"He Gassed His Own People!" Or Did He?

[elucidator]

I argue that the matter is in doubt, and that it was in doubt in every instance when GeeDubya repeated it with numbing redundancy. I argue that GeeDubya was in a position to know that. When a half-truth is offered as incontrovertible fact, in most instances it can be brushed aside, as when a child uses the passive voice to suggest that “the lamp broke”. When the issue is war…that is to say slaughter, mayhem and death…I argue that a higher standard must apply: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or God help us all.

I argue that deliberately failing to meet that standard insults his oath to “preserve, protect and defend”.

I argue that this is a deliberate half-truth, in a category with the Dreaded Aluminum Tubes and the Assassination Attempt: scenarios neither proved nor disproved, but offered as utterly inescapable fact. Brandishing the Report that Never Existed, of course, took place on a whole different level of mendacity: the Bald Faced Lie.

I argue that such a man is unworthy to be President of the local Chamber of Commerce, much less Commander in Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever been burdened with.

Those are my arguments, make of them what you will. I retract nothing.

[elucidator]

This just in:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/international/middleeast/02INTE.html

[Scylla]

*Originally posted by elucidator *
I argue that the matter is in doubt, and that it was in doubt in every instance when GeeDubya repeated it with numbing redundancy. [

Your argument is a lie. You hold onto it for expediancy, so that you can bash a President you don’t like.

Half a million dead is not doubt.

The most cursory glane through the internet will produce piles of evidence and grisly photos and independantly corroborated reports of repeated gassing of Kurds by the Iraqis during their public and well-documented campaign of genocide.

That you would attempt to deny or cast doubt on this issue for expediance fills me with disgust and contempt
Show me the doubt here:

he next morning Iraqi bombers appeared out of a clear blue sky. The people of Halabja were used to the successive attacks and counter-attacks of the Iraq-Iran war that had ravaged the region since September 1980. They thought they were in for the usual reprisal raid. Those who had time huddled in makeshift shelters. The rest were taken by surprise. Wave after wave of Iraqi Migs and Mirages dropped chemical bombs on the unsuspecting inhabitants. The town was engulfed in a sickly stench like rotten apples. The bombing stopped at nightfall and it began to rain hard. Iraqi troops had already destroyed the local power station, so the survivors began to search the mud with torches for the dead bodies of their loved ones.

The scene that greeted them in the morning defied description. The streets were strewn with corpses. People had been killed instantaneously by chemicals in the midst of the ordinary acts of everyday life. Babies still sucked their mothers’ breasts. Children held their parents’ hands, frozen to the spot like a still from a motion picture. In the space of a few hours 5,000 people had died. The 3,200 who no longer had families were buried in a mass grave.

In point of fact, Iraq had already used chemical weapons against the Kurds on 15 April 1987. It happened two weeks after Hassan Ali Al Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, was appointed head of the Northern Bureau set up to deal with Kurdistan. On 29 March of that year the Revolutionary Command Council had issued Decree No. 160, granting him full powers to proceed with the final solution of the Kurdish problem. A problem which the Iraqi regime had failed to solve despite intensive Arabisation, transfers of population, the execution of ?ringleaders?, and a war waged on and off since 1961.

assan Al Majid’s chemical experiments began on 15 April. They were directed against thirty or so villages in the provinces of Suleimaniyeh and Erbil and proved devastatingly effective. Hundreds died. On 17 April, after a chemical attack that killed 400 people in the Balisan valley, 286 wounded survivors set out for Erbil in search of medical attention. They were stopped by the army and shot.

