and his senior aides for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He has used chemical weapons against his own people.

UNSC Resolution 688

In Resolution 688 (1991), the UN Security Council condemned the Government of Iraq's repression of the Iraqi civilian population, which it concluded threatened international peace and security in the region.

The Council demanded that Iraq immediately end this repression and allow immediate access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq.

Iraq has neither ended the repression of its civilian population nor allowed outside organizations access to help those in need. The government of Iraq uses military force to repress civilian populations throughout the country, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the destruction of entire villages.

• Iraq has refused to allow the UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights to return to Iraq since his first visit in 1992. The government of Iraq has refused to allow the stationing of human rights monitors as required by the resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the UN Commission on Human Rights. The regime expelled UN personnel and NGOs who, until 1992, ensured the delivery of humanitarian relief services throughout the country.

• Iraqi authorities routinely practice extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions throughout those parts of the country still under regime control. The total number of prisoners believed to have been executed since autumn 1997 exceeds 2,500. This includes hundreds of arbitrary executions in the last months of 1998 at Abu Ghraib and Radwaniyah prisons near Baghdad.

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• In the 1970s and 1980s, the Iraqi regime destroyed over 3,000 Kurdish villages. The destruction of Kurdish and Turkomen homes is still going on in Iraqi-controlled areas of northern Iraq, as evidenced the destruction by Iraqi forces of civilian homes in the citadel of Kirkuk (see Photo 3 & 4).

• In northern Iraq, the government is continuing its campaign of forcibly deporting Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern governorates. As a result of these forced deportations, approximately 900,000 citizens are internally displaced throughout Iraq. Local officials in the south have ordered the arrest of any official or citizen who provides employment, food or shelter to newly arriving Kurds.

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• Iraq's 1988-89 Anfal campaign subjected the Kurdish people in northern Iraq to the most widespread attack of chemical weapons ever used against a civilian population. The Iraqi military attacked a number of towns and villages in northern Iraq with chemical weapons. In the town of Halabja alone, an estimated 5,000 civilians were killed and more than 10,000 were injured (see photo 5).

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• The scale and severity of Iraqi attacks on Shi'a civilians in the south of Iraq have been increasing steadily. The Human Rights Organization in Iraq (HROI) reports that 1,093 persons were arrested in June 1999 in Basrah alone. Tanks from the Hammourabi Republican Guards Division attacked the towns of Rumaitha and Khudur on June 26, after residents protested the systematic maldistribution of food and medicine to the detriment of the Shi'a. Iraqi troops killed fourteen villagers, arrested more than a hundred more, and destroyed forty homes. On June 29, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq reported that 160 homes in the Abul Khaseeb district near Basra were destroyed (see photo 8).

• In March 1999, the regime gunned down Grand Ayatollah al Sayyid Mohammad Sadiq al Sadr, the most senior Shi'a religious leader in Iraq. Since 1991, dozens of senior Shi'a clerics and hundreds of their followers have either been murdered or arrested by the authorities,and their whereabouts remain unknown.

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• In the southern marshes, government forces have burned houses and fields, demolished houses with bulldozers, and undertaken a deliberate campaign to drain and poison the marshes. Villages belonging to the al Juwaibiri, al Shumaish, al Musa and al Rahma tribes were entirely destroyed and the inhabitants forcibly expelled. Government troops expelled the population of other areas at gunpoint and also forced them to relocate by cutting off their water supply (see photo 6 & 7).

War Crimes

The nature and magnitude of the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein and his regime since 1980 demand that all efforts be made to hold those individuals accountable for their crimes. We believe that Saddam Hussein and key members of his regime should be brought to justice for their past and current crimes.

Evading U.N. Resolutions and Failure to Disarm

Summary
While its repression of the Iraqi people continues, the Iraqi regime still is far from complying with its obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions.

It has not fully complied with a single resolution.

