Talk:Halabja poison gas attack

This is hardly an encyclopedic article

Not yet, but it is a start and it is on a subject we should be covering. --mav

This article is not NPOV at all. And even worse, it tells mostly lies! It is just propaganda! If you want a NPOV article about Halabja (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja), check and translate the french Wiki article.

For what it is worth, here is a translation (mine SCCarlson 04:07 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC), so all disclaimers apply) of the French article, which may be useful for the article:

The term Halabja refers to a battle between Iran and Iraq. It had taken place in the area of Halabja (Iraqi Kurdistan) during the Iran-Iraq war. The two camps have used forbidden combat gas, and the Kurdish civilians, caught between two fires(?) were killed by the gas. In a populattion of 80,000 inhabitants, nearly 7,000 people found their death.

The massacre of Habalja did not raise protests by the international community in March 1988. At the time, it was admitted that the civilians had been killed "collaterally" due to an error in handling the combat gas. Two years later, when the Iran-Iraq War was finished and the Western powers stopped supporting Saddam Hussein, the massacre of Halabja was attributed to the Iraqis.

A classified report by the Army War College showed, in 1990, that this imputation was hardly credible.

The Washington Post on May 4, 1990 summarized it in these terms: "The Iranian assertion of March 20, 1990 according to which most of the victims of Halabja have been poisoned by cyanide has been considered a key element . . . . We know that Iraq did not use cyanide gas. We have a very good knowledge of the chemical agents that the Iraqis produced and used, and we know that none of them were made."

Recently, Stephen C. Pelletiere, a political analyst for Iraq at the CIA during the Iran-Iraq war and then professor at the Army War College who participated in the editing of the report, recalled in the New York Times that the massacre of Halabja was a war crime, probably committed by the Iranian army, and not a crime against humanity commited by the Iraqi army. And, in any case, it is not about the deliberate assassination of civilian populations.

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This whole article is just two quotes! Someone needs to write something - number of casualties, reasons for the attack, etc. I don't know anything about it myself but this is a sad article and probably should just be deleted and started over. Rmhermen 04:35 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Feel free to incorporate the material above I translated from the French article. I don't know enough about the incident to distingish spin from reality in the French article, but maybe you do. SCCarlson 03:37 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

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I have added a lot of info. Most of the important facts were missing from previous article. Also, I have seen no report from an 'extensive investigation' by HRW. Pelletiere's position was misrepresented. He does not say Iran was responsible. All he says is that the DIA concluded that Iran was responsible and that the Bush administration was ignoring it. I added the Rangwala CASI post, which makes the best case for why Iraq was indeed likely responsible, including much detailed information.

The CASI post and army war college report are the two central pieces of information regarding the incident available to the public, and certainly Rangwala's post is invaluable.

Certainly a lot of detailed info can be extraced from Rangwala's CASI post and the Army War College report, both now linked to, and it would probably be helpful. In particular, a detailed discussion of the different conclusions regarding what chemicals were used would probably be helpful. It could also use some cleaning up, specifically linking to other wikipedia articles, but it's new year's eve and I don't really have time right now. Let's try to keep it NPOV :) 24.12.189.24 23:03, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article as it stands appears to be advocating Ringwala's reasoning, which is full of leaps. Also the characterisation of the Bush administration's position as a "prevailing view" seems whiggish in the extreme. The prevailing view appears to be controversy and skepticism, rather than a partisan position. Aminorex 17:24, 03 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This article will not become emotional crap.

