War Crime or an Act of War?
By STEPHEN C. PELLETIERE

ECHANICSBURG, Pa. - It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking
smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the
Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The
dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has
already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own
citizens dead, blind or disfigured."

The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens
is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most
frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of
Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.
President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people,"
specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

But the truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded
with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty
that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only
distortion in the Halabja story.

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.

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came
about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used
chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which
is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish
civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange.
But they were not Iraq's main target.

And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United
States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a
classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community
on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas
that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas.

The agency did find that each side used gas against the other in the
battle around Halabja. The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however,
indicated they had been killed with a blood agent - that is, a
cyanide-based gas - which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are
thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have
possessed blood agents at the time.

These facts have long been in the public domain but, extraordinarily, as
often as the Halabja affair is cited, they are rarely mentioned. A
much-discussed article in The New Yorker last March did not make
reference to the Defense Intelligence Agency report or consider that
Iranian gas might have killed the Kurds. On the rare occasions the
report is brought up, there is usually speculation, with no proof, that
it was skewed out of American political favoritism toward Iraq in its
war against Iran.

I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has
much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him
of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not
correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the
cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war.
There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of
them.

In fact, those who really feel that the disaster at Halabja has bearing
on today might want to consider a different question: Why was Iran so
keen on taking the town? A closer look may shed light on America's
impetus to invade Iraq.

We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest
reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense,
it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system
in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are
the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq
was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a
granary for the region.

Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams
and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in
the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take
control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990's there was much
discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that
would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched
Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on
this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American
hands, of course, all that could change.

Thus America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that
probably could not be challenged for decades - not solely by controlling
Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water. Even if America didn't occupy
the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many
lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.

All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting,
one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis
directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that
Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in
its present debilitated condition - thanks to United Nations sanctions -
Iraq's conventional forces threaten no one.

Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that
Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people.
And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.

Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American
people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein
gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish
guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities,
why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when
there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?

Stephen C. Pelletiere is author of "Iraq and the International Oil
System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html

iraq was better off with sadam!... at least he kept things under
control!... we supported him in the 1980s rember that??

We've supported a lot of monsters. Now, why all these threads that are
essentially the same thing with a different paint job?

What makes me sick is
that the Bush Administration
kept changing it's reasons
for going to war with Iraq.

It knew early on that
'weapons of mass destruction'
wouldn't pass the smell test,
so they had to come up
with new lies.

Of course the stupid sheep
Republicans bit on it,
hook, line and sinker.

'A lie told often enough becomes the truth.'
-Lenin

Old Vladimir knew. I'm sure he used this often enough.

There can be no doubt that S. Hussein was a war criminal. Ask the
Kurds, Iran, Kuwait.

If you are going somewhere with this war criminal stuff (I believe I
know where) please just state it and get it out for the rest of us to
post our opinions with.

Before you point the finger at any one else list the war criminals that
have not yet been brought to justice in Africa.

well,

seems everybody knows the truth aboout iraq now, except for the people
who have been there. convenient.

weapons of mass destruction- and the reason to not release to the
american population that weapons of this kind WERE found in iraq.

expose'

Before I get to far into this, let me first say, unless you have seen a
chemical or biological war head buried in the ground in an attempt to
use it as an IED, then ... well you get the idea, "Ramadi baby what a
crazy freakin place- nobody want to come here, this place is dangerous"

ok- it was determined after the initial push into iraq that the weapons
satan oops i mean sadam had been stock piling had degenerated to the
extent that they were basically less than effective- however it was know
that he did have mobile lab facilities, many of which were burned and
buried, those that werent simply were transformed into another vehicle
by means of changing out that canopies or hell even driving them to the
wild wild west of syria (most of you believe syria's good? crazy)
Now knowing that the weapons had degenerated, the adminstration knew
this would not please the international world (basically the middle east
and france- what a combo, anybody follow the money trail on that one
yet? how many oil contracts did france secure by their boisterous
ranting?) so they made a concerted effort to not release any information
about weapons until they found a lab or weapons that were still viable.
warehouse were full, people were sick, some fatalities did occure. yet
nothing was said--- ponder this, you people who like to throw around the
liar word.... if we wanted to lie and tell you that tons and tons of
weapons of mass destruction were found- we could have done it and you
wouldnt know any better, the fact that we didnt do that even with the
tons of degraded material only stands to prove our honesty. some may say
we would not have gotten away with such a claim- for those I'd say are
you serious- we can get away with whatever we choose to get away with,
if nothing else we could put some of our own stuff mixed in with theirs
let some international nosy butts come in and poke around and be done
with it.

something else to think about- at its largest build up (which is not
now) there was something like (and Im not totally sure on this number)
163,000 US troops, now those people have friends and family members and
unless you know them then your not really effected by them being there,
but what do you think the national out cry would have been if little
suzy's older brother, the mailman's daughter, or JoJo's husband was
constantly being touted on the TV as someone who was running around in
anthrax or mustard gas, for three months straight- nd for the record
most of our boys were in full chem suits for four months straight. how
many more nervous people would have been created by constant, "yep they
found another warehouse", damn and have to worry about getting shot too.
what more could you ask of a soldier.

as to the original post-
havng been stationed at fort leavenworth 1990-98(home to the war
college) i dont not recall such a man, i will however look into it on my
own, seriously doubt a person with this veiw was teaching US commanders
anything.

any intelligence person will tell you that the best form of intelligence
isnt electronical, or audio and video, or even chemical (for you CSI
fans) but rather human intelligence- eyes on the ground. Too many people
want to believe what they hear from others because of a distain for a
man, forgetting to think logically for themselves on the matter which is
before them. It is a faith of sorts, a religion, and those who have not
seen or have not felt, know only what they choose to believe.

How many of you think that iraq is blistering hot? well it is, but it is
a heat tha you have know idea about. what about cold? Is iraqcold? yes,
sure is, febuary in Iraq is freezing, i remember crunching thru ice
puddles that had formed on the roads and in the fields. Ice in the
desert, ice in the towns. crazy i know. just a tid bit- now you know
something about iraq. first hand knowledge, provable facts that someday
hopefully will come to light so you haters will be quiet for a change.
who knows I may even write a book about it. oh wait i already did,
anybody want a copy? haha




doc

there are plenty of despots in the world to choose from...case can be
made
that some were worse than Saddam....what did we do?..draw straws to
figure out
which one to attack?...no...what we do is call a closed door meeting
with all the energy
corps in the country and decide if they would be happy with some fat
lucrative
oil contracts in the future..BINGO!!!...Iraq wins...we will of course
take them over.
and draw up oil contracts for big oil...welcome to american diplomacy...

Sadaam a criminal?? his own people took care of this murderer...ya
reckon? Karma tended to good ol sadaam...

Thanks Doc, for your post and for your military service.

ohhhh barbie,

who is gonna tend the the returning soldiers that have been infected
with Depleted Urianium and their kids all have 3 legs and no brains...

not you.

This government will say "we didnt know about that" just like they did
in Nam with Agent Orange.

but, I understand....

you were a cheerleader for the war machine wernt you.

hip hip horray... put another sticker on your car