[Mb-civic] West Has Bloodied Hands

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1219-22.htm
Published on Sunday, December 19, 2004 by the Toronto Sun 
West Has Bloodied Hands 
by Eric Margolis Who was the first high government official to 
authorize use of mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen 
in Iraq? 
If your answer was Saddam Hussein's cousin, the notorious 
"Chemical Ali" -- aka Ali Hassan al-Majid -- you're wrong. 
The correct answer: Sainted Winston Churchill. As colonial 
secretary and secretary for war and air, he authorized the RAF in 
the 1920s to routinely use mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish 
tribesmen in Iraq and against Pashtun tribes on British India's 
northwest frontier. 
Iraq's U.S.-installed regime has just announced al-Majid, one of 
Saddam's most brutal henchmen, will stand trial next week for war 
crimes. 
Al-Majid is accused of ordering the 1988 gassing of Kurds at 
Halabja that killed over 5,000 civilians. He led the bloody 
suppression of Iraq's Shias, killing tens of thousands. These were 
the same Shias whom former U.S. president George Bush called to 
rebel against Saddam's regime, then sat back and did nothing while 
they were crushed. 
The Halabja atrocity remains murky. The CIA's former Iraq desk 
chief claims Kurds who died at Halabja were killed by cyanide gas, 
not nerve gas, as is generally believed. 
At the time, Iraq and Iran were locked in the ferocious last battles of 
their eight-year war. Halabja was caught between the two armies 
that were exchanging salvos of regular and chemical munitions. 
Only Iran had cyanide gas. If the CIA official is correct, the Kurds 
were accidentally killed by Iran, not Iraq. 
But it's also possible al-Majid ordered an attack. Kurds in that region 
had rebelled against Iraq and opened the way for invading Iranian 
forces. 
What's the difference between the U.S. destroying the rebellious 
Iraqi city of Fallujah and Saddam destroying rebellious Halabja? 
What difference does it make if you're killed by poison gas, artillery 
or 2,000-pound bombs? 
"Chemical Ali" was a brute of the worst kind in a regime filled with 
sadists. I personally experienced the terror of Saddam's sinister 
regime over 25 years, culminating in threats to hang me as a spy. 
Saddam Hussein and his entourage should face justice. But not in 
political show trials just before U.S.-"guided" Iraqi elections nor in 
Iraqi kangaroo courts. They should be sent to the UN's war crimes 
tribunal in The Hague, where Saddam should be charged with the 
greatest crime he committed -- the invasion of Iran, which caused 
one million casualties. 
Britain, the U.S., Kuwait and Saudi Arabia convinced Iraq to invade 
Iran, then covertly supplied Saddam with money, arms, intelligence, 
and advisers. Meanwhile, Israel secretly supplied Iran with $5 billion 
US in American arms and spare parts while publicly denouncing 
Iran for terrorism. 
Up to their ears 
Who supplied "Chemical Ali" with his mustard and nerve gas? Why, 
the West, of course. In late 1990, I discovered four British 
technicians in Baghdad who told me they had been "seconded" to 
Iraq by Britain's ministry of defence and MI6 intelligence to make 
chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax, Q-fever and 
plague, at a secret laboratory at Salman Pak. 
The Reagan administration and Thatcher government were up to 
their ears in backing Iraq's aggression, apparently with the intention 
to overthrow Iran's Islamic government and seize its oil. Italy, 
Germany, France, South Africa, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Brazil, Chile 
and the USSR all aided Saddam's war effort against Iran, which was 
even more a victim of naked aggression than was Kuwait in 1991. 
I'd argue senior officials of those nations that abetted Saddam's 
aggression against Iran and supplied him with chemicals and gas 
should also stand trial with Ali and Saddam. 
What an irony it is to see U.S. forces in Iraq now behaving with 
much the same punitive ferocity as Saddam's army and police -- 
bombing rebellious cities, arresting thousands, terrorizing innocent 
civilians, torturing captives and sending in tanks to crush resistance. 
In other words, Saddamism without Saddam. A decade ago, this 
column predicted that when the U.S. finally overthrew Saddam, it 
would need to find a new Saddam. 
Finally, let's not forget that when Saddam's regime committed many 
of its worst atrocities against rebellious Kurds and Shiites, it was still 
a close ally of Washington and London. The West paid for and 
supplied Saddam's bullets, tanks, gas and germs. He was our 
regional SOB. 
Our hands are very far from clean. 
                           © Toronto Sun 
                                 ###

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