The recent edits by "Duncanburrell" excluding every contentious point of the Halabja incident were unacceptable. Its reformatting was terrible, its historicity and critical evaluations razed, and its excellent photograph replaced with one of far less victims, presumably for an "image of one dead kid" effect. Further editing of this article should not be made without discussion on the talk page. I fail to see anything about its current version in need of change. Shem 16:47, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I wrote the 'contentious crap', and I take great objection to the alterations made backwards in this article. I have spent a lot of time dealing with this incident and it certainly is not propaganda. This included a visit to Halabja itself. The assertion that Halabja was purely an accidental massacre during an Iran-Iraq battle has been repeatedly disproven. It contradicts not only a mountain of evidence accumulated by the United Nations, journalists, and various human rights groups, but also the testimony of Stephen Pelletiere, former chief of the CIA's Iraq desk. United Nations reports from 1986, 1987, and 1988 confirm (based in part on reports from Iraqi soldiers who had been taken prisoner) that Iraq used mustard gas and nerve agents on Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war and that these killed a large number of civilians. In 1993, Physicians for Human Rights found evidence of nerve agents in soil samples in the Kurdish village of Birjinni and cited Kurdish eyewitnesses who said that one day in August 1988, they saw Iraqi warplanes drop bombs emitting "a plume of black, then yellowish smoke" and that shortly thereafter villagers "began to have trouble breathing, their eyes watered, their skin blistered, and many vomited—some of whom died. All of these symptoms are consistent with a poison gas attack." The March 24 New Yorker carries a lengthy account by Jeffrey Goldberg of Iraq's systematic gassing of the Kurdish population, based on extensive eyewitness interviews that Goldberg conducted in Halabja and other Kurdish-controlled areas in Northern Iraq. None of those interviewed seem to doubt that it was Saddam Hussein's army that gassed them. The article at http://middleeastreference.org.uk/halabja.html decisively dismisses the theoryu that Iran was responsible for the Halabja attacks. I am afraid that part of the problem with the nature of this incident is that descriptions are scetchy, but neither I, nor Colin Powell when he commemorated the incident at Halabja in September 2003, believe that this was an accident. Can we please alter this article to reflect slightly more the incredibility of sources who claim the whole incident is a hoax, and refrain from linking the incident with anti-american sentiments. Part of the problem is that these Iran rensposibility claims were originally put about by the US at the time, as it was then a major supporter of Saddam's government.

You misread, anon. I called your edits emotional crap, because they remove every contentious point concerning the Halabja incident. The long-standing consensus version of this article does not describe it as an accident, and makes such very clear. You've tried fitting in as many emotive terms as possible into your version, and editing an article because "it is offensive to those that died" (as expressed in your last edit summary) is a blatant NPOV violation. I try to assume good faith when editing, but it seems fairly obvious that you're out create an extremely selective presenation of the Halabja incident.

The article does not paint Halabja as "an accident," nor does it claim Halabja was an "accidental massacre." You are creating a deliberate strawman of an long-standing Wikipedia article, and are greatly misrepresenting the current version's content and context. Your claims to have "been to Halabja" are of no consequence here (this is the internet, you know), and you willingly admit the historical ambiguity of what took place (regardless of what you and Colin Powell supposedly "believe"). Your link is a dubious source, but regardless, the article's consensus version does fully cover that the incident may have well been a Ba'athist action, but also notes the other possibilities and historical context.

