----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> General Khazraji, 64,
> commanded the Iraqi Armed Forces during the Iran-Iraq War, when Baghdad
used
> banned poison gas against Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians. In the
most
> notorious incident 5,000 Kurds in the town of Halabja were killed when
Iraqi
> artillery and warplanes bombed the area with nerve gas and mustard gas.
===================
The following was posted on Common Dreams a few days ago. When I went surfing for some corroboration of the citation I found that Jude Wanniski had used the same study in one of his rants. How would prosecutors square the circle?
Published on in the November 13, 2002 issue of The Christian Century Before the Shooting Starts: A Fabricated Case? by George Hunsinger
[snip]
Did Saddam Hussein gas the Kurds? He is regularly accused of doing so, but the story may not be true. A little-known Army War College study, written by Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson, came to the conclusion that he did not. Throughout the Iran-Iraq war, Pelletiere served as the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq, and Johnson has taught at the U.S. Military Academy. Their study investigated what happened at Halabja, where gas was used by both sides.
Saddam, the authors concluded, did not use poison gas against his people. While hundreds of civilians died in the crossfire, what felled them was the kind of gas used by Iranians. The Iranians, however, insisted that the gas came from the Iraqis. Their story prevailed in the U.S.
Jeffrey Goldberg wrote damningly about Iraq's role at Halabja (New Yorker, March 25), but when asked by the Village Voice why he had ignored the War College study, he explained that he trusted other sources. Why ignore significant evidence to the contrary?
The New York Times has recently disclosed that the Reagan administration, which supported Iraq against Iran, acquiesced in the use of gas (August 17). According to retired Colonel Walter P. Lang, who was senior defense intelligence officer at the time, "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern."
Dilip Hiro says that while Saddam may have gassed civilians, conclusive proof was lacking at the time. "That is where the matter rested for 14 years--until 'gassing his own people' became a catchy slogan to demonize Saddam in the popular American imagination" (Nation, August 28).
[snip]