gainst America. They just wanted U.S. soldiers to "go get that evil mad-man" and if a few hundred thousand innocent Iraqi's die in the process. . . so what?

The book Saddam Hussein gives more information on the media lies about Hussein "gassing his own people", whatever the hell that means. The people in Iraq aren't 'his', anymore than Americans are the U.S. Government's people. Not me, anyway. How about you?

Here's what Nita Renfrew, the author of Saddam Hussein (.pdf format) tells us:

"In March 1988, the Iranians managed to take the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja, near the border. Some of the fiercest fighting of the war ensued in Iraq's effort to retake it, and Halabja became the site of one of the greatest tragedies of the war. After the fighting stopped, with Iran still in possession of the town, the international press was invited in. Hundreds of people lay dead in the streets, many of them Kurdish women clutching their dead babies, their dark blue lips indicating that they were victims of cyanide gas.

The Iranians condemned Saddam for gassing his own people, and the Kurdish rebels quickly joined in the condemnation, but Saddam denied the charges.

The Pentagon later issued a report that said that although both sides used chemical weapons at Halabja, each apparently believing they were targeting enemy positions, there was no evidence that it was the Iraqis who gassed the Kurds. In fact, Iraq was not believed to have cyanide gas, whereas, it was known that Iran did.

The mayor of Halabja also said he believed it was the Iranians who gassed the Kurds. Although the Pentagon's findings on the Halabja massacre were reported by the Washington Post, they went largely unnoticed by most Americans. Instead, most U.S. media used the Halabja incident as definite proof that Saddam was a mass murderer.

Later, there was another incident in which the Kurds claimed that Saddam had used chemical weapons. A UN inspection team, however, found bad burns but no evidence of gas."

We're inundated about the terrible 'human rights' violations committed by Saddam Hussein, and people repeat the accusations like good little parrots. Until I read the book, Saddam Hussein, I was not aware that the Kurds rejected an opportunity to form their own government. Here's an excerpt on that:

"In 1970, Saddam proposed a plan for Kurdish autonomy, meant to take effect as law in March 1974. The plan included provisions for the administration of Kurdish territory to pass into Kurdish hands and for a Kurdish parliament to be elected.

Also, Iraq would have a mandatory Kurdish vice-president. Unlike Turkey and Iran, where the Kurds have not been allowed to speak their own language, Iraq ensured that Kurdish would be the first language in the local kurdish government, schools, and universities.

However, at the instigation of the shah of Iran, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, the U.S. government agency that conducts most international covert activities), and Israel, the Kurds rejected the terms and unleashed a bloody civil war. Within a year there were 60,000 casualties, among them 16,000 Iraqi soldiers."

Now, you'll want to read what a CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, has to say about the media lies that "Saddam gassed his own people". I'm tired of the lies. Aren't you?

-- Jackie --

March 23rd, 2003