Editor’s note: This op-ed by retired ABC News diplomatic correspondent Barrie Dunsmore first appeared in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and Rutland Herald Sunday edition. All his columns can be found on his website, www.barriedunsmore.com.
The greatest single use of poison gas against civilians in history, took place on March 16, 1988. At least 5,000 Iraqi Kurds were killed and thousands injured on the orders of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, whose aircraft dropped gas cannisters on the town of Halabja in Northwestern Iraq near the borders of Turkey and Iran. This was not the first time Saddam had broken the International Conventions against the use of chemical weapons. He had done so repeatedly against Iranian troops during the long-running Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. But this was the first time civilians were specifically targeted — because they were Kurds, some of whom had rebelled against his rule. And this was payback time.
You probably didn’t hear a lot about the story at the time, as it received remarkably little attention. It occurred in a remote area. ABC News tried and failed to get into Halabja from Tehran. Eventually, I was sent to Turkey with a team from London. By that time a sprawling refugee camp of Iraqi Kurds trying to escape Saddam’s brutality had sprung up along the banks of the Tigris River, fairly close to both the borders of Iraq and Iran.
Far eastern Turkey is its Kurdish region, where the city of Diyarbakir was unofficially known as the Kurdish capital. Especially at that time, the Turks didn’t trust the loyalty of their own Kurds and treated them harshly. Among other things their culture was totally suppressed and they were not even not allowed to use their own language. So the Turks did not welcome an influx of thousands of Kurds from Iraq. What the refugees were offered was sparse — but at least they were safe from Saddam’s air force.
We visited the camp over several days. I am not an expert on chemical weapons but by this time, it was pretty well established that poison gas had been used in Halabja and various other towns in that part of Iraq. We spoke to many shocked survivors, heard their horror stories and saw their festering wounds — often on the backs of little children — all of which were consistent with a chemical attack. Theirs was a tragic story. Yet there was no huge international outrage expressed in 1988 over the worst chemical weapons assault on civilians in history.
One of the main reasons for this apparent indifference is that United States of America created confusion over who was responsible by accusing Iran — not Iraq. Even then, based on early but persuasive eye witness accounts, few believed Washington, but the uncertainty was enough to preclude any concerted international actions against Iraq.
Bush’s false claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction are casting a shadow on the current international debate over what to do about Syria.
Of course, we now know for certain that Saddam was the perpetrator. Not only that, we also know now that the Reagan administration had helped him obtain chemical weapons and knew he had frequently used such weapons in the Iran-Iraq war — a war the Reagan administration was determined Iran must not win.
Official documents made public just this past week by Foreign Policy Magazine clearly show what the U.S. knew, when, and what lengths Ronald Reagan was prepared to go to make sure Iran did not defeat Iraq. According to the Foreign Policy Magazine account, one American intelligence official claims to have seen a margin note on an intelligence report in Reagan’s own handwriting which read, “An Iranian victory is unacceptable.”
Ironically, in 2003 during the selling of the imminent American invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush’s administration used the argument that Saddam Hussein was capable of using weapons of mass destruction — because he had done so against his own people in Halabja in 1988. Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was among those making that case – and he ought to know.
In 1983 private citizen Rumsfeld, acting as a personal envoy of President Reagan, made a secret trip to Iraq to meet with Saddam and to assure him the U.S. was on his side in his war with Iran. At about the same time Iraq was removed from the State Department’s list of countries sponsoring terrorism, making Saddam eligible to import the makings for chemical weapons from the U.S. and foreign sources. (The Iran-Iraq war ended in stalemate in 1988 having cost as many as a million lives.)
Bush’s false claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction are casting a shadow on the current international debate over what to do about Syria. But there are still those in the region who remember America’s bent moral compass at the time of the Halabja massacre. Certainly that is one of the reasons Iranians and others do not trust any American government.
Still, I see Syria’s devastating use of chemical weapons last month in a different context. America doesn’t need to be perpetually proving its manhood. At the same time this country’s security does depend on its credibility. There are already signs that many players in the very tough Mideast neighborhood think President Barack Obama is too soft, and Americans too war-averse to take any military action, anywhere. That is dangerous.
I still believe it would be folly to use military force to try to end Syria’s civil war. But having said Syria’s use of chemical weapons would be a red line, I believe it is imperative for the president to back up that threat — just as soon as he can get his ducks in a row with allies, the U.N. weapons inspectors and the U.S. Congress.
The sole purpose of any attacks on Syria by America and its allies must be to restore international deterrence against the use of chemical weapons. To do that it can’t be just a figurative slap on the wrist of a few cruise missiles being lobbed in to make some noise. It has to be a sufficiently powerful attack on Syria’s capacity to engage in chemical warfare to ensure that it can’t and won’t do so in the future. That is not risk free — but the costs will be even greater if Obama does nothing.