It has not fully declared and destroyed its WMD programs. It has not ceased concealment of its WMD. It has not responded fully to questions from UNSCOM and the IAEA. (UNSCRs 687, 707, 715, 1051)

It has not returned Kuwaiti and Third Country POWs and Missing Persons (UNSCRs 686 and 687). 605 Kuwaiti POW/MIAs and 34 Saudis remain unaccounted for.

It has not returned all stolen Kuwaiti property (UNSCR 686). In fact, some is still deployed with Iraqi military units

It has not stopped repressing its civilian population (UNSCR 688).

What Disarmament Means

UNSCR 687 and related resolutions 707, 715, and 1051 stipulate that Iraq must provide full, final and complete disclosure of all aspects of its nuclear, chemical, biological, and long-range missile weapons programs; allow unconditional inspection access by international monitors; cease any attempt to conceal, move, or destroy any material or equipment related to these programs; and cooperate with UN monitoring of relevant Iraqi facilities and trade activities.

What Iraq Has Done

When these resolutions were passed, it was expected that compliance would require no more than 90 days. Instead, nine years later, sanctions remain in place because Iraq has decided to (1) hide weapons and major components of these programs, (2) secretly destroy older, less-capable weapons and equipment, and (3) give UN inspectors fraudulent declarations to mask weapons and equipment that are still hidden.

• Iraq began playing hide-and-seek with UN inspectors in 1991. In December 1998, Saddam stopped all cooperation with the UN, refusing to let any weapons inspectors into the country.

• In July 1998, Iraq seized from the hands of UNSCOM inspectors an Iraqi Air Force document indicating that Iraq had misrepresented the expenditure of over 6,000 bombs which may have contained over 700 tons of chemical agent. Iraq continues to refuse to provide this document to the UN.

• Iraq continues to deny weaponizing VX nerve agent, despite the fact that UNSCOM found VX nerve agent residues on Iraqi SCUD missile warhead fragments. Based on its investigations, international experts concluded that "Iraq has the know-how and process equipment, and may possess precursors to manufacture as much as 200 tons of VX ... The retention of a VX capability by Iraq cannot be excluded by the UNSCOM international expert team."

• Iraq has refused to credibly account for 500 tons of SCUD propellant, over 40 SCUD biological and conventional warheads, 7 Iraqi-produced SCUDs, and truckloads of SCUD components.

• Iraq refuses to allow inspection of thousands of Ministry of Defense and Military Industries Commission documents relating to biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles.

• In 1995, Iraqis who conducted field trials of R-400 bombs filled with biological agents described the tests to UNSCOM experts in considerable detail, including the use of many animals. These field trials were reflected in Iraq's June 1996 biological weapons declaration. Yet, amazingly, Iraq now denies that any such trials were conducted at all.

• In September 1995, Iraq finally declared the existence of two projects to disseminate biological agents from Mirage F-1 and MiG-21 aircraft, yet there is no evidence that the prototype weapons and aircraft were ever destroyed. There is also no evidence that the 12 Iraqi helicopter-borne aerosol generators for biological weapon delivery were ever destroyed.

• Apart from one document referring to a single year, no Iraqi biological weapon production records have been given to the UN -- no records of storage, of filling into munitions, or of destruction. This is why UNSCOM refers to Iraq's biological weapons program -- which deployed SCUD missile warheads filled with anthrax and botulinum toxin to be ready for use against Coalition forces -- as a "black hole."

• The Iraqis have repeatedly changed their story about their biological weapons warheads. Iraq has revised several times its declarations regarding the precise locations of warhead destruction and the fill of warheads. The movements of concealed warheads prior to unilateral destruction, claimed by Iraq, have been proven to be false.

• At the request of the UNSC, Brazilian Ambassador Amorim led a review of the mechanisms designed to ensure Iraqi disarmament. His 7 April 1999 report affirmed that future work "should be based on the full implementation of the plans for ongoing monitoring and verification approved by Security Council Resolution 715 (1991)" and called for Iraq to provide UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors with all the rights called for by UNSC resolutions 687, 707, and 1051." Rather than do so, Saddam has refused to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq.

