Caution Read this and you will no longer be a U.S war supporter.

[grantt]

Peter Galbraith is son of famed Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith.


Advocate for the Kurds
Few Americans know - or care - as much about the plight of the Kurds as Peter Galbraith.

A former ambassador to Croatia from 1993 to 1998 he documented the Iraqi authorities' attacks against the Kurds in the late 1980s when he served as senior advisor to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1979-1993). He was one of the first to witness the genocide of the Kurds by the Iraqi government during a trip he made to the region in 1987.
Peter Galbraith: "As we traveled from the Iraqi area to the Kurdish area, we were stunned to see that the villages were gone. These were places that had been inhabited for millennia. The graveyards were removed, the mosques, all the wire had been taken down form the electric poles. It had become a desolate region. And we could see where the people had been moved. Iraq called them victory cities but in reality they were a kind of concentration camp."
Bob McKeown: "At that time had you had any inkling that this was going on?"
Peter Galbraith: "I had no idea."
Bob McKeown: "Would you have used the word genocide, looking at that then?"
Peter Galbraith: "At that time, no, because there had been no signs of killing people."


Peter Galbraith has traveled to Kurdistan several times.


Saddam's Master Plan
Peter Galbraith saw the countryside but was not yet aware of Saddam's master plan to bring the Kurds to their knees.

Some time later Galbraith read a small news clipping about gassing and concluded he had earlier witnessed the signs of a mass genocide.

"It was a moment of recognition. And I put together the use of chemical weapons against villages far from the Iranian border in places that could have nothing to do with the Iran/Iraq war and put that together with the systemic destruction of villages that I’d seen before. The conclusion was that this regime was committing genocide. And I felt that we had to do something about it."

Within days, he travelled to the Turkish side of the Turkey-Iraq border and interviewed 100s of survivors who had come into Turkey as refugees.

But on March 16, 1988 Saddam's horrific plan became clear to the entire world. Saddam's helicopters swept over the Kurdish city of Halabja leaving clouds of chemical gas behind. Five thousand innocent civilians died in the first few hours. The images of bodies piled on the streets were broadcast around the world. (read more)

Galbraith went to northern Iraq to document the terrible toll.


After the attack many bodies were buried in mass graves.


This was not the first time the Iraqi had used chemical weapons against its own people. It's estimated that 30,000 Kurds lost their lives to Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons.

A Response to the Chemical Attack
Galbraith rushed to Capital Hill to set in motion a blistering response to the atrocity. One that he hoped would alter the course of world events.

"I sat down and dictated, in about an hour, a bill to my secretary. I imposed every sanction on Iraq that I could think of. The legislation banned oil sales, required U.S. to oppose loans, cut off $700 million in agricultural and export credits and banned any export requiring a licence. I drafted this, and said what should we call it?

The Bill was called the Prevention of Genocide Act (download the Act). It would have imposed the harshest American economic sanctions against any country in twenty years. But Galbraith had to move quickly because Congress was about to adjourn and if he didn't get Senate and House Approval the Bill would die.

The sanctions bill won Senate approval in just 24 hours.

"For a major piece of legislation to pass the Senate in a day is virtually without precedent. I think the Senators who looked at this, responded from their hearts."

Barham Salih, the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government--Sulaymania was thrilled with the response.

"It meant a lot. I remember actually doing the translation from English to Kurdish myself . We were all excited. The United States Senate speaking with one voice calling for sanctions against tyranny."


American Capitalism
Peter Galbraith couldn't believe his luck and hoped the Bill would soon become law. Instead he found himself up against American capitalism.



Bill Frenzell was the only one who publicly opposed the Bill.


Bill Frenzell, then a Congressman from
Minnesota took a public stand against the Prevention of Genocide Act.

"It’s very hard to be FOR genocide, or against people who are against genocide, but I couldn’t see anything in that resolution that could prevent any single drop of blood being shed. All I could see was that it was doing harm to the U.S., rather than to the perpetrators of the alleged genocide."

Lobbyists took this message into the corridors of congress and warned that the Bill would only punish Americans who were doing business with Iraq. Galbraith found himself facing farmers, bankers, exporters and oil men.

"They included the agriculture lobbyists – the Rice Millers Association. Being from New England, I thought rice came from South East Asia and I was surprised to learn that ¼ of rice grown in Arkansas was being exported to Iraq. In fact in all these messages, and the people I spoke with, there was no interest in what was happening to the Kurds. It was purely about their economical interests and the problems this legislation would cause for them."

Economic Sanctions 'Premature'
In the end, the Prevention of Genocide Act ran into its stiffest opposition at the White House. The Reagan administration believed that the sanctions were 'premature'. Galbraith was stunned.

"What would have made it ripe for action? The killing of all the Kurds? It was an absurd statement."


