Talk:Halabja poison gas attack

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Contents

[edit] US Role

That the US had a key role in facilitating Iraq's chemical weapons program is not in dispute, as the Washington Post article makes clear. Even if chemicals were not directly delivered from the US to Iraq (but they were) the fact remains that the US was knowingly complicit in Iraq's chemical weapons use. Iraq's subsequent disclosure of the sources of its WMDs included many American companies, and in fact the Reagan administration removed Saddam's Iraq from the list of terror nations so as to ease the transfer of the "dual use" technology which it new fully well were being put to military use. Furthermore, as Joost Hiltermann has written, the US's attempt to shift the blame onto Iran was not because "debate existed" on responsibility. In fact, the US tried to shift the blame onto Iran "knowing" that Iraq was responsible. The DIA report that Pellteire relies on was merely disinformation from the time, when the US was backing and supporting Saddam, and it is unfortunate that the anti-war elements in the US have seized upon that faulty report. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.139.230 (talk) 17:40, August 25, 2007 (UTC)

Its a fiction that the U.S. is the primary provider of chemicals, no cited article supports that. The reporter who obtained the leaked report even states in the democracy now interview (see ref 3) that the US had a minor role (key?) in providing chemical weapons to iraq. 04:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrdthree (talk • contribs)
Actually footnotes three and four seem to say that the U.S. was the primary provider of pre-cursor chemicals. Does this article need better footnotes? Or is the article inaccurate and the footnotes correct? BingoDingo (talk) 12:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

84.234.60.154 do not change footnotes or references without discussing it here. Reference four (4) is not a good source. There is no way to verify where the information came from and who created it. Reference four (4) does not jibe with other footnotes and references. Footnotes three (3) and four (4) directly refute the text of the paragraph in this section. Vandalism is suspected. BingoDingo (talk) 23:47, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for more reasons

From reading this topic, I can't really understand exactly why this attack happened. What was the rationale behind this? Why were chemicals preferred in this attack? (and why a combination of those chemicals?) Also- more sources will be better. --Zybez 18:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for technical accuracy

I concur with the concerns of others, this article is not encyclopedic, or accurate in terms of peer-reviewed evidence and terminology.

What I take most objection to is the opening statement:

The poison gas attack on the Iraqi town of Halabja was the largest-scale chemical weapons (CW) attack against a civilian population in modern times - if we do not include the Americans using Chemical Weapons (Agent Orange - the effects of which are still being felt on the civilian population) in Vietnam or the more recent use by America of Phosphorous, in Falluja. It began early in the evening of March 16, when a group of eight aircraft began dropping chemical bombs, and the chemical bombardment continued all night.

The issue here is accuracy in terminology and latent bias. For instance, Agent Orange should not be considered a chemical weapon - it was a DEFOLIATING AGENT. The long-term medical and environmental effects may be judged to be harmful (depending on the source), but the INTENTION of the US military was not to cause mutations or cancer amongst the local inhabitants, but to defoliate sections of dense jungle. This may sound like semantics, but it is simply not accurate to portray Agent Orange as a weaponized chemical substance, with the intended purpose of causing indiscriminate harm to civilians and enemy combatants.

A similar issue applies to White Phosphorous. WP should not be considered a chemical weapon, but an INCENDIARY AGENT. Such agents do not fall within the rubric of the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, nor are they addressed by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Whether the US Marine Corps and US Army units engaged in combat in Fallujah in November 2004 intended to cause asphyxiation and chemical burns to enemy combatants and apparent civilian bystanders is a separate issue for discussion.

It would also be useful to have more detailed coverage of the al-Anfal Campaign, a discussion of the relationship between the largely Sunni Ba'ath party, the Kurdish population, and the Peshmergas. In addition, the contrite coverage of Saddam's on-going trial should be addressed in a more professional manner. It is certainly accurate to say that SOME believe the Iraqi tribunals indicting Saddam and other former-regime leaders is a 'show trial', but that is merely one perspective - a more exhaustive portrayal of the gamut of perceptions and legal opinions would be appreciated.

Clearly, more detailed and technically accurate entries for this article are needed...