To convince his colleagues, Saddam Hussein in particular, that his methods were effective, Mr Al Majid ordered films to be made of the massacres and deportations, and of the effects of chemical gas on the population. The Iraqi government services were trained by Stasi experts from the East German secret police. They are obsessed with keeping records, even of the most horrible of their activities. During the Kurdish uprising of March 1991, part of their archives fell into the hands of the resistance, which passed them on to Human Rights Watch,

We learn, for example, that Mr Al Majid convened the Ba’ath Party leaders on 26 May 1987. ?As soon as we complete the deportations,? he informed them, ?we will start attacking [the Pershmega resistance] everywhere… then we will surround them in a small pocket and attack them with chemical weapons. I will not attack them with chemicals just one day; I will continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days… I told the expert comrades that I need guerrilla groups in Europe to kill whoever they see of them [Kurdish oppositionists]. I will do it, with the help of God. I will defeat them and follow them to Iran. Then I will ask the Mujaheddin (2) to attack them there (3).?

The footnote indicates that is a direct quote from the transcripts.

Anfal lasted from February to September 1988. The last operation was launched on 25 August, a few days after the ceasefire between Iraq and Iran that ended eight years of war. Sixteen divisions and a chemical weapons battalion, totalling 200,000 ground troops plus air support, conducted a ?final cleansing operation? in the Kurdish province of Bahdinan along the Turkish border. This operation resulted in the flight of almost 100,000 civilians to Turkey.

By the time the genocidal frenzy ended, 90 % of Kurdish villages, and over twenty small towns and cities, had been wiped off the map (4).

Gassing and the results with pictures

Anfal was Iraq’s name for it’s deliberate genocide of Kurds. In this cite you can read the following:

Then came the Anfal campaign and the gassing of Halabja on March 16, 1988. Western and Kurdish health officials say that the fallout continues, in the form of increased rates of birth defects, cancers, respiratory problems, and infertility.

“That was the only time that I felt the Kurdish people could perish,” says Sami Abdurahman, a senior leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of two rival Kurdish groups who rule northern Iraq, which is protected by US air patrols. “This will never go from the memory of the Kurdish people, and of course it says everything about this regime.”

That point was driven home before the Gulf War, when Hussein’s right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim Duri traveled to the north to issue this warning: “If you have forgotten Halabja, I would like to remind you that we are ready to repeat that operation.”

Qassem Hussein Mohamed, a 20-year veteran of Iraqi military intelligence, says he was on a hilltop overlooking Halabja that spring day in 1988.

Recently captured and interviewed in a Kurdish prison, Mr. Mohamed says he overheard two senior Iraqi military leaders give the order over a radio three times: “Gas. Gas. Gas.”

That didn’t surprise Mohamed. He says Iraqi troops had orders to kill Kurdish men from the all-powerful Iraqi governor of the north at the time ? Ali Hassan al-Majid, the cousin of Hussein who is infamously known to Kurds as “Ali Chemical.” Doctors were used to help determine men’s ages ? and therefore, who would live or die.

“They said many times they have different kinds of chemicals,” says Mohamed, of the Halabja attack. “They gave the order for all Iraqi troops to wear a mask and [chemical] gear for 12 hours.”

This

cite describes the results and findings of research into the captured documents with a picture of a woman gassed during Anfal operations. And defines the operations as modern genocide.

This cite from Human rights watch gives a fairly definitive and exhaustive primer on the campaign of genocide by Iraq as well as the repeated and documented uses of poison gas against Kurds. There are 8 chapters, all well worth reading.

This one chapter details chemical attacks on Goktapa and Askar

You can read through the other chapters for more proof. It’s all well cited and documented.

As you can see from the cites we have interviews with Kurds on the scene. We have interviews with captured and defected Iraqi Officers. We have original Iraqi documents discussing the planning execution and results of deliberate gas attacks against Kurds. We have admissions from current Iraqi officials themselves. We have intercepted transmissions. Iraq has executed a deliberate and public campaign to exterminate the Kurds and they have not been reticent or particularly careful about the means used.

As one Iraqi official said concerning the use of Chemical weapons on Kurds, and the potential consequences “Fuck the International community. What are they going to do?” This was said in Chamber by Saddam’s own nephew set to the task of exterminating Kurds and is simply a translation of Saddam’s own published releases.

And you would pretend

this didn’t happen, or attempt to cast doubt on it so you can rag on Bushishtas, and play your snide little game.

[elucidator]

As much as it wounds me to be deemed “snide” by the self-acknowledged paragon of propriety and civil discourse, yet I will soldier on.