Iraq is a Regional Threat

Summary
Iraq under Saddam Hussein remains dangerous, unreconstructed, and defiant. It has not disarmed. It has never apologized or expressed regret for the invasion of Kuwait. It continues to repress its people.

This is a dangerous regime that threatens its neighbors, has a long history of aggression, has ambitions to dominate the Gulf by force, and retains the capability to do so.

History of Aggression

Far from apologizing for its invasion of Kuwait, Iraq continues to assert that its actions were justified.

• On this year's ninth anniversary of the invasion of Kuwait, the government newspaper Babel -- owned by Saddam's son Uday -- stated "We still believe that what we did on August 2, 1990, was the right response to foil a large and abortive conspiracy."

• In an editorial on August 2, 1999, al Thawra, the regime's mouthpiece, referred to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as, "the honorable day of the call."

• In 1994, Saddam attempted to blackmail the UN Security Council into lifting sanctions by massing his forces for another invasion of Kuwait. In response, the UNSC passed Resolution 949, ordering Iraq to withdraw its Republican Guard forces from southern Iraq.

Not only does Baghdad consider its invasion of Kuwait "honorable," but Saddam Hussein has gone so far as to call for the overthrow of fellow Arab leaders and to attempt to murder the Emir of Kuwait and former president George Bush.

• In Saddam's Army Day speech of January 6, 1999, he said: "Release your anger and rebel against the defiled ones who are playing with your fate and the fate of the nation.... Rebel against those who are proud of the friendship of the United States, those who are proud of being U.S. protégées..."

• In 1993, Iraq organized an attempt to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush and the Emir of Kuwait.

• In August 1996, the regime's forces attacked the Kurdish-held city of Irbil. Within hours, Iraqi secret police had swarmed over the city, arresting hundreds and killing scores of suspected oppositionists

• Baghdad continues to harbor the Muhjahideen e-Khalq (MEK), Iranian dissents who conduct a widespread terrorist campaign to support their political agenda. In the past, the MEK has been responsible for attacks on Americans, (including participating in the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979), Iraqis, Iranians, and Europeans.

• Saddam continues to attack coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones, which were established to prevent Saddam from attacking Kurdish and Shi'a civilians, in violation of UNSC Resolutions 688 and 949.

WMD Capability

Saddam retains the capability to inflict significant damage upon Iraq's neighbors and its own civilian population.

• Since December 1998, Saddam Hussein has prevented UN weapons inspectors from even entering Iraq. We do not know for sure what he is doing under the roofs of the weapons factories they routinely monitored. So, in addition to the weapons he has worked so hard to hide since 1991, Saddam may well have his experts making chemical and biological weapons, and pursuing nuclear weapon designs.

• Iraq is capable of assembling its prohibited Al-Hussein long-range missiles with key parts known to have been stripped from destroyed imported SCUDs.

• Iraq has refused to account for precursor chemicals capable of making as much as 200 tons of VX nerve agent. Iraq has the know-how and equipment to weaponize VX, despite its continuing denials.

• Iraq loaded VX, anthrax, botulism toxin, and other chemical and biological agents into Al-Hussein missile warheads and deployed them during the Gulf War.

• Iraq loaded thousands of munitions such as aerial bombs, tactical rockets, and artillery shells with a variety of chemical and biological agents similar to those used against Iran and against Iraqi civilians.

Without sanctions, Saddam would be free to use his resources to rearm and make good on his threats against Kuwait and the region.

U.S. Policy

Summary
The United States wants to see Iraq return as a respected and prosperous member of the international community. As long as Saddam Hussein is in power, however, we don't believe that that's going to happen.

Containment

Given Saddam Hussein's long record of aggression against his neighbors and repression of his own people, and absent any proof that he has in fact disarmed, it is important that the international community remain united in containing this dangerous regime.