DCMT_Peterson - 02 June, 2006 - 09:43 GMT, PhD Candidate, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom

What ABSOLUTE and TOTAL GARBAGE. The US military ADMITS that it used phite phosphorous as a military weapon in Fallujah. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm. How much do they pay you to lie? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.109.169.187 (talk)

And, about "Saddam"'s "trial", first, we have to identify the person in the docket. My understanding is no fingerprints were ever taken, and no composite mug shots ever done. And NO foreign leaders or diplomats have ever visited "Saddam" in custody. There's a pravda article that says that Saddam's wife after meeting the man in custody, yelled that it is not her husband. These are the more serious issues to discuss in this "article". Forget the nonsense reversal of "opinion" over an incident that was thoroughly investigated and reported by both the DIA and the international community and the culprit--albeit accidental--(Iran) established. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.109.169.187 (talk)


[edit] This is hardly an encyclopedic article

Not yet, but it is a start and it is on a subject we should be covering. --mav

This article is not NPOV at all. And even worse, it tells mostly lies! It is just propaganda! If you want a NPOV article about Halabja, check and translate the French Wiki article.

For what it is worth, here is a translation (mine SCCarlson 04:07 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC), so all disclaimers apply) of the French article, which may be useful for the article:

The term Halabja refers to a battle between Iran and Iraq. It had taken place in the area of Halabja (Iraqi Kurdistan) during the Iran-Iraq war. The two camps have used forbidden combat gas, and the Kurdish civilians, caught between two fires(?) were killed by the gas. In a population of 80,000 inhabitants, nearly 7,000 people found their death.
The massacre of Habalja did not raise protests by the international community in March 1988. At the time, it was admitted that the civilians had been killed "collaterally" due to an error in handling the combat gas. Two years later, when the Iran-Iraq War was finished and the Western powers stopped supporting Saddam Hussein, the massacre of Halabja was attributed to the Iraqis.
A classified report by the Army War College showed, in 1990, that this imputation was hardly credible.
The Washington Post on May 4, 1990 summarized it in these terms: "The Iranian assertion of March 20, 1990 according to which most of the victims of Halabja have been poisoned by cyanide has been considered a key element . . . . We know that Iraq did not use cyanide gas. We have a very good knowledge of the chemical agents that the Iraqis produced and used, and we know that none of them were made."
Recently, Stephen C. Pelletiere, a political analyst for Iraq at the CIA during the Iran-Iraq war and then professor at the Army War College who participated in the editing of the report, recalled in the New York Times that the massacre of Halabja was a war crime, probably committed by the Iranian army, and not a crime against humanity commited by the Iraqi army. And, in any case, it is not about the deliberate assassination of civilian populations.

This whole article is just two quotes! Someone needs to write something - number of casualties, reasons for the attack, etc. I don't know anything about it myself but this is a sad article and probably should just be deleted and started over. Rmhermen 04:35 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Feel free to incorporate the material above I translated from the French article. I don't know enough about the incident to distingish spin from reality in the French article, but maybe you do. SCCarlson 03:37 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

I have added a lot of info. Most of the important facts were missing from previous article. Also, I have seen no report from an 'extensive investigation' by HRW. Pelletiere's position was misrepresented. He does not say Iran was responsible. All he says is that the DIA concluded that Iran was responsible and that the Bush administration was ignoring it. I added the Rangwala CASI post, which makes the best case for why Iraq was indeed likely responsible, including much detailed information.

The CASI post and army war college report are the two central pieces of information regarding the incident available to the public, and certainly Rangwala's post is invaluable.

Certainly a lot of detailed info can be extracted from Rangwala's CASI post and the Army War College report, both now linked to, and it would probably be helpful. In particular, a detailed discussion of the different conclusions regarding what chemicals were used would probably be helpful. It could also use some cleaning up, specifically linking to other wikipedia articles, but it's new year's eve and I don't really have time right now. Let's try to keep it NPOV :) 24.12.189.24 23:03, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article as it stands appears to be advocating Ringwala's reasoning, which is full of leaps. Also the characterisation of the Bush administration's position as a "prevailing view" seems whiggish in the extreme. The prevailing view appears to be controversy and skepticism, rather than a partisan position. Aminorex 17:24, 03 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] This article will not become emotional crap.

