Halabja: Iraq, Saddam, Talabani, Iran, U.S. and Zyklon-B

Halabja: Iraq, Saddam, Talabani, Iran, U.S. and Zyklon-B

§1. Due to present circumstances around the Iraq war I’m unfortunately able to use only my nick-name and virtual home address (jouna, iraq-war.ru) for reasons I’m sure you understand. Unable to find your e-mail address and having nothing to hide what comes to the contents of this letter I’m publishing it now right here in the internet.

You were the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000. I’ve became to know your name some time ago, when I read your book "Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf." (hereafter IIOS).
I’ve also read your article ‘A War Crime or an Act of War?’ (hereafter WCAW), available in http://uruknet.info/?p=12256. In addition I’m familiar with your video representations in http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2097.htm and http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2098.htm and some discussion around your views around these.

From the timing of my approach you must already have guessed that I’m writing about the events at Halabja, in March 1988. As I was aware your expertise on this issue, I now turn to you with some issues that have been troubling me for some time on.
Not wanting to take your time more than necessary, I will proceed straight to the happenings around Halabja, 1988.

§2. At this very moment Dutchman Frans van Anraat is accused in a Hague trial, being charged for delivering chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein. These weapons are claimed to have killed thousands of Kurds at Halabja in 1988. As we both, like many others already know this is absolute rubbish, since the mustard gas delivered by van Anraat did not kill the Kurds at Halabja, I won’t waste our time any more with this (for the proof of these claims, cf. the section §7, further google for Frans van Anraat if you are interested in the latest developments of his trial). The trial is in its final week, with a verdict expected on December 23, 2005).

§3. On the other hand, Saddam Hussein is at the present charged in a illegal trial in Baghdad for the very same charges (cf. http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m18569). In this connection it is necessary to introduce some facts concerning the Halabja incidents. The substance believed to have killed the Kurds at Halabja is a ‘blood agent’, hydrogen cyanide (HCN), better know as ‘Zyklon B’ of the Germans in WWII.
Among many others you tell (passim) that it was not the Iraqis, who zyklonb’d the Kurds at Halabja, and besides of this that Saddam Hussein is not guilty of the accused genocide as the use of gas occured in a battle action.
Your claim that the Iraqis would have used cyanide gas would not make sense anyway, just because of the following points:
(1) the Iraqis did not have nor did they use the cyanide gas at the time (rather: any time).
(2) why would the Iraqis have attacked their own city and own people?
(3) why did they not use the gas against the attacking Iranians instead?

The innocence of Frans van Anraat, Iraqis and Saddam Hussein to the gassing of the Kurds leaves us with several open questions. One of them is who then used cyanide gas against the civilian inhabitants of Halabja? Before looking an answer to, I would like to go deeper in the details of this murky event.

§4. First, I would like to highligth the involvement of Jalal Talabani:
(1) In IIOS (p. 188) you write: “The rebel Kurdish Leader, Jalal Talabani facilitated the introduction of the Iranian forces into Halabja by night so that the Iraqi commander was unaware of the penetration.”
(2) Before proceeding further, I would like to have few words on the character of Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, the rebel force leader in March 1988. In the events around Halabja he obviously deceives his own people, the Kurds, as he first exposes them to Iranian attack, and right after causes them to be gassed with cyanide. Not very nice from him, or what do you think?
(3) Instead of his own people, Talabani is admittedly siding with the Iranians, but on the other hand Talabani deceives the Iranians too: he entangles them to a very serious international crime, the use of chemical weapons with no profit whatever for the Iran (the attack turned a failure). Guilty or not, the Iranians have been under very serious suspicions after this event, made possible by nobody else than Jalal Talabani.
(4) Later on, in the second Iraq war (the one still raging), Mr. Talabani resurfaces as one of the leading allies of the United Stated, waging an illegal war (by UN standars) against Iraq and Iraqi people. As a reward for his contributions he is chosen (rather: seated) as the president of the New Iraq, fitting very well among other scum gathered by the U.S. as the puppet ‘government’ of Iraq.
From this and the difficult Iran-U.S. relationship, one is seemingly not mistaken in thinking that Mr. (if such an epithet can be used of him) Talabani completed his well-started treason of the Iranians (back in 1988), now finding new friends from the United States.
(5) However, the latest deception of Mr. Talabani, perhaps widest in its scope so far, took place in this autumn, when he deceived the United States by selling the Kurds in Iraq to the Iranian regime in Teheran.
With this action he gave the final death-blow to all U.S. hopes to win the war in Iraq: with Sunni support lost right from the beginning due to U.S. own conscious plan to wipe the Sunnis off the earth, the Shia loyalty shifting little by little towards Iran, now the Kurds are also lost, thanks to Mr. Talabani. Squarely, this that the U.S. has no local support whatever in Iraq. These are the ‘deadly circumstances’, where the defeat of any occupier is inevitable and inavoidable. If you are unaware of these latest developments, I recommend you the following articles:
a) ‘When U.S. needed victory strategy for Iran, Bush recycled an used one for Iraq’, in http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/72116. The same core facts are now also stated in
b) ‘Baath Party Statement’, http://www.iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/72475 and furthermore
c) Iraq: is Iran the real winner?, http://www.ww4report.com/node/1367).
The U.S. defeat and Iranian victory are now actually described and claimed in the articles
d) U.S. will suffer bigger defeat in Iraq than in Vietnam: Iran’, http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4749 and
e) Rafsanjani says Iran won in the U.S.-led war on Iraq, http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4772)