The Prevention of Genocide Act was never passed.


President Ronald Reagan thought that Saddam would respond better to a carrot than a stick. He was prepared to use his presidential veto to kill the Bill. The House and the Senate haggled over it until Congress adjourned and the Prevention of Genocide Act disappeared.

The Kurds were disappointed; Saddam Hussein would go unpunished. In fact, within the next year business with Iraq increased. Barham Salih the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government--Sulaymania feels that at the time Saddam thought he could get away with just about anything.

"I’m sure that Saddam Hussein would have been very concerned about that document. Because sanctions at that time would have meant considerable uneasiness and a considerable setback to his policies. But when the resolution was vetoed I’m sure that he felt vindicated. He felt that he could get away with murder, which he did."

After the First Gulf War
But it wasn't the first or last time the Kurds would be let down by the American government.

After the first Gulf War, George Bush - the father - called on them to stand up against Saddam. They answered his call and on March 6, 1991 there was a major uprising in the north of Iraq.



Galbraith was with the Kurds during their uprising after the first Gulf War.


Peter Galbraith was invited to witness their triumphant rebellion against the Iraqi dictator. Instead he found himself trapped in a desperate Kurdish convoy escaping northern Iraq. They were pursued by Iraq's troops flying in helicopters Saddam had purchased from the West.

"Bush then did nothing to help. He allowed Iraq tanks and Republican Guard units to move, to put down the rebels, IN SPITE of ceasefire conditions in which he was not allowed to move those units. In the north, he allowed Iraq to use helicopter gun ships, even though there was a ban on flights. These were not accidental decisions of the Bush administration. This was a conscious decision that it was better for Saddam Hussein to remain in power than for the Shiites in the south to succeed or for Kurds in north to succeed because they might be separatists and annoy Turkey."

A Second Gulf War
He says the experience affected him profoundly and set the stage for events today.

"That’s why we’re in the situation which we are in today.This rebellion could have succeeded. Saddam could have been gone in March 1991 and we could have had a very different history. We would not be having 300,000 coalition forces in the Gulf, we would not be seeing the loss of life that we’re going to see, and we wouldn’t be seeing the huge cost."

Twelve years later the Kurds now find themselves in the unlikely position of being cast as one of the reasons for the second war with Iraq. But history has shown the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government--Sulaymania that promises can be broken.

"Don’t ask a Kurd about morality. We have been a victim of duplicity. By double standards in international politics. More often than not the plight of the Kurdish people was subordinated to the interests of others and the world was indifferent to the plight of my people when we were gassed."

Even as the U.S. opens up a northern front in Iraq, Salih says his people won't be lured into a false sense of security again.

"I am a freedom fighter. We have been fighting for our freedom for decades. We have fought this terror at the time when the United States was supporting this tyranny. That’s important to understand. We’re fighting for our liberation on our own terms and on our own turf in a way in our own country."

NOTE: Peter Galbraith is now a professor at the National Defense University in Fort McNair, near Washington.

 

[grantt]

A Convenient Alliance
As hundreds of thousands of American soldiers bear down upon the regime of Saddam Hussein, it is hard to imagine another era, not so long ago, when the Americans and Iraqis were allies.

In December 1983 Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad to send a message of friendship to Saddam Hussein.


In those days, they had a mutual enemy: Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. The Iraqis had long-standing disputes with Iran and the Americans were still smarting over the seizure of American hostages in 1979. Ronald Reagan sent a special envoy to forge an alliance. His name was Donald Rumsfeld.

Twenty years ago, each side had something the other needed. The Americans wanted an ally in the Middle East and Iraq needed food, money and military supplies.

Chemical Warfare
There was just one problem. According to Dr. Stephen Bryen, a Pentagon official in charge of monitoring technology exports, the Reagan administration was aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war against Iran. This was against the Geneva Convention which outlawed the use of chemical and biological weapons in 1925.

"As early as 1983 the Reagan Administration was already well aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war against Iran. According to U.S. intelligence on an ‘almost daily basis’. But that wasn’t all. There were also intelligence reports the Iraqis were using chemical weapons in the north of their own country, in the battle against the Kurds. But the White House did nothing."


Dr. Stephen Bryen worked to stop the sale of U.S. technology to Iraq.


Dr. Bryen was responsible for ensuring that American technology didn't end up in the wrong hands. He says that by the 1980s, it was obvious that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction using equipment from the West.

"The Iraqis were looking to use the U.S. as they were using Western Europe to acquire equipment and technology for their military forces, and if we’re dumb enough to sell it to them, they were happy enough to take it."

The Sale of Technology to Iraq
Although official U.S. policy prohibited military sales to Iraq, the Commerce and State departments pushed to sell the Iraqis 'dual-use' items which could have both civilian and military purposes like trucks, computers or helicopters.