• Sanctions will remain in place until UNSC requirements are fully met.

• Only a robust, fully empowered inspection regime can determine if Iraq is fully disarmed. A weak inspection regime will not be effective.

• No-fly zones will be enforced to prevent Saddam from using his air force and helicopters to slaughter his people, as he has repeatedly done in the past. No-fly zones also contain Saddam Hussein's ability to threaten his neighbors.

• The United States will use force if Saddam threatens Iraq's neighbors or coalition forces, reconstitutes or deploys WMD, or moves against the Kurds.

Humanitarian Relief

At the same time, we are working to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people by:

• Expanding Iraqi oil sales making more money available for oil-for-food.

• Working to get Iraq to order more food, especially nutritional supplements for children and lactating mothers, which it has until now refused to do.

• Expediting approval of contracts under oil-for-food.

• Supporting a draft UNSC resolution which proposes lifting the oil-for-food ceiling on oil sales.

The international community, not Saddam Hussein, is caring for the Iraqi people.

Regime Change

Saddam's record over the past 10 years, however, demonstrates that he will never comply with UN resolutions and that he will continue to repress his own people and threaten his neighbors. That is why we believe that the only way to address the security needs of the international community and the needs of the people of Iraq is through a new government in Baghdad, one that is committed to living in peace with its neighbors and respecting the rights of its citizens. Iraq, the region, and the world would be better off with a new government in Iraq.

• We support the territorial integrity of Iraq. One nation, whole and free. Saddam Hussein is not what's holding Iraq together; he's what's breaking it apart.

• The United States believes that if there is to be change, it must come from within Iraq, led by Iraqis. We do not seek to impose an American solution or a foreign opposition on the people of Iraq.

• In a post-Saddam Iraq, the United States will take the lead to foster economic development, restore Iraqi civil society, rebuild the middle class, and restore Iraq's health and education sectors.

War Crimes

Summary
Saddam Hussein and his closest aides have committed a long list of criminal violations of international humanitarian law and the laws and customs of war. Saddam Hussein and his closest aides should be investigated, indicted, and prosecuted for these crimes.

The goal of the United States is to see Saddam indicted by an international tribunal. We are gathering our own evidence against Saddam and providing support to groups working on Iraqi war crimes issues.

War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979. The list of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Saddam Hussein and his regime is a long one. It includes:

• The use of poison gas and other war crimes against Iran and the Iranian people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Iraq summarily executed thousands of Iranian prisoners of war as a matter of policy.

• The "Anfal" campaign in the late 1980's against the Iraqi Kurds, including the use of poison gas on cities. In one of the worst single mass killings in recent history, Iraq dropped chemical weapons on Halabja in 1988, in which as many as 5,000 people -- mostly civilians -- were killed.

• Crimes against humanity and war crimes arising out of Iraq's 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

• Crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq. This includes the destruction of over 3,000 villages. The Iraqi government's campaign of forced deportations of Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern Iraq has created approximately 900,000 internally displaced citizens throughout the country.

• Crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Marsh Arabs and Shi'a Arabs in southern Iraq. Entire populations of villages have been forcibly expelled. Government forces have burned their houses and fields, demolished houses with bulldozers, and undertaken a deliberate campaign to drain and poison the marshes. Thousands of civilians have been summarily executed.

• Possible crimes against humanity for killings, ostensibly against political opponents, within Iraq.

Holding Saddam Accountable

The United States wants to see Saddam and his close aides investigated, indicted, and if possible, prosecuted by an international tribunal. The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal's May 1999 indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against the Muslim Kosovar Albanian people shows that when crimes are committed on the scale that Saddam Hussein has committed them, justice should be done not just in the name of the victims, but in the name of all humanity.

The United States is helping international efforts to gather evidence.

