Click Here to Access Hundreds of Fresh News & Opinion Articles

Classics of Liberal Thinking

Progressive Radio Links

OpEdNews.Com Site Map

Another Bush Lie About Iraq?: Perhaps Saddam Didn't Mass Murder His People with Gas. But is it Worse than that? How Deep Does the Republican-Iran Connection Go? Did republicans use their Iran connection to manipulate the 2002 election and are they using it now, to influence the 2004 presidential contest?

by Rob Kall

OpEdNews.Com

Now we're discovering that one of the last excuses G.W. Bush has remaining for going to war, that Saddam gassed thousands of his people, is also a lie-- a lie that Bush should of and probably did know was a lie.

Back in 1988 thousands of Kurds were reported killed in the gassing of Halabja. The CIA even prepared a report on it. Too bad the Bush people don't like to bother with reports. They have direct info from God.... Oh. I guess this proves that it's not God talking to George. Maybe he's having flashbacks. Maybe it's a case of the DTs. Maybe he's having strange symptoms from choking on another pretzel. Bottom line....  Sadam did not kill those people. Bottom line--- Bush knew it and still uses it to argue his case for going to war with Saddam. This article (How Saddam Will use Testimony from the CIA) about how Saddam will use testimony from the CIA to prove he did not do the gassing got me started on the column you are reading.

The IRANIANS gassed Halabja. The US knew it. Bush senior knew it and that's why, in 1988, the US gave Iraq poison gas to defend itself with.

Yet George W. Bush, in building his case for war, said, "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."

Now, it appears that Saddam didn't use the poison gas on his people at all.

It gets even worse. When you tie in Achmed Chalabi, the accused Iranian Mole, who fed Bush's military neocons lies about Iraqi WMDs, you get a picture that adds up to the Iranians first mass murdering thousands of Kurds, then tricking Bush to go to war to do their dirty work-- defeating Saddam and neutralizing Iraq as a  military threat. Bush has been working for the Iranians!

Now, one might be inclined to attribute this to the stupidity of George W. Bush and his advisors. But wait. His advisors are supposed to be really smart. And there's that little matter of the October Surprise that Ronnie Reagan and his VP George Bush senior pulled off upon taking office in the White House. It was the mess in Iran, more than anything else, that blew it for Jimmy Carter. Iran saved the Republicans' butts and handed them an eight year reign in Washington DC.

Is it too much of a stretch to speculate that the Republicans used their experience exploiting chaos in the Middle east to win the 2002 elections? Is it too much of a stretch to speculate that the Iranians worked with some of the neocons? Maybe. Is it too much of a stretch to speculate that the Iranians used their experience manipulating politics in America,  used Chalabi to trick Bush and his failed advisors into a war that eliminated their sworn enemy and neutralized the army that had killed hundreds of thousands of their troops? Is that such a stretch? I don't think so.

Bottom line-- when an independent or right winger tells you he or she is glad we took out Evil Saddam the mass murderer, point out that Bush has lied about the mass murder too, that the worse mass murder that happened in Iraq was perpetrated by Iran, and that Bush was tricked by Chalabi into doing Iran's dirty work. Bush's father even gave Saddam poison gas to use in defense against the Iranians.

Weapons of mass destruction? No!

Saddam as evil mass murderer? No!

Huh? Saddam was not a mass murderer as Bush and Blair said? But he cut off people's heads and hands. That's nasty, right? If you think so, then take a look at Saudi Arabia. Decapitation is a regular form of execution in Saudi Arabia, and other parts of the Arab world. Cutting off hands is also a punishment for unacceptable actions, like thievery, that has been around for centuries in the Arab world. Years ago, while sharing a family dinner in a home in Morocco, I started to take a handful of food from a family-style bowl (cous-cous, I think) but they raised a ruckus and stopped me before my left hand touched the bowl. My host explained that the left hand was used for clean-up, in a country where toilet paper was a luxury most people couldn't afford. It was dirty and offensive to use the left hand to eat. When a thief is  punished, his right hand is cut off and he can no longer share food with others.

Was Saddam the worst offender in the Middle East? I don't think so. The Iranians were guilty of gassing thousands of people. But the Iranians had a real army. Bush went after an Iraqi army that was far weaker than the one his father took on in 1991. The real villains are still out there. But now, after being duped by the Iranians, Bush has created a playground for terrorists that they would never have dreamed possible. Bush created a recruiting scenario for terrorists that they wouldn't have even fantasized could be that good.