To put it short, Jalal Talabani, a truly fine personality, has deceived not only the Kurds, the Iranians, the United States, the Iraqi people but in fact, the entire world. As at the same time a wholly innocent man, Saddam Hussein is charged for the crimes of Mr. Talabani. Besides as a recognition of these merits (and several other, not mentioned here due their encyclopedic scope), Mr. Talabani has been appointed as the “president” of Iraq, although the legal president of Iraq is still Saddam Hussein. Viewing all this together, one can well say that Mr. Talabani most likely holds the world record of the successive deceptions ever. If not otherwise, then because he may still have a future in Iraq due to his new alliance with the Iranian regime.

§5. Before going back to the happenings at Halabja, let’s have a general view on the context of the gassing of the Kurds.
In 1986-1988 Iraq was already winning the war between Iraq and Iran. As you quite correctly mention, “the U.S. did not expect Iraq to win, and when it did (rather: was doing so), U.S. leaders were ‘dumbfounded’.” In this final phase of the war the U.S., wanting to prevent Iraqis from winning, started secretly support Iran, delivering her both sophisticated weapons and intelligence to subvert the Iraqis’ defences (IIOS, 195-198, actions which – after their revelation became known as Iran-Contra scandal.

From the involvement of ‘Mr.’ Talabani, a friend – if this word can be used of him at all – of both U.S. and Iran, it looks clear that the U.S. sided with the Iranians with the help of Jalal Talabani at Halabja. This means that the United States and ‘Mr.’ Talabani go much further back than the Iraq war now waging. If you or anybody else doubts this, the proof that ‘Mr.’ Talabani ‘worked’ at Halabja both as an Iranian and U.S. ally are included in your own narrative. In WCAV you write:
“And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report.”
Let’s stop right here: “Immediately?”
This makes me wonder is it not so that the DIA could not have been “immediately” on the spot, had it not been cooperating either with the Iranians or Jalal Talabani – or both. Taken that the U.S. itself did not bombard the Halabja with the Zyklon B, and taken that it was (as the U.S. study claims) the Iranian, not Iraqi gas that killed the Kurds, at least the U.S. military intellligence was well aware of what would happen at Halabja long before it actually happened. Unlike Saddam Hussein. And did nothing to stop this.

§6. I’m contacting now you on this matter, because you tell us being ”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.”

Wanting to be very straightforward concerning your knowlegde on this issue, I would like now to ask you the following questions:

1) Was it Iran, who used cyanide gas against Iraqi Kurds, and were the Iranians assisted in this by the U.S. either with recommendations, delivering the gas, intelligence or what so ever, connecting the U.S. to the gassing of the Kurds? Or
2) Was it U.S. itself (or some its ally, for example Israel), who used the cyanide gas at Halabja, but pointed the finger on Iran after this? Or
3) Was U.S. using Jalal Talabani, an agent for them and ally of Iran, who – without Iranian knowledge of this – made the Iranians to use its own, home-made cyanide gas against the Kurdish civilians at Halabja? Or
4) Was it so that, the DIA originally planned the operation at Halabja against both Iraq and Iran as follows: in first phase ‘the Halabja genocide’ was intended to be used as a justification for a war against Iraq, as actually happened in 2003?
5) Was it further intended that after the Iraq war was won and Saddam convicted, the DIA investigation, showing that ‘actually’ it was the Iranians, (“Oops, sorry Iraq, we made a little mistake here...”), who used cyanide gas? Which was, according to the plan, to be now used to start an successive war against Iran? (For a sketch for such a “radical right-wing agenda, cf. Iraq: The War To Start All Wars, http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/07/war-to-start-all-wars/)
6) Was it further so that Jalal Talabani double-crossed the Americans just few weeks ago, because he had by then understood that the second phase of war, the planned attack against Iran was not to happen, as actually the Iranians had already won the Iraq war?
7) Is it so that after Mr. Chalabi turned his coat once again, he arrived to the Iranian camp with the proofs of the U.S. involvement, or possibly with the conclusive proof of U.S. initiative in the use of the cyanide gas at Halabja?
8) Is this one of the reasons for the Iranians claiming now victory over the United States in Iraq, simply because the Iranians know that as they have a solid evidence against U.S., they’ve also gained an absolute immunity against any U.S. forgery aimed at starting a war against Iran, giving them also a guarantee against Israel?
9) Is it so that the U.S. must be very nice to Iran from now on, since it fears that Iran could (and would) leak the U.S. involvement at Halabja?
10) Is it so that the U.S. is now being blackmailed by Tehran? Wouldn’t it be much better to bring all the evidence out before the U.S. is gotten into a very big trouble because of it’s position in this?

If you are not able to answer these questions on your own name, I fully understand you. In that case I would however hope that you choose a nick-name and drop both the answers and the proofs of these question to the internet through channels that can not be tracked back to you.
Not only me, but the entire world will be most thankful to you for doing this favor. My sincerest thanks to you already,

Yours Truely,

jouna, iraq-war.ru


§7. LITERATURE:
1. Did Iraq attack Halabja with chemical weapons in 1988?, http://uruknet.info/?p=770
2. A Glimpse of The Past: A War Crime or an Act of War?, http://uruknet.info/?p=880
3. Saddam Hussein Did Not Commit Genocide, http://uruknet.info/?p=1454
4. Saddam never gassed his own people, http://uruknet.info/?p=3943
5. In Defense of Saddam Hussein, http://uruknet.info/?p=4009
6. Defending Saddam, Not President Bush, http://uruknet.info/?p=4249
7. What Happened at Halabja?, http://uruknet.info/?p=8446
8. What do Fallujah and Halabja have in Common?, http://uruknet.info/?p=8541
9. Claims of Saddam's Genocide Far from Proven, http://uruknet.info/?p=8549
10. Report Suppressed: Iran Gassed Kurds, Not Iraq, http://uruknet.info/?p=12256
11. More on Jeffrey Goldberg, http://uruknet.info/?p=13256
12. A Fair Trial for Saddam?, http://uruknet.info/?p=13370



As far as I know, zyklon B is comprised of (a) an absorbant substance, such as plaster-of-paris, and (b) hydrogen cyanide gas adsorbed onto the plaster-of-paris. Thus the zyklon B can be put into airtight cans, making more robust gas cylinders unnecessary.

To regenerate the hydrogen cyanide gas, the pellets were shaken out from the can, and the gas evaporated slowly. To make it evaporate more quickly, the pellets needed to be raised to 27deg Celsius. If a building was to be fumigated, it needed to have windows & doors covered, and allowed to stand for several days.

Needless to say, the horror story of 'nazi gas chambers' using zyklon B to kill people is quite fictitious. Yes, zyklon B was an effective bug-killer in the days before DDT. Yes, there were problems with bugs: louse-borne typhus was a major killer in the concentration camps. Yes, clothes & bedding were fumigated with zyklon B. No, people were not poisoned with zyklon B.

So zyklon B was a (human) life-preserving substance — not a (human) killer.

As for the Halabja tragedy, it appears to have been 'collateral damage' (as the yankees love to say) of the Iran-Iraq War twenty years ago. There are opinions that the death-dealing gas was Iranian, not Iraqi. Something went wrong, and civilians were killed. That's one of the major reasons why gas warfare is so condemned: it is too open to unexpected changes in wind & weather and gets the wrong target.

Needless to say, the show trial (against President Saddam Hussein & his colleagues) is not interested in truth & justice. It's all part of the political parade for the uninformed & misinformed masses of the U.S.A., UK, Australia and other countries complicit in the criminal invasion & destruction of Iraq.