The recent edits by "Duncanburrell" excluding every contentious point of the Halabja incident were unacceptable. Its reformatting was terrible, its historicity and critical evaluations razed, and its excellent photograph replaced with one of far less victims, presumably for an "image of one dead kid" effect. Further editing of this article should not be made without discussion on the talk page. I fail to see anything about its current version in need of change. Shem 16:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)


I wrote the 'contentious crap', and I take great objection to the alterations made backwards in this article. I have spent a lot of time dealing with this incident and it certainly is not propaganda. This included a visit to Halabja itself. The assertion that Halabja was purely an accidental massacre during an Iran-Iraq battle has been repeatedly disproven. It contradicts not only a mountain of evidence accumulated by the United Nations, journalists, and various human rights groups, but also the testimony of Stephen Pelletiere, former chief of the CIA's Iraq desk. United Nations reports from 1986, 1987, and 1988 confirm (based in part on reports from Iraqi soldiers who had been taken prisoner) that Iraq used mustard gas and nerve agents on Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war and that these killed a large number of civilians. In 1993, Physicians for Human Rights found evidence of nerve agents in soil samples in the Kurdish village of Birjinni and cited Kurdish eyewitnesses who said that one day in August 1988, they saw Iraqi warplanes drop bombs emitting "a plume of black, then yellowish smoke" and that shortly thereafter villagers "began to have trouble breathing, their eyes watered, their skin blistered, and many vomited—some of whom died. All of these symptoms are consistent with a poison gas attack." The March 24 New Yorker carries a lengthy account by Jeffrey Goldberg of Iraq's systematic gassing of the Kurdish population, based on extensive eyewitness interviews that Goldberg conducted in Halabja and other Kurdish-controlled areas in Northern Iraq. None of those interviewed seem to doubt that it was Saddam Hussein's army that gassed them. The article at http://middleeastreference.org.uk/halabja.html decisively dismisses the theory that Iran was responsible for the Halabja attacks. I am afraid that part of the problem with the nature of this incident is that descriptions are sketchy, but neither I, nor Colin Powell when he commemorated the incident at Halabja in September 2003, believe that this was an accident. Can we please alter this article to reflect slightly more the incredibility of sources who claim the whole incident is a hoax, and refrain from linking the incident with anti-American sentiments. Part of the problem is that these Iran responsibility claims were originally put about by the US at the time, as it was then a major supporter of Saddam's government.

