Lawyer: Saddam not involved in gassing of Kurds

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1105845488605

Saddam Hussein's legal team claimed Sunday it has witnesses willing to testify that the fallen dictator's regime was not responsible for gassing thousands of Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja in 1988.

The claim, made by Saddam's chief lawyer Ziad al-Khasawneh, relates to one of the main charges against Iraq's deposed president, who is in U.S. military custody along with 11 former lieutenants awaiting trial before a special Iraqi tribunal.

Saddam was arraigned in July on several counts, including gassing Kurds, killing rival politicians, invading Kuwait in 1990 and suppressing Kurdish and Shiite uprisings in 1991.

His defense team has not previously claimed to have witnesses to testify on his behalf. It has, however, said it has documents supporting its case that Iraq's army never possessed the chemicals used to kill about 5,000 people in the Kurdish city of Halabja on March 16, 1988.

<snip>

[frogfromthenorth2]

1. Oh I see... the famous "I didn't do it" defense....

[TahitiNut]

37. Well, proof of innocence beyond a reasonable doubt IS the standard.

Right? :eyes:

[mhr]

2. It Has Been Reported Before And Suppressed That The Gas That Killed

The Kurds was actually from Iranian sources.

[ET Awful]

3. Yes it has, in fact, there have been reports that the gas used against the

Kurds was not something that was ever in Saddams arsenal, but instead was part of Irans arsenal.

[Yupster]

22. Great

Now we have a good reason to invade Iran.

Kind of reminds me of the Katyn nassacre where the two dictators, Hitler and Stalin each blamed each other for it. It was on;y in the last ten years or so that Russia admitted it.

[barb162]

4. but the gas came from Saddam's helicopters, correct?

At least that is my understanding from reports I had seen.

[leesa]

8. Both sides used gas at some point during their war, but the gas that

killed the Kurds was Iranian. Survivors described an almond smell, which was the cyanide based gas the Iranians used. The Iraqi gas was not cyanide based.

[w4rma]

9. Senior CIA political analyst: "…study asserted that it was Iranian gas…"

…
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.
…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/opinion/31PELL.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

[mulethree]

10. Heres some - from a CIA Analyst

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=116&topic_id=8784

[Carni]

23. I have also read that a number of times

At this point--the way our media operates...nothing would surprise me.

[Trajan]

5. Normally ....

I would flush a JPost thread down the tubes due to it's editorial philosophies .... But this is honest to goodness trueness ....

The Bush clan will rue the day they allowed Saddam to go to trial ... in front of many billions of eyes, and just as many ears ....

I have a feeling Saddam has alot to say about WMD's and about where they came from, and who helped him amass so many ..... The GOP cannot be pleaed by the prospect ....

Expect Saddam to fall very soon ..... slip in the shower .... fell outta bed sort of thing ....

[brentspeak]

14. While I do expect Saddam to suffer an "accident" very soon

I have trouble believing his lawyer's contention that Saddam had nothing to do with the Kurdish gassings.

[errorbells]

24. Read the whole article at truthout

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/a_war_crime_or_an_act_of_war.htm

[LynnTheDem]

27. How about the contention of the US DIA? The US Military?

The US State Dept? The US Army War College? The CIA?

[Cooley Hurd]

33. The Army War College nailed it years ago...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5257.htm

<snip>
In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemical weapons in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.”

<snip>
Teheran used non-persistent poison gas against Iraqi soldiers so as to be able to attack and advance into the areas vacated by Iraqis. On the other hand, Baghdad used persistent gas to halt the Iranian human wave attacks. There was a certain consistency to this pattern. However, in the Halabjah incident, the USAWC investigators discovered that the gas used that killed hundreds of Kurds was the non-persistent gas, the chemical weapon of choice of the Iranians. Note it was the Iranians who arrived at the scene first, who reported the incident to UN observers, and who took pictures of the gassed Kurdish civilians. However, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait in August and the truth of the Halabjah incident became inconvenient.
</snip>

[Taxloss]

6. Oh, like he's the sort of leader to let a lieutenant do something like tha

It was his decision, it had to be.