You seem to be determined to put all your eggs in one basket, and to insist that unless I can prove that Saddam Hussein is a virtuous and kindly man, I must humble myself before Bush Augustus, and sing the praises of his nobility.

I think not.

Your cites may be the very epitome of honest and straighforward reportage. They might be the utterest propaganda. I am in no position to judge, having never heard of these people before and having no real clue as to thier bona fides. Mr. Pelleterre’s expertise, however, is a matter of public record. Are you suggesting, or intending to suggest, that his testimony is fraudulent?

As I’ve stated, until Mr. Pelleterre’s statement, I hadn’t the slightest doubt as to the fact of the matter regarding Hjalma. Nor have I any doubt that Saddam Hussein is a despicable human being, an psychopath of the first water. If this is the thrust of your argument, you might have saved yourself the effort. If you wish to rain your self-righteous bluster on someone who defends him, you will have to find another target.

My goal is relatively modest, in comparison to defending the indefensible. It was the incident at Hjalma that was thrust into the limelight, the horrendous pictures an assault on any sane persons sensibilities. That it occured is not at issue. What is at issue is a definitive assignment of responsibility.

Now, that really isn’t much of an issue, of itself. Everyone knows war is horrific, and lines are blurred when chaos and slaughter become commonplace. I do not contend that Mr. Pelleterre has proven Saddam innocent, and even if he had, it would be but one crime of many.

I do, however, contend that GeeDubya has seized upon the incident and exploited it to his own purposes. You are welcome to regard those purposes as noble. I do not.

But time and again, he presents doubtful premises as incontrovertible fact, when he knows, or surely should know, that they are not. He presents half-truths as gospel, and, on at least one occassion, presented a bald faced lie as gospel.

You might, if you choose, offer the justification that such is the nature of politics, that these means are justified by the ends. I reject that premise out of hand, as ignoble and unworthy. You are welcome to it, if its suits you.

Is it your contention that Mr. Bush has presented the truth, the whole truth, etc? Surely not? And, failing that standard, what is there to defend? I might place him at 9.7 on the Munchausen Scale of Mendacity, and you wish to fervently insist that it is only 8.3?

And, please note, this editorial came out on Friday, in the well regarded and much read New York Times. Heard any rebuttal? Any clarification from the White House? My guess is that you will not.

[Scylla]

It was the incident at Hjalma that was thrust into the limelight, the horrendous pictures an assault on any sane persons sensibilities. That it occured is not at issue. What is at issue is a definitive assignment of responsibility.

Not in the least, Pelletiere’s is a minority position incongruent with the facts. First off, we know that he used gas at other times against Kurds. Secondly, we have several different independantly corrobated reports of interviewed Kurds who said that they saw Iraqi helicopters and bombers doing the gassing (it’s pretty clear you didn’t bother to read any of the cites, particularly the one from Human Rights Watch,) Third we have both captured Iraqis officers and current officials saying that they did it. Fourth we have Iraqi officers saying they’re prepared to do the same thing again. Fifth we have an eyewitness Iraqi defector saying he heard the order to deploy the “Gas. Gas. Gas.” Sixth we have Saddam’s nephew saying he was going to do it, doing it, and then bragging about. Seventh we have the fact the Iraqis documented what they had done in captured documents. Eighth we have minutes that Iraq itself released from government meetings talking about it. Ninth there was a public campaign called Anfar designed specifically to do these things and the attack occured right in the middle of this campaign. Tenth following the attack Saddam had his army raze the place to the ground. Eleventh we have 5,000 dead Kurds.

On the other side we have you making broad assumptions from a minority opinion report that ignores the bulk of this evidence and points out breathlessly that it is conceivable that Iran could have done it. This obviously biased and one-sided editorial is your blithe excuse to play your usual game.

You raise a distant remote and stupid possibility, and use it as a stepping stone to throw out your bullshit rhetoric against the current administration. Trying to play down genocide for political and rhetorical purposes is disgusting.