What's left for Bush to lean on in his battle to hold onto his appointment to the Whitehouse? The divisive cultural issues are all that he has left to salvage his plunging presidency. We can expect him to go after churches, NASCAR dads, blue collar moms, southern Christians, homophobics... and that he and his surrogates will stir the waters of prejudice and division to a level this nation has not seen since the civil war. It's going to get very ugly.

Rob Kall rob@opednews.com  is publisher of progressive news and opinion website www.opednews.com and organizer of cutting edge meetings that bring together world leaders, such as the Winter Brain Meeting and the StoryCon Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story This article is copyright Rob Kall and originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog or web media so long as this credit paragraph is attached.  Over 100 other articles by Rob Kall

Postscript: I've received two emails questioning the reliability of the information I depended upon to write this article. I don't know enough about it to draw a conclusion yet.  If gets pretty strange. One thing is clear. The CIA reported that it was the Iranians, not Saddam that did the gassing. If the people writing to me are correct, that Saddam did it, then the CIA was lying, creating an excuse to give Saddam the materials to make the gas, so he could fight the Iranians for them. This take us back to the old conundrum; Is Bush a moron or a fool. If George W's daddy gave Saddam the gas to fight the Iranians, then, by taking down Saddam, Dubya helped the enemy his father thought was the worst-- the Iranians.  Rob Kall

Here's the second one received

and the first one received

Rob,

Pretty serious allegations. Are you saying the Iranians acted alone?  I have read many articles and at most I can conclude that there is doubt by many sources in, and out, of the US government about who performed the mass killings.  Where can I go to read the definitive findings you did? 

 Here is a portion of one such article from Crimesofwar.com that supports the thought that both Iraq and Iran had some involvement. (Although it appears the Kurds do not think Iran had anything to do with the chemical attack.)

 “…There is one fly in the ointment, however. In 1990, against all the evidence, the U.S. Defense Department alleged that Iran was also responsible for the chemical attack on Halabja. An internal Pentagon study assembled what it claimed was "conclusive intelligence" that Iran was complicit in one of the worst civilian massacres in the Iran-Iraq War. This report, leaked to The Washington Post, is being used by Iraqi officials to divert the blame.

Many people are skeptical of the Pentagon evidence, not least the people of Halabja. I talked to many Halabjans during my visit who were present during the 1988 attack, and all agreed that Iraq alone was responsible. The Kurdish guerrilla armies who were allied to Iran at the time and fought in and around Halabja also concur, and that includes the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Masoud Barzani, whose current relations with the Iranians can only be described as hostile. Why would Iranian commanders whose troops were in Halabja at the time use poison gas against their own men? they ask. Their logic seems inescapable.

Yet, the allegation of Iranian complicity in Halabja—never rescinded in Washington —complicates the issue under international law. Iraq will almost certainly claim that Iran used poison gas first, and its response was in retaliation. Issued at a time when the United States supported the Iraqis both politically and materially, this piece of black propaganda has now returned to haunt the current U.S. administration….”

 Thanks,

 Steve Steffy

and more from Steve when I asked for more details:

Thanks for the article. 

The more I read about this story the more interesting it gets.  What is true, the Kurds were gassed.  What is true, Iraq used chemical weapons.  What is sketchy, Iraq was trying to beat back the Iranians, not the Kurds. (Although the Iranians were supposedly helping the Kurds fight the Muslims.)  What is sketchy, Iran used chemical weapons, too. (I am not sure why they would when the Iraqis attacked with MIGS and appear to leave the area as quickly as they came in.) By most accounts, it appears, and what probably put the US people in danger, is that the US Government armed both the Iraqis and the Iranians.  The level of secrecy over all dealings in the Middle East over the last 25 years is amazing.  I am not sure any government leader wants the truth to come out over the dealings in that area.

Bottom line, the KURDS believe the Iraqi government used the chemical weapon on them. 

As I read more I will forward it on.

Steve

and another letter

 Actually, it was not the CIA that issued a report placing the probable blame on the Iranians but the Army War College, & this view is not taken seriously within  the intelligence community.

It is interesting that the Iraqi's have never seriously denied this, did not do so at the time or subsequently, nor did Saddam when he had the chance to do so, before the entire world, at his arraignment or hearing that was carried on TV the other day.

The Kurds should know who gassed them, & they blame saddam. Why would they misrepresent this & falsely exonerate the Iranians ?

Lewis Regenstein