and they knew this long before Bush stole office.
A War Crime or an Act of War?
By Stephen C. Pelletiere The New York Times, Jan. 31, 2003
<reluctant snip>
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.
<snip>
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. <snip>
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.
<snip>
http://www.wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2434==================================================
Memo To: Vice President Dick Cheney
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: A Very Important Fellow You Should Meet
You have known me long enough, Mr. Vice President, to know that I collect interesting people who are generally unknowns, but who deserve to be known. Remember Art Laffer and Bob Mundell? Anyway, I have discovered a very interesting man, Steve Pelletiere, who happens to be retired after a long and rich career with the CIA and then the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa. He's 70 years old and as I discovered when he came to visit me last month, a tall stringbean of a fellow, who knows more about oil than I will ever know, but who wanted me to teach him about the gold/oil nexus. Imagine that, 70 and still eager to learn. His Ph.D. is in Political Science and after a stint in journalism, covering the Middle East, he became the CIA's senior analyst at Langley during the Iran/Iraq war. At the Army War College, he and others studied Iraq's victory over Iran in minute detail, and he has written a number of books on how that feat was managed, with Iraq outnumbered 3-to-1 by the Iranians. If I were you, Mr. VP, I would invite him to kick things around with your staff, to give you the kind of overview you could never get by reaching out randomly to folks at the Pentagon or State.
To whet your appetite, here is a report of a talk he gave to the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine CPAP), September 13, 2001. That is, two days after 9-11. He is a pretty good predictor, you will see, which is why I think you should ask him to bring in his crystal ball and tell you what will happen if we bring down Saddam by force, without the UN behind us. There are few people in the world with your experience, Mr. VP, but I think you know there are still a few things you do not know.
* * * * *
“The Role of the Media in Shaping Public Perception.”
Report from a CPAP briefing by Stephen Pelletiere
With a PhD in Political Science, a background in journalism, and a current position as professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College, Stephen Pelletiere brought his expertise to a discussion of the media at a 13 September 2001 Center lecture. He focused on press coverage of Iraq, Palestine, and the current situation following the 11 September plane hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the U.S.
Pelletiere began by addressing the media campaign against Iraq following the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. did not expect Iraq to win, and when it did, U.S. leaders were “dumbfounded.” As Iraq sought to “rebuild itself” after the war, the U.S. attempted to prevent this restructuring through a number of avenues, focusing on damaging Iraq’s “credit worthiness.” Despite the accumulation of a large debt, Iraq “was good for the money” considering its oil resources. Still, in the spring of 1988, Iraq did not have the cash reserves necessary and wished to reschedule its debt payments. The media in the U.S. began running stories on Iraq, “the tone of which was extremely hostile.”
Despite the accumulation of a large debt, Iraq “was good for the money” considering its oil resources. Still, in the spring of 1988, Iraq did not have the cash reserves necessary and wished to reschedule its debt payments. The media in the U.S. began running stories on Iraq, “the tone of which was extremely hostile.”
“All of the stories were slanted against Iraq,” which by itself is suspicious.
In addition, some of the stories were simply “phony,” such as the report that 80,000 to 100,000 Kurds were gassed to death by Iraq. “You can’t kill that many people using gas, in a concentrated period, in terrain such as exists in northern Iraq.” Irrational stories do appear in the media on occasion, but not usually so extensively in the established press. It seemed to Pelletiere that “this was a campaign.” At the time, Congress was debating sanctions on Iraq and may have been trying to prepare the public. When sanctions were eventually declared, Iraq could no longer reschedule its debts.
<snip>
http://www.wanniski.com/showarticle.asp?articleid=2208The above text is based on remarks delivered on 13 September 2001 by Stephen Pelletiere, Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Army War College. His presentation was based on his book Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf (Praeger: 2001). His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine or The Jerusalem Fund. This “For the Record” was written by Publications Manager Wendy Lehman; it may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine.This information first appeared in For the Record No. 82, 18 September 2001
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