• The U.S. Government helped human rights and opposition groups collect 5.5 million pages of captured Iraqi documents from the "Anfal" campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in the 1980's. These documents show the routine nature of the atrocities and abuses committed by Saddam Hussein's regime against the Iraqi people. These documents are being catalogued, indexed, and electronically transcribed for use by investigators and prosecutors.

• Tens of thousands of pages of Iraqi documents captured during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 are also now being indexed and computerized. The originals themselves will be returned to Kuwait and computerized copies will be made available to human rights groups, scholars, investigators and prosecutors.

• The U.S. has large amounts of information on Iraq's campaign to destroy the Southern Marshes and repression of the people of southern Iraq.

• We are preserving videotapes of Iraqi war crimes that can be used for eventual prosecution of Iraqi war crimes. The United States also has classified documents, some of which can be declassified and shared with an international tribunal or commission.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq is a brutal police state and so the collection of evidence of the crimes of the regime is difficult to obtain. Opposition groups work with great courage to bring this news to the world. We are working with Iraqi opposition and human rights groups in support of their efforts to collect additional evidence of Saddam's war crimes. Opposition and human rights groups' efforts include:

• Locating witnesses to Iraqi war crimes and help build evidence that could be used to justify the arrest of senior Iraqi officials traveling outside the country.

• Helping analyze captured Iraqi documents and translate them so that the world can be educated about Iraqi war crimes.

The U.S. Government is providing grants to a number of NGO's working on Iraqi war crimes issues. Grants have been provided for gathering evidence, translating captured Iraqi documents written in Arabic into other languages, making evidence of Iraqi war crimes available on the Internet, and taking steps to preserve written, visual and testimonial evidence of the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

International efforts to draw attention to the war crimes record of the Iraqi regime has already begun:

• Efforts were made to arrest Izzat Ibrahim, Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, while he was visiting Austria in August of 1999.

• A few weeks later, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz decided not to travel to Italy to attend a conference entitled, "Peace, Prosperity, and an End to War." As one human rights group said, "The only suitable venue for Tariq Aziz to express his opinions is that of a courtroom where we will all have a chance to hear about his government's record on peace, prosperity and war."

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Holds On Oil-For-Food Contracts

Summary
Over 94% of all requested oil-for-food goods have been approved. That is $8.9 billion worth of humanitarian items for the Iraqi people. No holds are placed on food and medicine.

The 6% of goods, which are on hold, include contracts for dual-use items that Iraq can use to rebuild its military capabilities. Holds are placed on contracts that do not have enough information to determine whether they include dual-use items. Once that information is provided, these holds are often released. In other cases, holds are placed on contracts submitted by firms with a record of sanctions violations.

Contract holds are not the problem. It is Saddam Hussein who continues to reject UN recommendations for ordering adequate amounts of food and other basic humanitarian goods. Instead, he seeks to use the oil-for-food program to rebuild his army and export oil in order to build palaces and obtain luxuries for his family and regime supporters. Holds on inappropriate contracts help prevent the diversion of oil-for-food goods to further Saddam's personal interests.

Only A Small Number Of Contracts On Hold...

Proposed oil-for-food contracts must be approved by all members of a committee made up of Security Council member states. Only a small number of such contracts are put on hold.

• Since its inception, the Sanctions Committee has approved 94% of all requested oil-for-food goods. That is over $8.9 billion worth of contracts.

• The Sanctions Committee has put holds on less than 6% of the goods submitted to it. NONE OF THE CONTRACTS ON HOLD ARE FOR FOOD. Iraq now imports about as much food as it did before the Gulf War.

• Over 9,200 contracts have been reviewed by the Sanctions Committee; all but 694 have been approved. Many of these 694 contracts are delayed pending receipt of additional information from the contracting companies.

• Iraq usually delays submission to the UN of the list of goods it wants to order during each six-month phase of the oil-for-food program until the last minute. In this way it tries to sneak in proscribed items by forcing the UN either to halt the flow of oil-for-food goods or to approve dubious contracts.