You misread, anon. I called your edits emotional crap, because they remove every contentious point concerning the Halabja incident. The long-standing consensus version of this article does not describe it as an accident, and makes such very clear. You've tried fitting in as many emotive terms as possible into your version, and editing an article because "it is offensive to those that died" (as expressed in your last edit summary) is a blatant NPOV violation. I try to assume good faith when editing, but it seems fairly obvious that you're out create an extremely selective presentation of the Halabja incident.
The article does not paint Halabja as "an accident," nor does it claim Halabja was an "accidental massacre." You are creating a deliberate strawman of an long-standing Wikipedia article, and are greatly misrepresenting the current version's content and context. Your claims to have "been to Halabja" are of no consequence here (this is the internet, you know), and you willingly admit the historical ambiguity of what took place (regardless of what you and Colin Powell supposedly "believe"). Your link is a dubious source, but regardless, the article's consensus version does fully cover that the incident may have well been a Ba'athist action, but also notes the other possibilities and historical context.
I also can't help but note that you continue deleting the article's mention of America's support of Saddam, and poor record when this incident took place. Please cease mass-deletion of this article's content and NPOV editing. Shem 04:02, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just so I'm clear: I stand that this article is in no need of change whatsoever, in its current form, and has been an excellent piece of Wikipedia consensus for well over six months. It is your burden, anon, to explain why this article needs revision (or as you've become fond of, half-deletion). Shem 04:12, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are several reasons why I think this 'entry' is inaccurate and biased I shall list them below. Frankly the fact that it has existed unaltered for 6 months just shows the incompetence of certain aspects on the wikipedia site. As for calling my sources dubious, somehow implying that other sources are much more reliable I'm sorry it's just laughable. Yes I will admit to ambiguity but not ambiguity to the extent that I can concede that it was a US ploy (by the way HRW has not extensively investigated Halabja, they are closely linked to the US government and warded off of doing so). 1) All credible accounts site Iraq as responsible it is a conspiracy theory to site Iran's responsibility. 2) As I have previously stated both Iran and Iraq received economic and military assistance from the United States. This factor has little to do with who was responsible for lobbing chemical weapons at the Kurds. 3)Yes the US state dept did originally blame Iran. It was a tragic mistake, and one that Colin Powell, in fact most secretaries of state since have sought to distance themselves from. 4)Mr Pelletiere is one of a series of gentlemen to make an awful lot of money of of denying official positions (see Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf). You will no doubt have read his New York Times article in which he postulates what you have stated. The CIA has made terrible mistakes in the past, indeed they may even have assisted in supplying the poisons to Saddam, but I'm afraid your suggestion that Mr Pelletiere's position is the position of the CIA is quite quite wrong. Your account is, in fact, very similar to one put forward by al-Jazeera in which they say "It is a fact that key Kurdish leaders aided by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad have used wide network of public relation companies and media outlets in the west to manipulate and twist the truth of what happened in Kurdish Halabja in 1988 in favour of the political Kurdish parties", this is not fact this is gerrymandering the information to suit your own interpretation. Interviews by International Human Rights Groups (this does include HRW here) with scores of Halabja survivors reveal no such confusions about who deployed the weapons several referred to aircraft flying "low enough for their markings to be legible". The DIA report did indeed refer to the fact that Iraq deployed HCN, Sarin, Tabun, VX and afloxin in previous attacks on Iranian forces. The report you site is in fact onw taken by Mr Pelletiere to proove his point. The conclusion of the final DIA Halabja report stated that "the far more plausible story is that Halabja was part of a concerted effort to settle the Kurdish problem once and for all, and to deal a punishing blow for their support of Iranian forces" (Oct 24th 1988) 5)To suggest that the 'Campaign against Sanctions' is a complete and extensive source, is , I'm afraid once again laughable. Their title says it all. Mr Rangwala is welcome to his theories, but this is not a credible source. There is little or no evidence to support the theory postulated here in conclusion that Halabja was an attack on Iranian Forces, or that it was an attack by Iranian forces. Quite contrary to the dismissal of the source I directed people towards. The American record on Halabja may be, as many sources have suggested shameful, but this is not an excuse for a category of false accusations in a summary of Halabja. Quite contrary to the beliefs expressed above it is also, I believe, quite essential that the grizzly reality of this event be properly represented on this site. I am deeply concerned at the fact that I have found quotes from this site used to justify dismissal of Halabja on other websites. The biggest problem with Pelletiere's argument is that Saddam went on to kill another 100,000 Kurds even well after the war was over, and he did use chemical weapons in a lesser scale then also. It is quite inconceivable to suggest that the denizens of the countless villages which Saddam's forces killed and razed, were all involved with the Iranian military. By rights extrapelating from that evidence it is, surely, wholey reasonable to suggest that he did it thereafter again and again and again, so why deny he carried out the actions he did at Halabja?

Anonymous, you talk loads, and link very, very little. That you have again moved (without discussion) to remove contentious points from this article, especially points concerning America with an excuse like "America has nothing to do with why someone lobbed weapons at the Kurds," is extremely poor editing. Also, why don't you register for and edit under an account, so we can keep track of contributions should this article's editing become too disputed? Shem 05:11, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have made my points quite clear above I did not write "lobbing" into the main article. Frankly registering for an account seems to me to be a way so that certain individuals can control what they want to appear on the site - defeats the point of wikipedia doesn't it? The editing is already disputed I question at least half the content on the page you have just reinserted, you may use a lot of sources but their credibility is more than dubious. If this article stays as it is it will need a 'disputed article' comment like for the Bush article. Proudly Annonymous