[leesa]

11. Not the point. The gas wasn't their "brand"

[Taxloss]

18. So the Iranians just flew over and gassed some Kurds during the Anfal

offensive? Seems rather odd.

[daleo]

19. The town changed hands several times during the battle.

That was what I read. The Iranians shelled it with gas during the time it was in dispute. I suppose that Bush will just use this embarrassing mistake to his advantage, and turn it into a talking point in his new propaganda offensive against Iran.

[Taxloss]

29. That would be a mighty irony.

Using Iraq's gassing of Kurds to slap down critics of the war; then using Iran's gassing of THE SAME KURDS to justify spreading the war.

[LynnTheDem]

26. The Kurds had taken over Halabja. The Kurds were (and are) allied w Iran

The Iranian troops did not know the Kurds had taken the town; they thought it was still held by the Iraqis.

They, the Iranians, gassed the town. The 500 civilians who were killed by gas are what we Americans call "collateral damage".

Hussein has always admitted to using mustard gas shells during the Iran-Iraq war; he has always said he did not use blood agents, and Iraq has never been known to have blood agents. Iran is known to have them.

500 is the number listed on the CIA report; it's also the number that, AT THE TIME in 1988, was widely reported. The number blossomed into "5000" when bush decided to use the "gassing his own people" bullshit.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm

[Taxloss]

30. I didn't know this. Why don't more people know this?

I'm not suggesting Saddam was anything other than a bloody monster, but lying about him hardly helps the prosecution.

[KDLarsen]

31. Do you really want an answer on that?

The MSM is not in the mood to educate people these days. After all, they're either a) gearing up for the Michael Jackson trial (this whole trial re-enactment thing is just bizarre IMO) or b) gearing up for another round of "praise our leader".

[LynnTheDem]

35. You didn't know this coz bushCartel & the "liberal media" didn't want you

to know it.

Why do you think not one nation on the entire planet had a population that supported invading Iraq?

The freepo-fascist rightwingnuts think that the entire world except 50% of the USA are "Saddam lovers". Not true; the rest of the world happens to know the facts though.

Saddam Hussein did not kick the UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq. Iraqi troops did not dump babies out of incubators in Kuwait.

Did you know the city of Detroit, USA, gave Hussein the Key to the City? That Saddam's regime was using much of Iraq's burgeoning oil revenue to improve the daily lives of Iraqis? That his regime even won UN humanitarian awards for their literacy programs? That Iraq had the highest number of PhD's per capita?

Did you know that on his top government council sat 3 Sunnis, 3 Shia, 2 Kurds and 1 Christian?

All this info was and is available online. The rest of the world knows about it. Many Americans tried to point this stuff out; I know I id many many times. No one wanted to listen. Even here on DU there are posters who as recently as last month called me a "Saddam lover" for pointing out these facts.

[hippiechick]

7. April Glaspie said it was Ok for him to invade Kuwait ...

... as long as he didn't include the Arbusto/Harken held oil fields.

Why isn't Poppy being called as a witness in this case ?


:shrug:

[KDLarsen]

32. Bush will NEVER allow for the real deal to be exposed..

.. after all, it's much easier to sell the "he tried to kill my dad" story, than "my dad sold some illegal weapons to saddam, and then saddam asked if it was ok to invade Kuwait, which my dad said it was as long as they didn't touch the oil fields, which they did anyway, so my dad had to go after him".

What is it they say - oh yes: "The victor writes the history".

[barb162]

12. thank you; I always had bought into Saddam doing this to the Kurds

[EVDebs]

13. Maybe Hill and Knowlton are a part of this fabrication too

This is how they 'sold' us the Gulf War too, so where did this information or disinformation about the gas originate ?

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3589/us-iraq-lie.html

But the Saddam regime definitely were in on the Shiite massacres post 1991 Gulf War, so I can't see him wiggling off that one.

[daleo]

20. He was putting down a rebellion, just like Bush in Fallujah.

I imagine that will be his defense.

[LynnTheDem]

28. Sure Saddam Hussein put down the uprisings...with Poppa Bush & Powell

knowing & helping.