I also can't help but note that you continue deleting the article's mention of America's support of Saddam, and poor record when this incident took place. Please cease mass-deletion of this article's content and NPOV editing. Shem 04:02, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Just so I'm clear: I stand that this article is in no need of change whatsoever, in its current form, and has been an excellent piece of Wikipedia consensus for well over six months. It is your burden, anon, to explain why this article needs revision (or as you've become fond of, half-deletion). Shem 04:12, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are several reasons why I think this 'entry' is inaccurate and biased I shall list them below. Frankly the fact that it has existed unaltered for 6 months just shows the incompetence of certain aspects on the wikipedia site. As for calling my sources dubious, somehow implying that other sources are much more reliable I'm sorry it's just laughable. Yes I will admit to ambiguity but not ambiguity to the extent that I can concede that it was a US ploy (by the way HRW has not extensively investigated Halabja, they are closely linked to the US government and warded off of doing so). 1) All credible accounts site Iraq as responsible it is a conspiracy theory to site Iran's responability. 2) As I have previously stated both Iran and Iraq received economic and military assistance from the United States. This factor has little to do with who was responsible for lobbing chemical weapons at the Kurds. 3)Yes the US state dept did originally blame Iran. It was a tragic mistake, and one that Colin Powell, in fact most secretaries of state since have sought to distance themselves from. 4)Mr Pelletiere is one of a series of gentlemen to make an awful lot of money of of denying official positions (see Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf). You will no doubt have read his New York Times article in which he postulates what you have stated. The CIA has made terrible mistakes in the past, indeed they may even have assisted in supplying the poisons to Saddam, but I'm afraid your suggestion that Mr Pelletiere's position is the position of the CIA is quite quite wrong. Your account is, in fact, very similar to one put forward by al-Jazeera in which they say "It is a fact that key Kurdish leaders aided by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad have used wide network of public relation companies and media outlets in the west to manipulate and twist the truth of what happened in Kurdish Halabja in 1988 in favour of the political Kurdish parties", this is not fact this is gerrymandering the information to suit your own interpretation. Interviews by International Human Rights Groups (this does include HRW here) with scores of Halabja survivors reveal no such confusions about who deployed the weapons several referred to aircraft flying "low enough for their markings to be legible". The DIA report did indeed refer to the fact that Iraq deployed HCN, Sarin, Tabun, VX and afloxin in previous attacks on Iranian forces. The report you site is in fact onw taken by Mr Pelletiere to proove his point. The conclusion of the final DIA Halabja report stated that "the far more plausible story is that Halabja was part of a concerted effort to settle the Kurdish problem once and for all, and to deal a punishing blow for their support of Iranian forces" (Oct 24th 1988) 5)To suggest that the 'Campaign against Sanctions' is a complete and extensive source, is , I'm afraid once again laughable. Their title says it all. Mr Rangwala is welcome to his theories, but this is not a credible source. There is little or no evidence to support the theory postulated here in conclusion that Halabja was an attack on Iranian Forces, or that it was an attack by Iranian forces. Quite contrary to the dismissal of the source I directed people towards. The American record on Halabja may be, as many sources have suggested shameful, but this is not an excuse for a category of false accusations in a summary of Halabja. Quite contrary to the beliefs expressed above it is also, I believe, quite essential that the grizzly reality of this event be properly represented on this site. I am deeply concerned at the fact that I have found quotes from this site used to justify dismissal of Halabja on other websites. The biggest problem with Pelletiere's argument is that Saddam went on to kill another 100,000 Kurds even well after the war was over, and he did use chemical weapons in a lesser scale then also. It is quite inconceivable to suggest that the denizens of the countless villages which Saddam's forces killed and razed, were all involved with the Iranian military. By rights extrapelating from that evidence it is, surely, wholey reasonable to suggest that he did it thereafter again and again and again, so why deny he carried out the actions he did at Halabja?

Anonymous, you talk loads, and link very, very little. That you have again moved (without discussion) to remove contentious points from this article, especially points concerning America with an excuse like "America has nothing to do with why someone lobbed weapons at the Kurds," is extremely poor editing. Also, why don't you register for and edit under an account, so we can keep track of contributions should this article's editing become too disputed? Shem 05:11, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have made my points quite clear above I did not write "lobbing" into the main article. Frankly registering for an account seems to me to be a way so that certain individuals can control what they want to appear on the site - defeats the point of wikipedia doesn't it? The editing is already disputed I question at least half the content on the page you have just reinserted, you may use a lot of sources but their credibility is more than dubious. If this article stays as it is it will need a 'disputed article' comment like for the Bush article. Proudly Annonymous