• The United States takes its responsibilities very seriously and reviews each proposed oil-for-food contract thoroughly.

• We know that the Iraqi regime is trying to use the program to import dual-use items for military uses rather than for their intended purpose of relieving the suffering of the Iraqi people. The U.S., in reviewing oil-for-food contracts, cannot and will not ignore the known intentions of the government of Iraq to obtain weapons, including chemical and biological weapons. These intentions have been demonstrated repeatedly in the past nine years.

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... And For Good Reasons

Contracts should not be blocked without serious cause. There are good reasons why each delayed contract has been put on hold.

• The most frequent reason for placing a hold on a contract is the information that accompanies the contract. There are currently over 250 contracts on hold because the technical information or the end-use information in the contract is insufficient to judge the dual-use potential of the ordered goods.

• The United States has placed a hold on over 200 contracts that include dual-use items. The Security Council has created a list of items which can be used to build weapons of mass destruction and which the Security Council has said must be monitored by UNSCOM or the IAEA. With Iraq blocking those agencies from performing these missions, it would be dangerous to allow dual-use items into Iraq.

• There are 55 contracts on hold which are destined for the Basrah refinery, where Iraq produces gasoil which it smuggles out of Iraq in violation of UN sanctions. The profits from this illicit trade are used by the government of Iraq to procure items prohibited by sanctions, including luxuries for members of Saddam's inner circle, and continued construction of elaborate palaces.

• There are 90 contracts on hold because we have information that they are linked to a company that is operating or has operated in violation of sanctions.

• Another 14 contracts are on hold because the goods are destined for an oil export facility, which does not have the required UN authorization to operate.

• Another 23 contracts are on hold because they contain financial terms that the Committee agreed are not allowed under Security Council resolutions.

Iraqi Obstruction Of The Oil-For-Food Program

Despite the Iraqi regime's persistent efforts to obstruct the oil-for-food program and manipulate it for the purposes of rewarding Saddam's supporters, the United States is committed to doing everything we can to see that the program benefits the Iraqi people.

• The Iraqi government continues to smuggle goods out of Iraq to get revenue for its illicit activities. In addition to illegally exporting oil and gasoil, twice in the last three months ships have been caught trying to smuggle tons of food and nursing supplies out of Iraq to get hard currency for the Iraqi regime.

• Although the primary responsibility for the well-being of the Iraqi people lies with the Government of Iraq, the Iraqi government spends the revenue it controls on goods not permitted under sanctions, including luxury items for the regime's inner circle, rather than the needs of the Iraqi people. Contrary to recommendations from the UN, it drags its heels in ordering nutritional supplements and other humanitarian goods needed by the people of Iraq.

• Stark evidence of the government's callous policies was documented in a recent UNICEF survey, which found that child mortality rates doubled in South and Central Iraq, where Saddam Hussein controls distribution of humanitarian assistance, but child mortality rates actually dropped in the North, where the UN controls distribution.

Iraq Omnibus Resolution

Summary
This resolution reaffirms Iraq's obligations to disarm, to provide for the needs of its people, to account for Gulf War missing and to return stolen Kuwaiti property. All members of the UN Security Council have agreed, again, that these obligations on Iraq are unsatisfied and continue.

The resolution establishes a new disarmament body and monitoring body -- UNMOVIC -- that maintains UNSCOM's mandate, rights, facilities and immunities. It also includes measures to ensure that -- despite Saddam Hussein's best efforts to prevent it -- the people of Iraq receive the humanitarian goods they require. Iraq can sell as much oil as it needs to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, but all revenue remains under UN control.

No Council members voted against this resolution. All Council members are committed to implementation. This resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN charter. It is obligatory, even with abstentions.

Disarmament

The resolution establishes the UN Monitoring and Verification Commission, UNMOVIC.

• A subsidiary body of the Security Council, UNMOVIC retains UNSCOM's mandate, rights, privileges, facilities and immunities.