And please, try not to forget that in fact the SHIA WERE MASSACRING PEOPLE. Or did you think they just marched in the streets carrying "Saddam = Bad" signs like little lambs???

The rebels slaughtered thousands of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds; some by execution, by slitting throats, by hanging, by shooting....

"It was a revolution," says one Basrawi rebel named Mohamad, who deserted his army unit after the intifada began and eventually made it to the United States. "It was glorious. There were demonstrations and shooting. There were bodies all over the place."

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/WR92/MEW1-02.htm

"I'm not sure whose side you'd want to be on," then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said as the uprisings began. But in trying to drum up American public support for the current invasion, Cheney suddenly was very decisive on whose side one should be...12 years later.

Colin Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Shiites, as well as the Kurds in the north, "never had a chance of succeeding, and their success was not a goal for the administration."

"Our practical intention was to leave Baghdad enough power to survive as a threat to an Iran that remained bitterly hostile toward the United States," Powell said in his book, "My American Journey."

Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman at the time, said the administration felt no guilt for refusing to aid the rebels.

Gen. COLIN POWELL: The only issue that came up is, "Should we do something about the Iraqi helicopters?" It had never been one of our objectives to get involved in this kind of civil uprising between factions within Iraq and the Iraqi government. And so it was not clear what purpose would have been achieved by getting ourselves mixed up in the middle of that.

The American pilots patrolling the skies above Iraq could see the Kurds being chased into the mountains, but they had strict orders not to intervene.

Capt. MERRICK KRAUSE, F-15 Pilot: We saw helicopters chasing a lot of people down a road and we saw the gunships shooting at them. You could see the smoke coming out of the gunship and occasionally see flashes of the tracers, even though the sun had just started coming up.

Capt. MERRICK KRAUSE: We felt frustrated in the fact that we couldn't help the uprising that was going on on the ground, for whatever political reasons that were above our rank. And the best we could do was report what we saw and eventually hope that it was taken care of.

Pres. GEORGE BUSH: I do not want to push American forces beyond our mandate. We've done the heavy lifting. Our kids performed with superior courage and they don't need to be thrust into a war that's been going on for years.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/script_b.html

That bushCartel turned around and used all this as their excuse to invade & occupy Iraq 12 years later, after THEY SUPPORTED AND HELPED Hussein, is BEYOND HYPOCRISY; it's EVIL...PURE UNADULTERATED EVIL.

And WHO IS PUTTING DOWN THE SHIA UPRISINGS IN IRAQ NOW???

HINT: It AIN'T SADDAM HUSSEIN.

[EVDebs]

15. Ever read "Spider's Web" ?

""Spider's Web": The Secret History of How the United States Illegally Armed Saddam Hussein" by Alan Friedman

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0312256

makes Dave Chappelle's joke "How does Bush know that Saddam had WMDs ?" Answer: "He's got the receipt !" appear prophetic.

If Saddam did have the gas, CBW etc, he probably got it from US or Banco Nationale de Lavoro ExIm funandgames.

"If the United States and its other allies had not provided a steady and thorough and substantial buildup of Iraq through the 1980s and right through Operation Desert Storm, Iraq today would not be a country with vast mobile missile launchers, good inertial navigation missile technology, rough, crude radioactive potential plutonium, chemical and biological weapons technology, and an assortment of other hardware and arsenal they've had," Friedman told Democracy Now!"

And where oh where did the RDX, HMX, PETN, come from ...? Remember just a little while ago ? The MSM's attention span is soooooo short. And 'journalists', that's what we call them .... are still out there somewhere. Weren't the precursors for these weapons sold to Iraq by US companies like Bechtel, HewlettPackard...?

This trial will not be televised will it ?

[TahitiNut]

38. With all the "Saddam had WMD" rhetoric, they never talk about "from whom"?

The heavy stench of disinformation wafts through the media very time these claims are made, almost never with a "when?" or "from whom?" context. It's not only a "house of cards," it's a "house of (marked) cards." The duplicity (and triplicity?), deceit, disinformation, and outright lies is astonishing.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

16. The potential for this trial to blow up in the US's face is frightening.

I recall having heard that it was not the right type of gas before. As far as a legal leg to stand on, this one's not bad.