In spite of the mountain of facts showing that Hjalma was an Iraqi attack you fail to realize that it doesn’t matter. Iraq had admitted and it’s well-documented in several different sources that Iraq has used gas against the Kurds on several other occasions.

So even if your biased report is correct, and this one incident was an accident, or perpetrated by Iran, Bush is still telling the truth. Iraq had gassed the Kurds. More than once.

You lack the integrity and honesty to admit that your accusation is a falsehood, and this is no idle conversation about stock options sold by a President you don’t like, this is the deliberate murder of somewhere around half a million people, an attempt to wipe them off the face of the planet as if they were vermin.

You want to play rhetorical games and say that your vanishingly small and biased remote possibilities haven’t been refuted. Fuck that. It’s up to you to prove the point.

You’ve been shown extremely strong evidence from a variety of credible sources including Iraqi officials, Kurds, Human Rights Watch, and scientific analysis of the ground showing exactly what was dropped there. It wasn’t cyanide, it was mustard gas and nerve agents. Pelletiere is wrong. Provably wrong.

No games. You’re being dishonest. If you wish to stand by your assertions and accuse our President of lying when he says that Iraq used gas against the Kurds, I can’t stop you, and I no longer care to.

You’re spreading unsupportable falsehoods and accusations and refusing to acknowledge clear evidence that you’re wrong, and your impugning another man’s integrity with the shabbiest of pretenses.

Bush isn’t lying. You are.

[Scylla]

And, please note, this editorial came out on Friday, in the well regarded and much read New York Times. Heard any rebuttal? Any clarification from the White House? My guess is that you will not.

Me too. It’s beneath contempt and not worthy of serious rebuttal. Why would they respond to every fraudulent half-wit?

[Hank_Fescue]

Dude, “he gased his own people” is a lie. It is a piece of propaganda used for the war cry. They aren’t his people. Maybe he did gas them maybe he didn’t. In any case “he gased his own people” is misleading and not to be taken at face value. Why do you think they say the “Kurds” were gased? I have never once heard it said that “Iraqis were gased”. Not his own people. Organized rebels in collaboration with the enemy.

[Daoloth]

*Originally posted by Hank Fescue *
**Dude, “he gased his own people” is a lie. It is a piece of propaganda used for the war cry. They aren’t his people. Maybe he did gas them maybe he didn’t. In any case “he gased his own people” is misleading and not to be taken at face value. Why do you think they say the “Kurds” were gased? I have never once heard it said that “Iraqis were gased”. Not his own people. Organized rebels in collaboration with the enemy. **

Kurds were citizens of Iraq. Ergo, they are Saddam’s ‘people.’

[elucidator]

Damn, Scylla, I beginning to feel sorry for you, if it wasn’t so much fun to watch you scream “LIAR!!” as the viens stand out in your neck. Calm and temperate debate seems to escape you.

Have you ever noticed, in debates of this type, the first person to claim the opponent is lying is almost invariably yourself? Must be that your own scrupulous sense of honesty and fair play is so easily offended. Yes. That must be it.

But lets examine some of this strenuous assertion.

Pelletiere’s is a minority position incongruent with the facts.

So, he is a charlatan? He has gulled the NYT into thinking he is a person with some credibility in these matters, but actually he is an imposter? Heavens, man, waste no time! Advise them at once that you have unmasked the scoundrel! Why, just look at his preposterous assertions of expertise!

“…I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency’s senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair…”

Heavens above! Were it not for your alert attention, we might have presumed that this fellow knew what he was talking about! And note how he sneakily purports to have other source of intelligence beyond his own scurillous conjectures. “Classified material”, indeed! The bounder! The cad! How dare he claim to have any expertise to compare with what can be gleaned by the illustrious Scylla, an acknowledged expert in bond trading!

Waste no time, sir! The reputation of the NYT teeters in the balance! Perhaps, while you’re there, you can have that perfidious scoundrel Krugman set aside before he committs any more crimes besmirching the faultless charcter of Bush Augustus.