This remains an inaccurate and unbalance account of the events at Halabja. It is too scathing about the position which says that it was a deliberate attack by Saddam's forces as part of a concerted effort to reduce the Kurdish population, for which there is much evidence, and which is supported by most Western governments, and dwells far too much on reports from the angry former official Stepehn Pelletiere, the Campaign Against Sanctions, whose connections with Saddam's regime have been questioned (Mr Rangwala completed a degree on political and legal rhetoric in the Middle East, has strong ties with various Palestinian organisations, and wrote a book entitled Iraq and Nuclear weapons, I think therefore he cannot be relied upon as an unbiased source). The DIA assesment quoted is not the final appraisal of the siyuation, it was never the definite CIA stance or verdict, certainly the statement does not reflect current thinking in the CIA. Finally the conclusion to this article is not one most analysts would currently draw from any of the evidence currently available in its total dismissal of the oposing viewpoint. If this article cannot be made more balanced or accusatory it should not be here at all.

For your reference there follows an official account by the HRW of the Halabja incident (available at http://hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFAL3.htm, which although it admits there was an ongoing confrontation between Iran and Iraq at the time is quite explicit: The Iraqi counterattack began in the mid-morning of March 16, with conventional airstrikes and artillery shelling from the town of Sayed Sadeq to the north. Most families in Halabja had built primitive air-raid shelters near their homes. Some crowded into these, others into the government shelters, following the standard air-raid drills they had been taught since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980. The first wave of air strikes appears to have included the use of napalm or phosphorus. "It was different from the other bombs," according to one witness. "There was a huge sound, a huge flame and it had very destructive ability. If you touched one part of your body that had been burned, your hand burned also. It caused things to catch fire." The raids continued unabated for several hours. "It was not just one raid, so you could stop and breathe before another raid started. It was just continuous planes, coming and coming. Six planes would finish and another six would come."28

Those outside in the streets could see clearly that these were Iraqi, not Iranian aircraft, since they flew low enough for their markings to be legible. In the afternoon, at about 3:00, those who remained in the shelters became aware of an unusual smell. Like the villagers in the Balisan Valley the previous spring, they compared it most often to sweet apples, or to perfume, or cucumbers, although one man says that it smelled "very bad, like snake poison." No one needed to be told what the smell was.

This article does not properly reflect this account of events

This so-called "Article" is nothing but Baathist propaganda.

For god's sake, has somebody been reading David Irving's holocaust denial strategy notes?

Trying to shift the blame for Chemical Ali's attack on the unarmed civilians of Halabja, is a vicious affront to the people of Kurdistan. Whoever wrote this tripe should be ashamed of himself.

Because turning it into a piece of American propaganda is so much better, and milking the plight of the Kurds (which American ultimately aided) as pro-invasion tokenism isn't shameful. Spare us the false outrage (plus invoking Hitler and the holocaust, how original!), and don't count on that NPOV tag going anywhere so long as you anonymous revisionists are coming out of the woodwork.

And yes, "incident" is the correct term. Your inflammatory rhetoric won't be conducive to any constructive editing on this article, nor will I assume (or edit in) good faith with anon's so willing to throw David Irving's name at those not sharing their blatantly deliberate editing agenda.

" Iranian forces, pro-Iranian Kurdish forces and Halabja's citizens"

That's all three listed, anonymous kids. Any attempt to remove mention of either Iranian forces or the pro-Iranian Kurds will be reverted.

this article is pure baathi propaganda. the halabja INCIDENT??? excuse me??? shall we talk also about the september 11th INCIDENT??? I wonder what the americans would think... for your info there was no iranian forces in halabja, and the peshmergas had fled to the mountains LONG BEFORE the attack even happened. qualifying of this as "incident" is highly offensive. I'm removing this word and if you revert it I will revert it back. I suggest you try to understand the words NPOV don't mean NEGATIONNISM of a genocide RECOGNIZED BY INTERNATIONAL LAWS. I'm also removing stephen pelletiere's link as he is a NEGATIONNIST and this crime is punishable by law.

- Kassem 19:36, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

You are deliberately violating NPOV in this article, Kassem. And yes, it is an incident, but the article is titled attack. Your heated rhetoric and casual invocation of September 11th will not carry weight when editing.