[Canuckistanian]

17. Yup. Watch for a quick 'in-camera' trial with immediate conviction

Just like the Soviet Union.

[NNN0LHI]

21. When contemplating war, beware of babies in incubators

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p25s02-cogn.html

More than 10 years later, I can still recall my brother Sean's face. It was bright red. Furious. Not one given to fits of temper, Sean was in an uproar. He was a father, and he had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait City and left them to die. The Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad. A pacifist by nature, my brother was not in a peaceful mood that day. "We've got to go and get Saddam Hussein. Now," he said passionately.

I completely understood his feelings. Although I had no family of my own then, who could countenance such brutality? The news of the slaughter had come at a key moment in the deliberations about whether the US would invade Iraq. Those who watched the non-stop debates on TV saw that many of those who had previously wavered on the issue had been turned into warriors by this shocking incident.

Too bad it never happened. The babies in the incubator story is a classic example of how easy it is for the public and legislators to be mislead during moments of high tension. It's also a vivid example of how the media can be manipulated if we do not keep our guards up.

The invented story eventually broke apart and was exposed. (I first saw it reported in December of 1992 on CBC-TV's Fifth Estate – Canada's "60 Minutes" – in a program called "Selling the War." The show later won an international Emmy.) But it's been 10 years since it happened, and we again find ourselves facing dramatic decisions about war. It is instructive to look back at what happened, in order that we do not find ourselves deceived again, by either side in the issue. snip

The Kuwait government had to find a way to "sell the war" to the American public, who were interested, but not deeply involved. So under the auspices of a group called Citizen for a Free Kuwait, which was really the Kuwait government in exile (the group received almost $12 million from the Kuwaiti government, and only $17,000 from others, according to author John R. MacArthur) the American PR firm Hill & Knowlton was hired for $10.7 million to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Craig Fuller, the firm's president and COO, had been then-President George Bush's chief of staff when the senior Bush has served as vice president under Ronald Reagan. The move made a lot of sense – after all, access to power is everything in Washington and the Hill & Knowlton people had lots of that.

more

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0906/p01s02-wosc.html

In war, some facts less factual

Some US assertions from the last war on Iraq still appear dubious.

MOSCOW – When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf – to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait – part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.

Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.

"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.

more

[Cooley Hurd]

34. The incubator story, long-since debunked, was trotted out by...

...Dan Senor (weasely-looking CPA spokeman, for those who don't remember him) repeated the story (without correction from the MSM) on several news programs early last year.:grr:

[LynnTheDem]

25. He's got a few US govt & US military reports as back-up

The US State Department found both sides were using chemical weapons.

"There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting," spokesman Charles Redman told the press a week after the attack. "We call on Iran and Iraq to desist immediately from the use of any chemical weapons."

On May 3, 1990, referring to yet another study, "A Defense Department reconstruction of the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war has assembled what analysts say is conclusive intelligence that one of the worst civilian massacres of the war, in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja, was caused by "repeated chemical bombardments from both belligerent armies." "
Washington Post (May 3, 1990)

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0218,trilling,34389,1.html

A Pentagon report, ‘Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East’ published in 1990 states (Chapter 5): “In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.” United Nations: No Proof Saddam Gassed the Kurds.

http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/11-18-98.html

-The Pentagon's USAWC and US Marine Corps report concluded Iran gassed the Kurds at Halbjah, not Iraq.

Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War
by Dr. Stephen Pelletiere and Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Johnson
U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute

"The great majority of the victims seen by reporters and other
observers who attended the scene were blue in their extremities. That means that they were killed by a blood agent, probably either cyanogen chloride or hydrogen cyanide. Iraq never used and lacked any capacity to produce these chemicals. But the Iranians did deploy them. Therefore the Iranians killed the Kurds."

US Marine Corps document FMFRP 3

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/docs/3203/

The DIA's report concluded Iran had gassed the Kurds & Iranians of Halabjah;

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.

http://truthout.org/docs_02/020303C.htm

Should be a "SLAM DUNK".

[mhr]

36. Kick For Exposure Of Bush Lies And Propaganda

eom