Victims Remember Iraqi CW Attacks

Survivors of Iraqi chemical weapon attacks have marked the anniversaries of those two-decade-old incidents.  Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was on trial for chemical weapons charges before he was executed in December on a separate conviction (see GSN, Jan. 3).

In Iran, victims remembered a 1987 Iraqi chemical attack against the village of Sardasht, where as many as 113 civilians were killed and thousands injured, the Los Angeles Times reported (see GSN, Dec. 2, 2005).

“I always thought that it is necessary for the world to understand what occurred,” said Mostafa Asadzadeh, an Iranian whose entire immediate family was killed in the attack.  “It was a gigantic crime.”

The Iraqi chemical attacks led Iran to pursue its own WMD capabilities, said one analyst.

“If Iran is developing nuclear weapons, this would derive directly from its experience in the Iran-Iraq war:  the knowledge that Iraq would use whatever weapon against Iran and that the international community would close its eyes to it,” said Joost Hiltermann, a Jordan-based researcher who is preparing a book on chemical weapons usage during the Iran-Iraq war (Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, March 19).

Meanwhile in northern Iraq, Kurdish residents lit 19 candles to commemorate a 1988 chemical attack that killed more than 5,000 people at Halabja, the Associated Press reported.

“Each year on this day, I remember the vicious attack carried out by Saddam against the peaceful city,” said Tuba Abid, who lost 22 relatives.  “The execution of Saddam has reduced my pains and I feel more secure after the death of this dictator” (Yahya Barzanji, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, March 16).

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