• The UN Secretary General (SYG) will nominate, and the Security Council will approve, the UNMOVIC Executive Chairman, who with the SYG, sets up UNMOVIC.

• UNMOVIC and IAEA submit work programs for Council approval (includes monitoring plan and key disarmament tasks). Overall IAEA role unchanged.

• Iraq must fulfill key disarmament tasks. Iraq must cooperate with inspectors in all respects: monitoring and unresolved disarmament issues. Iraq must allow access for any inspection.

Sanctions

If Iraq fulfills key disarmament tasks and cooperates with inspectors for 120 days after reinforced monitoring is fully operational, the Council could act to suspend sanctions, provided that appropriate controls are in place.

• There will be no change in sanctions unless Iraq cooperates and fulfills key disarmament tasks.

• If Iraq fulfills key disarmament tasks and cooperates in all respects with arms inspection teams for 120 days after reinforced monitoring is fully operational, the Security Council will consider a temporary suspension of export and import sanctions -- with effective financial and other controls remaining in place to ensure that Iraq does not exploit the situation to acquire prohibited items.

• Under suspension of sanctions, Iraq could import and export civilian goods for humanitarian purposes. The embargo on military imports would remain in place, and dual-use items would continue to require prior approval.

• Suspension must be renewed by a positive vote of the Security Council every 120 days. If Iraq ceases cooperation, sanctions would be automatically reimposed.

Humanitarian Assistance

In this resolution, the members of the Security Council commit themselves to take all possible steps to ensure that -- despite Saddam Hussein's best efforts to prevent it -- the people of Iraq receive the humanitarian goods they require.

• Improvements to oil-for-food go into effect immediately. Iraq can sell as much oil as it needs to meet the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, but all revenue remains under UN control. The resolution also makes a number of changes that should expedite delivery of humanitarian items and allows Iraqis easier access to a greater range of basic goods.

• The Sanctions Committee will define a list of goods for automatic approval. This will not include dual-use items with potential use for either military or Weapons of Mass Destruction purposes. The Secretary General will plan, with UNSC approval, use of oil-for-food money for the local purchase of goods and services.

• The resolution reiterates the obligation on Iraq to improve the oil-for-food program: to distribute goods more quickly and to help especially women, children, the elderly, etc.

• The SYG is requested to maximize program effectiveness and report obstacles to the Security Council

Palaces and Oil Smuggling

Since the end of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein has directed and sustained a multi-billion dollar palace construction program while pleading that the UN sanctions keep him too poor to feed and provide health care for his people. While he keeps Iraq's hospital shelves bare and shows them to journalists, Saddam restricts access to the new and ornate palaces to himself and his chosen admirers of any given moment. Moreover, Saddam fits out these monuments with the finest foreign materials -- from golden plumbing to the finest European marble and crystal chandeliers -- smuggled in despite the embargo that Baghdad propaganda falsely claims blocks the import of food and medicine.

Saddam Hussein pays for these palaces with that part of the Iraqi national wealth that he has managed to keep under his control and out of the UN's mandatory oil-for-food program. Through that program, the UN controls how Iraqi oil revenues are spent and compels the regime to invest Iraq's oil wealth for the benefit of its people. But every day that he remains in power, Saddam lets his favored supporters steal hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil from the Iraqi people to enrich themselves, in direct violation of UN resolutions.

Most Iraqis and the few foreign visitors to Iraq only get to see the outer walls of Saddam's monuments to his glory. This report provides satellite images that allow Iraqis and the rest of the world to see better how Saddam Hussein spends some of the money that he is able to steal from the national wealth of the Iraqi people.

Palace Construction

Photographic evidence confirms that Saddam Hussein and his regime have sustained a non-stop program of palace building since 1991. Saddam has been spending billions of dollars on the man-made lakes, waterfalls, marble, and other luxuries that make up his palaces and those of his supporters. At the same time, Saddam parades well-intentioned foreigners to gawk at the sick and hungry of Iraq, as he pleads that UN sanctions prevent him from buying or importing his people's most basic needs.

