US Army War College: NO PROOF SADDAM GASSED THE KURDS!
Ibrahim Ebeid
Memo to Jess Helms from InfoTimes. Note the excerpt from US Army War College report that no evidence exists to support US claims that Iraq used gas on the Kurds.
I continue to make inquiries into the situation in Iraq, as it is likely to brew up into another crisis one of these days when the US Army War College has no choice but to conclude that Iraq is not hiding any weapons of mass destruction — or if they are, they are so well hidden that nobody is going to find them. As you know, I’m sure, the Warhawks in the United States will continue to insist that the embargo remains in place no matter what, and there will be assertions from around the world that we have not been acting in good faith. As you also know, I believe there are serious questions regarding our behavior toward Iraq that go back further. You would agree, I think, that at the very least our State Department gave a “green light” to Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait in August 1990. The more I read about the period’s events, the more I believe history will record that the Gulf War was unnecessary, perhaps even that Saddam Hussein was willing to retreat back to his borders, but our government decided we preferred the war to the status quo ante.
In my previous correspondence with you on this matter, I had been in a quandary about the state of our relations with Baghdad during that critical period. In the months immediately preceding the “green light” given by our Ambassador, April Glaspie, a number of your Senate colleagues including Bob Dole had traveled to Baghdad, met with Saddam, and found him to be a head of state worthy of support. Even Sen. Howard Metzenbaum [D-OH], a Jewish liberal and staunch supporter of Israel, gave him a seal of approval. What disturbs me even now, Jesse, is that these meetings occurred after the Senate Foreign Relations committee had accused Iraq of using poison gas against its own people, i.e., the Kurds. Like all other Americans, in recent years I had assumed that what I read in the papers was true about Iraq gassing its own people. Once the war drums again began beating last November, I decided to read up on the history and found Iraq denied having used gas against its own people. Furthermore, I heard that a Pentagon investigation had also turned up no hard evidence of Saddam gassing his own people.
This is serious stuff because the US Army War College tells us that 1.4 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the sanctions, which is 3,000 times more than the number of Kurds who supposedly died of gassing at the hands of Saddam. Many of my old Cold Warrior friends practically DEMAND that we not lift the sanctions because if Saddam gassed his own people, he would gas anyone. Now I have come across the 1990 Pentagon report, published just prior to the invasion of Kuwait. Its authors are Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II, and Leif R. Rosenberger, of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The report is 93 pages, but I append here only the passages having to do with the aforementioned issue:
Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East