This remains an inaccurate and unbalance account of the events at Halabja. It is too scathing about the position which says that it was a deliberate attack by Saddam's forces as part of a concerted effort to reduce the Kurdish population, for which there is much evidence, and which is supported by most Western governments, and dwells far too much on reports from the angry former official Stepehn Pelletiere, the Campaign Against Sanctions, whose connections with Saddam's regime have been questioned (Mr Rangwala completed a degree on political and legal rhetoric in the Middle East, has strong ties with various Palestinian organisations, and wrote a book entitled Iraq and Nuclear weapons, I think therefore he cannot be relied upon as an unbiased source). The DIA assessment quoted is not the final appraisal of the situation, it was never the definite CIA stance or verdict, certainly the statement does not reflect current thinking in the CIA. Finally the conclusion to this article is not one most analysts would currently draw from any of the evidence currently available in its total dismissal of the opposing viewpoint. If this article cannot be made more balanced or accusatory it should not be here at all.

For your reference there follows an official account by the HRW of the Halabja incident (available at http://hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFAL3.htm, which although it admits there was an ongoing confrontation between Iran and Iraq at the time is quite explicit: The Iraqi counterattack began in the mid-morning of March 16, with conventional airstrikes and artillery shelling from the town of Sayed Sadeq to the north. Most families in Halabja had built primitive air-raid shelters near their homes. Some crowded into these, others into the government shelters, following the standard air-raid drills they had been taught since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980. The first wave of air strikes appears to have included the use of napalm or phosphorus. "It was different from the other bombs," according to one witness. "There was a huge sound, a huge flame and it had very destructive ability. If you touched one part of your body that had been burned, your hand burned also. It caused things to catch fire." The raids continued unabated for several hours. "It was not just one raid, so you could stop and breathe before another raid started. It was just continuous planes, coming and coming. Six planes would finish and another six would come."28

Those outside in the streets could see clearly that these were Iraqi, not Iranian aircraft, since they flew low enough for their markings to be legible. In the afternoon, at about 3:00, those who remained in the shelters became aware of an unusual smell. Like the villagers in the Balisan Valley the previous spring, they compared it most often to sweet apples, or to perfume, or cucumbers, although one man says that it smelled "very bad, like snake poison." No one needed to be told what the smell was.

This article does not properly reflect this account of events

[edit] This so-called "Article" is nothing but Baathist propaganda.

For god's sake, has somebody been reading David Irving's holocaust denial strategy notes?

Trying to shift the blame for Chemical Ali's attack on the unarmed civilians of Halabja, is a vicious affront to the people of Kurdistan. Whoever wrote this tripe should be ashamed of himself.

Because turning it into a piece of American propaganda is so much better, and milking the plight of the Kurds (which American ultimately aided) as pro-invasion tokenism isn't shameful. Spare us the false outrage (plus invoking Hitler and the holocaust, how original!), and don't count on that NPOV tag going anywhere so long as you anonymous revisionists are coming out of the woodwork.
And yes, "incident" is the correct term. Your inflammatory rhetoric won't be conducive to any constructive editing on this article, nor will I assume (or edit in) good faith with anon's so willing to throw David Irving's name at those not sharing their blatantly deliberate editing agenda.

[edit] " Iranian forces, pro-Iranian Kurdish forces and Halabja's citizens"

That's all three listed, anonymous kids. Any attempt to remove mention of either Iranian forces or the pro-Iranian Kurds will be reverted.


this article is pure baathi propaganda. the halabja INCIDENT??? excuse me??? shall we talk also about the september 11th INCIDENT??? I wonder what the americans would think... for your info there was no iranian forces in halabja, and the peshmergas had fled to the mountains LONG BEFORE the attack even happened. qualifying of this as "incident" is highly offensive. I'm removing this word and if you revert it I will revert it back. I suggest you try to understand the words NPOV don't mean NEGATIONNISM of a genocide RECOGNIZED BY INTERNATIONAL LAWS. I'm also removing stephen pelletiere's link as he is a NEGATIONNIST and this crime is punishable by law.

- Kassem 19:36, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

You are deliberately violating NPOV in this article, Kassem. And yes, it is an incident, but the article is titled attack. Your heated rhetoric and casual invocation of September 11th will not carry weight when editing.