• Among the more notable features of these palaces are: extensive security facilities to protect the regime from its own people; elaborate gardens which require large amounts of water, often in drought-stricken areas; and sophisticated waterfalls and other waterworks using pumps and other infrastructure that the regime says sanctions prevent it from importing for the Iraqi people.

• Saddam ruthlessly protects the extent of his luxury. According to Iraqi opposition sources, Saddam recently ordered the execution of one of the Iraqi architects who worked on presidential palaces in Tikrit, Al-Hillah, Al-Azimiyah, and Al-Wafa. His crime was to describe to friends the sumptuousness and lavishness of Saddam's palaces, and the swimming pools, fish aquariums, and deer farms in the vicinity of some of them. A circular was then sent around to workers in the engineering department of the Presidential Office warning them that the harshest punishment will be inflicted on anyone who talks about the presidential sites, even to family members. Our knowledge of the inside of Saddam's palaces comes from first-hand information from international observers who have traveled to Iraq and visited the palaces.

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Oil Smuggling

Where does Saddam get the billions of dollars needed to build these palaces? Part of it comes from funds he controls directly. Part of it comes from oil produced and exported in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. These resolutions compel Saddam to spend revenues from the sale of Iraq's oil solely for the benefit of the Iraqi people. In order to fund his palace construction and other illicit expenditures, Saddam is smuggling substantial quantities of it abroad.

• The Basrah refinery was put out of operation in Operation Desert Fox in 1998. Iraq has rebuilt it however, and the refinery is operating at near capacity, which is approximately 140,000 barrels per day.

• Under UN Security Council Resolutions and the oil-for-food program, Iraq is permitted to export oil only through the approved facilities in Mina al Baqr in the northern Persian Gulf and via the oil pipeline through Turkey through the port of Ceyhan. The production and export of gasoil from the Basrah refinery is outside the oil-for-food program and a violation of UN sanctions.

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• The Iraqi government claims that sanctions prevent it from getting spare parts needed to repair its oil industry and that this is to blame for low production levels. The activities of the Basrah refinery prove that such claims are false. Clearly, Iraq has no problem getting spare parts for its oil industry. The problem is that the regime of Saddam Hussein prefers to produce and export oil illegally, outside the oil-for-food program so that he can control the revenues and use them for his own personal aggrandizement.

•Since repairing the Basrah refinery, Iraq has steadily increased the amount of oil illegally exported via the Persian Gulf. Illicit oil exports averaged about 50,000 b/d for much of 1998, until they ended with the attack on the Basrah refinery in December of 1998. Iraq resumed exports in August of 1999. Smuggling reached 70,000 b/d in December and averaged about 100,000 b/d in January 2000. We estimate that Baghdad has earned more than $25 million in January alone. There is no evidence that any of this money has been spent to improve the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people.

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Top 5 Crimes of Saddam Hussein

By Jennifer Rosenberg

Having been captured, Saddam Hussein will now be tried for his past crimes. Though prosecutors have hundreds of crimes to choose from, these five are some of Hussein's most heinous.

Reprisal Against Dujail

Though Saddam's reprisal against Dujail is considered one of his lesser-known crimes, it has been chosen as the first for which he will be tried.

Anfal Campaign

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled the area, yet it is estimated that up to 182,000 were killed during the Anfal campaign. Many people consider the Anfal campaign an attempt at genocide.

Chemical Weapons Against Kurds

Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid was directly in charge of the chemical attacks against the Kurds, earning him the epithet, "Chemical Ali."

Invasion of Kuwait

Shiite Uprising & the Marsh Arabs

By 2002, satellite images showed only 7 to 10 percent of the marshlands left. Saddam Hussein is blamed for creating an environmental disaster.

http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/a/husseincrimes.htm

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