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Powell visits site of chemical attack on Kurds
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HALABJA, Iraq – Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on
Monday visited the site of Saddam Hussein’s most egregious
human rights violation: the use of poison gas to kill 5,000 people,
which made this town eager for the U.S. intervention that toppled
the Iraqi regime.
Powell’s stop at the scene of the deadliest use of gas
since World War II came as David Kay, the top U.S. investigator,
prepared his first report on what has been found in the hunt for
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The failure by the United States, so far, to find either loaded
weapons ready for use or ingredients for their production continues
to spark questions about the U.S.-led war. The controversy has been
particularly painful for Powell, who dramatically presented U.S.
intelligence claims of Iraq’s deadliest arms to the United
Nations last February.
In stark contrast to his one-day stop in Baghdad, where he was
largely confined to a U.S.-secured area, Powell was mobbed by
survivors, some of whom lost up to two dozen relatives in the 1988
chemical attack. Kurdish leaders said Halabja represented the
reason the United States needed to overthrow Saddam.
“Fifteen years ago much of the world doubted the evil of
Saddam and refused to act in the face of his weapons of mass
destruction,” said Barham Salih, prime minister of a Kurdish
region run by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK. “It
is perplexing for the people of Halabja, indeed rather painful, to
hear voices in the international community that continue to insist
on proof of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.”
Against a backdrop of 1,076 symbolic white headstones in the
local graveyard, one for each family that lost members, Powell
pledged that the world would never forget Halabja.
“I can’t tell you that choking mothers died holding
choking babies. You know that. I can’t say that the world
should have acted sooner. You know that. What I can tell you is
that what happened here in 1988 is never going to happen
again,” he told a cheering crowd.
The crowd of traditional Kurds had adorned the graveyard, where
thousands of the victims are buried in mass graves, with many large
pro-American banners, all in English even though most Kurds do not
know the language.
Kurds have asked that Ali Hassan Majid, the Iraqi general known
as “Chemical Ali,” be brought here to be tried for his
role in the attack. Majid is in U.S. custody.
with faded pictures of family members killed in the attack, was one
with a picture of President Bush with the caption “man of
peace.” Jalal Talabani, leader of the PUK, said Kurds have a
saying that they have no friends but the remote mountains where
they live. But after the U.S. invasion, he said, “I am proud
that after so many years of loneliness we have friends like
you.”
He said Halabja’s mass graves “validate the morality
of your intervention.”
Powell also visited a monument to victims, finished only Sunday,
where Suhayba Abdul Rahman showed the secretary a picture of her
five children and husband killed in the March 16, 1988, attack.
Blinded by the chemicals – a common problem here –
Rahman thanked Bush for launching the war but asked Powell to help
her get medical attention to try to restore her sight.
The names of the 5,000 victims are inscribed on the circular
walls of the modest memorial. A separate room contains a life-size
scene of the devastation, with bodies of children, women and men
sprawled on top of one another on the ground as they try to flee. A
smoky mist depicts the clouds left by chemical weapons.
Halabja, seven miles from the Iranian border, was the worst hit
of at least 40 towns and villages during the 1986-88 Anfal (or
“the spoils”) campaign when Saddam’s air force
dropped bombs full of sarin, tabun, VX and mustard gas on
rebellious Kurds. Powell was national security adviser when the
town was attacked.
Tens of thousands tried to flee but Iraq’s military
dropped more bombs cutting off escape, according to Kurdish
officials and international humanitarian groups.
Offspring of survivors in Halabja and other targeted towns have
been born or have developed serious medical problems, including
deformities and cancers, according to a British doctor who has
tracked problems for a decade.
Powell finished his visit to Iraq’s Kurdish north at lunch
with Talabani and Massoud Barzani of the Kurdish Democratic Party,
both members of the U.S.-appointed government council.
The Kurds told Powell they do not want Turkey to send troops to
expand the military force for fear it will exacerbate tensions.
Turkey and Bangladesh are currently the only countries that have
shown interest in providing additional troops to the U.S.-led
military force if a new U.N. resolution is passed providing the
imprimatur of the world body.
Iraq’s Kurds and Turkey have an uneasy relationship
because Turkey’s most restive minority is Kurdish. Ankara is
also protective of the Turkman population in northern Iraq.
The Kurds proposed that the United States accelerate the
handover of security to new Iraqi police and paramilitary forces,
even though they are few in number and not ready, according to
Kurdish officials. Kurds fear the ongoing attacks on U.S. forces
will continue to plague the transition or that violence could
worsen if emerging Iraqi leaders are not seen to be increasing
their control.
Powell, at a brief stopover in Kuwait en route home, later said
he believed the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority should
accelerate training of the Iraqi army, police and paramilitary
“to put an Iraqi face” on the transition and
“give people confidence” that they will resume
control.
Robin Wright
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Services