[edit] Erroneous Claims that the United States supplied CWs to Iraq

I fixed the false claim that the U.S. provided CWs to Iraq. This is far from the case. I can't find a shred of evidence that the U.S. has ever supplied CWs to any other state (NATO countries decades ago might be exception, no information either way).

The U.S. did supply CW precursors to Iraq on two occasions. The first shipment of DMMP from Al-Haddad was almost certainly used to make nerve gas in Iraq. However, this was by no means an expression of U.S. policy. Al-Haddad was almost certainly an Iraqi front company. After the DMMP shipment, another shipment of chemicals from Al-Haddad to Iraq was stopped at JFK. That shipment may have been potassium fluoride, a low value, quite common chemical. Other reports indicate that the JFK shipment was phosphorous fluoride, a very useful nerve gas precursor. Internet sources differ on this point and it is possible to find single articles that contains both claims.

In 1988, a Baltimore company, Alcolac supplied thioglycol to Iraq. While thioglycol has many legitimate uses, it is likely that Iraq used this precursor to manufacture mustard gas. The company was prosecuted for violating U.S. export control law.

There is considerable wealth of information about the extremely limited role the United States played in providing CW precursors to Iraq and the extensive efforts of the United States to interdict this trade globally. If anyone is interested I can provide many data points and sources.

Oh yes, its much nicer that it only supplied so-called "duel use" technology and material and encouraged its allies to do the same, totally innocent, no culpability, et cetera. LamontCranston 01:59, 02 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A matter of who made them,or why they were made?

A question.Aren't chemical weapons (or at least gases) are easy to manufacture with today's industry?Considering its truly atrocious and disgusting usage,I believe its a matter of "why did these democratic Western power even allow Iraq" to use it to terrorize the poor Kurdish villagers and rouse a dark hatred which is "incidentally"(SURPRISE!) exploited by the United States today,instead of "omigawd,the A faction gave Iraq the precursors for chemical weapons!"?

I believe the NATO forces and the US allowed the moron,two-bit dictator Saddam to use it against the Kurds to have the Kurdish people as a "puppet card" in the near future.I smell a small-scale conspiracy here.Saddam could be easily deposed during this time with a pre-emptive Gulf War,allowing friendlier relations even with Iran,by taking out their bitter enemy.Wouldn't you agree?--Turkish Legacy 20:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

You're rambling; just punching air. The coalition left Saddam in power in 1991 with the addition of no-fly zones because of massacres like Halabja.

[edit] Fixes for some serious errors

The article contained the statement

"Some debate continues, however, over the question of whether Iraq was really the responsible party, perhaps stemming from well supported claims that the United States supplied chemical weapons to Iraq"

There are at least two problems with this. First, there is no evidence that the U.S. has ever provided chemical weapons to *any* other country, much less Iraq. If anyone can contradict this statement with a serious source, please do so. Second, the article actually says

"While the United States never supplied full-fledged chemical weapons to Iraq, it did provide chemical and biological agents such as anthrax and sarin gas".

I don't see how you can claim that the U.S. provided chemical weapons and then say that the United States never supplied "full-fledged chemical weapons". Of course, this sentence has other problems as well. Sarin is a "full-fledged chemical weapon". So the sentence contradicts itself. Of course, the U.S. never supplied Sarin to Iraq.

A U.S. company did sell an Anthrax sample to Iraq in the 1980s. However, this was far from an expression of U.S. policy. At that time, anyone could buy Anthrax samples. Indeed, controls on the Anthrax cultures were not introduced until many years later after a white supremacist purchased Anthrax in 1995.

Thank you

Peter Schaeffer

[edit] The Iran Connection.