Then follows a litany of irrefutable truths. We should be grateful that No. 11 is not stretched out to its full count, making 5,011 irrefutable facts. Bless you, sir, for your kindly forbearance.

This obviously biased and one-sided editorial is your blithe excuse to play your usual game.

But again, you fail in your clear duty, sir. Those poor deluded souls at NYT, lacking your probity and insight, probably think that, due to his blithe assertion of access to classifed material on this subject, he actually has some information!

But wait! No! Send this to them directly! Let the scondrel be unmasked directly! Let the world see the deep clarity of your thought, and, no doubt, they will beat a path to your door, and throw themselves at your feet to beg for your kind attention! What with Krugman out of the way, why, that’s quite an opening, isn’t it?

…and use it as a stepping stone to throw out your bullshit rhetoric against the current administration…

Ah, ever the tireless enemy of bullshit, eh, Scylla Sternly eyeing the assertions of the Bush Admin, cross checking every fact for unimpeachable veracity, and pronouncing them innocent as lambs. The Aluminum Tubes? Sheer facrication on the part of person who purport to be “experts” on armaments. The Assassination plot! Hersh is a liar, liar, liar. After all, what possible reason could the Kuwaitis have to speak ill of Iraq? And the Report that Didn’t Exist? Of course it existed, they just tracked down every copy, and replaced them with bogus counterfeits! Because if there were even a grain of truth to any of this, Scylla would be the first to say so! No bias here, nosiree Bob! Ever the tireless paladin of truth, the unbiased champion of veracity!

You want to play rhetorical games and say that your vanishingly small and biased remote possibilities haven’t been refuted. Fuck that. It’s up to you to prove the point.

Not quite, cutie pie. I only assert that there is doubt. If you wish to remove doubt, then you must prove no such doubt exists. Goodness, Scylla, this is so obvious.

and scientific analysis of the ground showing exactly what was dropped there. It wasn’t cyanide, it was mustard gas and nerve agents

Now, that is interesting. Didn’t notice that nugget on your cites. Specify? Because this does, indeed, fly in the face of Mr. Pelleterre (and the Defense Dept.) beliefs in the matter.

…your impugning another man’s integrity with the shabbiest of pretenses…

Lord, it is quite impossible for me to “impugn” his integrity. That is beyond my feeble capacity. That would be akin to impugning Ann Coulter’s impartiality. Simply can’t be done.

…Bush isn’t lying. You are…

He may not be lying. Depends. Are his lips moving?

[Scylla]

Have you ever noticed, in debates of this type, the first person to claim the opponent is lying is almost invariably yourself? Must be that your own scrupulous sense of honesty and fair play is so easily offended. Yes. That must be it.

No. It’s that I’m debating you.

Then follows a litany of irrefutable truths. We should be grateful that No. 11 is not stretched out to its full count, making 5,011 irrefutable facts. Bless you, sir, for your kindly forbearance.

All of which you fail to address, in keeping with your dishonest technique of promoting falsehoods.

I only assert that there is doubt. If you wish to remove doubt, then you must prove no such doubt exists. Goodness, Scylla, this is so obvious.

And if I weren’t dealing with you, it would be. You’ve failed to address any of the 11 points which show how wrong you are. You’re just bllankly denying and attempting to misdirect. That is dishonest.

Now, that is interesting. Didn’t notice that nugget on your cites. Specify? Because this does, indeed, fly in the face of Mr. Pelleterre (and the Defense Dept.) beliefs in the matter.

http://www.phrusa.org/research/chemical_weapons/chemiraqgas2.html

http://www.terrorismanswers.com/weapons/mustard.html

http://my.net-link.net/~stahlhut/awful_truth/chemical_weapons.html

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/iraqkor/KOREME4.htm

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/gwv_bib/chemical.html

[Hank_Fescue]

*Originally posted by Daoloth *
**Kurds were citizens of Iraq. Ergo, they are Saddam’s ‘people.’ **

On the contrary, Iraqi law excludes those not of Persian descent as full citizens of Iraq. The Kurds have not been considered Iraqi citizens by the government of Iraq, which is the only entity that determines the citizens of Iraq. Not “his own people”.