Richard Murphy, a top State Department official (Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East Bureau) remembers that the pressure to sell was enormous.

"Certainly there was pressure to sell and there was the argument, if the contract doesn’t go to an American you can be darn sure it’s gonna go to a German, British, French manufacturer and trucks were one example. Civilian helicopters were a dicier decision. Could they be turned into the equivalent of an attack helicopter?"


The U.S. approved the sale of helicopters to Iraq which may have been used by the military.


Despite opposition from the Pentagon, the U.S. approved the sale of 100 helicopters to the Iraqis who claimed they would be used as agricultural sprayers. Dr. Bryen says many were transferred to the military, perhaps to be used in chemical attacks.

"You know, we don’t like that, that’s a very dangerous thing, and of course Halabja is a perfect example of what you do with helicopters filled with chemicals."

Then Iraq requested 1.5 million vials of atropine - the antidote for nerve gas - to protect Iraqi soldiers from chemical weapons. The State Department supported the sale even through nobody had nerve gas except the Iraqi army.

Dr. Bryen raised the red flag and Iraq was not allowed to purchase the drugs. But according to documents recently released by the Iraqis themselves, several U.S. companies provided chemical and biological components to Iraq during the 1980s which were used to develop weapons.

Iraq also received billion in loans and credits to purchase American food and goods - more than almost any other country. It left Saddam free to spend his hard currency on more weapons.



The Kurdish city of Halabja was attacked with chemical weapons on March 16, 1988.


Washington's Reaction to the Attack on Halabja
But after the chemical attack on Halabja in 1988 (read more) the truth seemed too sinister to ignore.

Senate staffer Peter Galbraith drafted legislation - the Prevention of Genocide Act - that imposed harsh economic sanctions on the regime. (read more)

Billions in loans and agricultural credits would be cut off. America would no longer purchase Iraqi oil which accounted for one quarter of Iraq's production. And all U.S. exports to Iraq would be suspended.

Although the bill passed through the Senate in only one day the powerful farm and business lobbies warned that the legislation would only punish the Americans trading with Iraq.

When the Bill reached the House of Representatives, the provisions to remove agricultural credits and end bank loans were removed. Eventually the Act was caught up in Congressional bureacracy and died before it was passed. (read more)

Turning a Blind Eye Towards Saddam
Although the U.S. government officially denounced the gassing of the Kurds, it was business like never before with Iraq. After 1988 business with Iraq actually increased. By 1989, Iraq was given American agricultural guarantees worth $1 billion. Iraq was the largest importer of U.S. rice and the 2nd largest participant in the agricultural credit program.



For a decade, the American government turned a blind eye towards the Iraqi government.


Not long afterwards, believing that the U.S. would let him get away with murder again, Saddam Hussein sent his troops into Kuwait to claim the oil rich emirate as an Iraqi province.

Peter Galbraith says that the U.S. seriously under-estimated Saddam Hussein.

"We would not be here today in a 2nd Gulf War against Saddam Hussein if he had understood and if he had been made to understand that his behaviour would have consequences."

 

[Mr.Smith]

you are the craziest person on the planet. you attempt to argue that the USA has not done enough to remove Saddam?

newsflash nutball- we stopped his insane war in 1991. we are going to remove his reign of terror now. we had little support then to remove him and less now. we will anyway because it is right.

you argue the US could have done more to remove saddam? please state other countries that have.please state how this is consistent with your other nutball anti-US and anti-war views.

you are on the losing side in intelligence, factual knowledge and the correctness of the US led action to remove a mass murderer once and for-all.

but you have made your choice. don't try to have it both ways now. the US could have done more? you insult your own intelligence now.

my name is grantt. i hate the us. they are removing saddam thru war, thats wrong. oh and also they should have removed saddam sooner. even though almost no one wants to help them then or now. whatever they do its wrong. everything is their fault, even when they want to remove a mass murderer, i'm against that. also they could have done that sooner although I am also against that and no one else wanted to......but they should have. then again, they are now and thats wrong.......

earth to grantt....earth to grantt.... we have lost your transmission....please come in....

 

What a nut. Name a country that has done more for other countries? Name one.

 

[D2bets]

Well, this isn't totally nuts. Reagan and Bush did support Saddam and his atrocities because it was convenient because of their Common enemy in Iran. But, this doesn't make the current war wrong...or right. It is an important history lesson, as is our support at that time of Ossama's crew. What we have experienced is the ultimate in blowback. And it really shouldn't be ignored, but neither is it an excuse to do nothing. It is however a caution as far as who we should support because of a common enemy and I fear the US has not learned its lesson in this regard.

 

[dickman]

What can I say Grantt, better late then never.