I've noticed some here have made references to the original claims at the time it happened that the Iranians were responsible, so here is the New York Times article from 2003 that went over it:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60816FC3D5C0C728FDDA80894DB404482

And a free reproduction that does not require registration or money:

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/a_war_crime_or_an_act_of_war.htm [there are no doubt other places to find it, this was simply the first one I came across, so if you don't like the site then just look elsewhere for it]

Now if it is true that "for reasons of state" the US & its allies who supported Saddam during the 1980s 'fudged' the facts about the original gassing to defend a 'needed ally' then to anyone’s knowledge have they admitted this and apologised to the victims that survived, the families of the victims that died and the US public? If not, then how can their pronouncements re: Halabja since the 2000s be believed? LamontCranston 14:09, 02 April 2006 (UTC)

Ive added material pertaining to this question.--Zereshk 20:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request of proof

That there was actually a DIA study that said the U.S. supplied hydrogen cyanide to Iraq. If no one comes forward, I will remove this in 1 week. CJK 23:13, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

It's just as credible that in an effort to justify its pre-planned attack on Iraq, the US government turned around and claimed that it was NO LONGER Iran, but Iraq, that gassed the Kurds. Once a liar, always a liar. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.109.169.187 (talk)

[edit] Popular culture references: OK?

Not sure whether it's appropriate to add pop culture references to this page. Proposed add'n:

In early 1988, the industrial band Skinny Puppy recorded the album VIVIsectVI, which contains the song "VX Gas Attack", whose lyrics offer pointed reference to the Halabja gas attack (though not by name).

"at ground zero pro independence heavier than air fumes city of chemical alleged cyanide gas ... like scalding water a side effect of their faces and lungs burn a sudden harsh smell 2 weeks after still coughing and choking livid skin blisters burn often ... the dead were among porcelain face of cloud of frozen gas poison..." footnote

Zillyons 03:23, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What dropped the chemicals?

Toward the beginning, in the Discovery section, this article states that bombs were dropped by Mig-23 fighter bombers, then toward the end it says the US supplied dual use helicopters which sprayed the chemicals. The Guardian article linked as note 1 says it was dropped by Mirage bombers. Does anyone have a link to an article with the correct aircraft involved, whether bombs or aerosol spray was used. Thank you. Dual Freq 23:17, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

After reading the items in the external links section, I'm leaning toward pulling the helicopter portion. The links seem to indicate bombs were used, not aerial spraying. Link for that sentence is dead so I can't tell what the editor was meaning by placing that there. I'll add a citation needed for now, but if there is no disagreement it probably needs to be removed. Still the question remains, Russian made MIG or French made Mirage. Dual Freq 23:37, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


If the planes were low enough to see the markings, then one of the witnesses must have noticed what type of plane it was - the Kurds are experts in weaponry. Pellitiere has not been refuted as far as I have heard - the CIA may have changed there position, unless only the final report the Pres saw was changed ( not the CIA's report). This article seems to have all the factuality of a Holocaust report. One of the fishiest parts of the whole event is the refusal to charge Saddam. If the government is so sure then charge him, otherwise they should shut up - dig up the 100,000s, autopsy the bodies or shut up.

[edit] Use of graphic images

The images on this page are pretty graphic. I know some wikipedians would argue "it happened so deal with it", but I don't believe the images are all necessary. Certainly I feel they warrant a strong warning. I'm referring particularly to the picture of the two children. -- Tomhab 11:52, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you think of the warning I added?raptor 10:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:MilHist Assessment

I cannot vouch for (or against) the accuracy of this article, and I will not presume to. Since discussion would seem to indicate that some POV and accuracy issues remain, I am placing this at Start-class and not B-class. Nevertheless, it is of a fair length (more could be added), includes pictures, and a great number of sources and external links. It is also quite beneficial that sections are included describing not only the event itself but investigations and responses. LordAmeth 13:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Substitute outdated reference

The SIPRI pdf referenced is no longer reachable at the original reference, and searches on the (reorganised) site do not find a match. Have substituted an SIPRI briefing by the same author on what looks like the correct subject, but I cannot access the original document to verify the match. Can anybody familiar with the original article check that the substitution is satisfactory, I'm way out of my subject matter experience :) --Shoka 20:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Battle

I just corrected the battle infobox a bit, but I think the ground battle should be either described here or in the separate article (Battle of Halabja maybe). Also, the recaptured city was systematically destroyed by Iraqi forces in accordance to the Anfal rules (while the bodies were left to rot).

[edit] More pictures needed

--84.234.60.154 (talk) 08:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)