[Daoloth]

Originally posted by elucidator *
**
Not quite, cutie pie. I only assert that there is doubt.*

Of course there’s doubt. More doubts to historical tragedies can be found at locations such as this. Just because there’s doubt doesn’t always mean too much.

As to Kurds not being Iraqis…what’s that about Persian descent? Ethnic Persians are a minority in Iraq, as most are Arab…so what are you talking about?

[Scylla]

*Originally posted by Hank Fescue *
**On the contrary, Iraqi law excludes those not of Persian descent as full citizens of Iraq. The Kurds have not been considered Iraqi citizens by the government of Iraq, which is the only entity that determines the citizens of Iraq. Not “his own people”. **

What point are you getting at, because I fail to see it.

Do you have a serious objection to Iraqi Kurds being labelled as “his own people?”

Obviously he doesn’t like them very much otherwise he wouldn’t be exterminating them, and denying them citizenship, so obviously they aren’t “his own people” in the sense of family, friends, or respected fellows.

“His own people” could have several usages, and Bush’s seems to be synonymous with “his own countrymen.”

They are also his people in the sense that he is supreme overlord of the country that they inhabit, and as such there is connection between Iraqi Kurds and Hussein. They are “his people” in the sense that he is their ruler, and as such he is responsible for them to some degree.

It seems pretty silly and disingenous to call Bush a liar because of the “his own people” comment. You’re arguing semantics.

[CyberPundit]

Once again I would like to point out that Pelletiere is not some random op-ed writer but a former CIA analyst who wrote his report with the help of other intelligence agencies like the DIA, NSA etc. Presumably he had better access to specific information about what happened that day than HRW and the like.

From Village Voice again:
“One report, “Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War,” was prepared by Dr. Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson of the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. Its findings came out of a two-day conference attended by U.S. defense attachés who had served in the Middle East, as well as by military and political analysts from both the CIA and the DIA who had monitored the war.”

What is the theory of the Pelletiere trashers. That all the above people are incompetent or liars?

[Daoloth]

*Originally posted by CyberPundit *
**Once again I would like to point out that Pelletiere is not some random op-ed writer but a former CIA analyst who wrote his report with the help of other intelligence agencies like the DIA, NSA etc. Presumably he had better access to specific information about what happened that day than HRW and the like.
**

CIA working alongside the NSA? Site? Political red tape makes that pretty uncommon. Furthermore, it’s quite possible that HRW knows more than the CIA about Iraqi events in that era. The CIA didn’t have any ground agents on Iraq then, whereas HRW did. HRW acquired more than 4 million Iraqi documents. The CIA didn’t. Spy satellites can only go so far; hundreds of eye witnesses go much farther.

[Michael_Ellis]

*Originally posted by Hank Fescue *
**On the contrary, Iraqi law excludes those not of Persian descent as full citizens of Iraq. The Kurds have not been considered Iraqi citizens by the government of Iraq, which is the only entity that determines the citizens of Iraq. Not “his own people”. **

There’s a nice technicality for you.

[London_Calling]

Scylla – regarding your “his own people” comments, you might want to familiarize yourself with the first page of this thread.

[Hank_Fescue]

No you are relying on semantics to distort the truth. They are not his countrymen. They have never been accepted by Iraq nor vice versa. They have actually claimed independence from Iraq several times and currently have democratic quasi autonomy. They are not “his own people”. That is the whole pointy end of this lie. “Gased his own people” is much more sinister sounding to the public at large than “gased kurdished rebels in an attempt to preserve the solidarity of his country”. It is a lie that doesn’t even come close to describing who these people are. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for a democratic, independent, Kurdistan. But that in itself betrays the “he gased his own people” line.

[Daoloth]

Well, since Iraq is a nation of Persian citizens, according to you, that means that Saddam isn’t a citizen, correct?

[CyberPundit]

Daoloth,
Check out the Village Voice article linked on the previous page. It says the report used signals intelligence picked up by the NSA.