Arnove / Convenient And Not So Convenient Massacres (Z web page)

[Mark Pavlick]

>Convenient And Not So Convenient Massacres March 28, 2002
>By Anthony  Arnove
>
>March 16 marked the fourteenth anniversary of the brutal chemical 
>weapons attack on the Kurdish population of Halabja ordered by Iraqi 
>dictator Saddam Hussein. The poison gas attack, which was part of a 
>much broader campaign of repression against the Kurdish population, 
>killed some 5,000 Kurds in the northeastern Iraqi town, near the 
>border with Iran, and created thousands more refugees.
>
>Today, the massacre is a frequent reference point for government 
>officials and political commentators advocating "toppling Hussein," 
>as the military invasion of Iraq is euphemistically described. "Heís 
>used chemical weapons on his own people," Secretary of Defense 
>Donald Rumsfeld reiterated on CBSís "Face the Nation" on February 24.
>
>On March 15, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher started 
>off his daily press briefing by noting that "Tomorrow marks the 
>fourteenth anniversary of Saddam Hussein's heinous chemical weapons 
>attack on Halabja, the predominantly Kurdish city in northeastern 
>Iraq. On March 16, 1988, the Iraqi military conducted an aerial 
>bombardment of Halabja with mustard and other poison gases that 
>killed roughly 5,000 civilians and injured another 10,000.... It is 
>policies and practices such as those that led President Bush to 
>characterize Iraq as part of an ëaxis of evil.í"
>
>But the history of U.S. actions after the Halabja massacre took 
>place are instructive. While the massacre is now a convenient one 
>that serves U.S. propaganda purposes, when it happened in 1988, the 
>Reagan-Bush administration and much of the media found it not that 
>convenient at all.
>
>"The issue is extremely sensitive because the Reagan Administration 
>has moved closer to Iraq in recent years," the New York Times 
>explained on September 8, 1988.  The U.S. government backed Hussein 
>during the Iran-Iraq war and had strong economic ties. "Iraq, which 
>has the second-largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia, 
>is an important American trading partner. The United States buys an 
>average of 447,000 barrels of Iraqi oil a day, amounting to about $2 
>billion a year. Last year, the United States exported $1 billion in 
>agricultural products, including rice, wheat and meat to Iraq," the 
>Times noted just six weeks before Iraqís invasion of Kuwait.
>
>When news of what had happened at Halabja broke, the State 
>Department issued a rote condemnation, but Washington continued its 
>courtship with Iraq. As Jim Hoagland rightly predicted on March 26, 
>1988, "Washington's friendship for Baghdad is likely to survive one 
>night of poison gas and sickening television film. TV moves on, 
>shock succeeds shock, the day's horror becomes distant memory. The 
>Kurds will stay on history's margins, and policy will have 
>continuity" (Washington Post).
>
>"Iraq has not paid much of a diplomatic price for its actions," the 
>Christian Science Monitor rightly observed on December 13, 1988. 
>Indeed, on September 8, 1988, when Secretary of State George Shultz 
>met with Saadun Hamadi, Iraq's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs 
>in Washington, he expressed only "concern" about Halabja. "The 
>approach we want to take [toward Iraq] is that, ëWe want to have a 
>good relationship with you, but that this sort of thing [the Halabja 
>massacre] makes it very difficult,í" explained one State Department 
>official.
>
>In fact, the U.S. continued aid to Iraq, providing hundreds of 
>millions of dollars in export credit guarantees through the 
>Agriculture Departmentís Commodity Credit Corporation and the 
>Export-Import Bank. From June 6-8, 1989, a delegation of U.S. 
>businesspeople representing "23 US banks, oil and oil-service 
>companies, and high-tech, construction, and defense contractors, 
>with cumulative annual sales of $500 billion" visited Iraq and had 
>"high-level" talks with the Baathist regime (Christian Science 
>Monitor, August 31, 1989).
>
>On April 12, 1990, five top U.S. senators "arrived in Baghdad on a 
>trip that has received little notice" at the time August 12, 1990. 
>"The senators carried a private message from President Bush that the 
>United States wanted to improve relations with Iraq ënotwithstanding 
>the record of President Saddam Hussein.í" Three of the five -- Bob 
>Dole, Howard Metzenbaum, and Frank Murkowski -- returned to lead the 
>charge against sanctions against Iraq for its use of chemical 
>weapons.
>
>All of that soon changed, however. The Halabja massacre became a 
>convenient massacre after Iraqís August 1990 invasion of Kuwait. In 
>entering Kuwait, Iraq crossed a line, threatening the stability of 
>the Middle East and U.S. control over the profits of its oil 
>resources.
>
>Selectivity remains with regard to crimes against Kurds today. So, 
>for the purposes of propaganda, Iraqís abuses of Kurdish rights 
>merit condemnation and outrage. Meanwhile, Turkey, a critical U.S. 
>ally, engages in massive ethnic cleansing of Kurds -- using 
>U.S.-supplied helicopters and military equipment -- with impunity.
>
>And should the U.S. invade Iraq, the Bush administration has made 
>clear to Turkey that it will "ensure Iraq's territorial integrity" 
>(New York Times, March 10, 2002) and not allow the creation of an 
>independent Kurdish state.

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