Comment...

Who is responsible for the deaths of Iraqi civilians?

Perhaps we should start with a "declaration of interest":

It should be said at the outset that our only "vested interest" is in opposing Bush's plans for a war on Iraq. This does not imply that we are particularly sympathetic to the regime of Saddam Hussein, but rather that we do not accept that war is an appropriate response to his regime, or indeed an appropriate response to any situation.
If humanity is to develop beyond the tribal mentality then we have to cultivate responses that are not centred in acts of aggression and violence. Unless we can manage to do this we shall never progress beyond the tribal mentality and, with increasing populations and increasing globalisation such a primitive approach can only exacerbate situations that are already fraught with difficulties.

Thus, we hold no brief for Iraq, and have no particular need to establish its innocence in preference to its guilt in regard to the events at Halabjah.

As much as one is able to predict the future, it can be said with some certainty that, should Bush get his way and wage war on Iraq, and should there be a successful outcome to that engagement for Bush, then at some point thereafter he will almost certainly turn his expansionist ambitions toward Iran. Were Iran to be found to have been guilty of the killings at Halabjah, then Bush will merely use that against them when their time comes.

So, from the point of view of the anti-war movement, nothing is to be gained from attributing blame to either Iran or Iraq.
Our purposes would best be served by demonstrating that the evidence is flawed in some way and that, we believe, can be done without too much difficulty at all. In fact, it has virtually been done for us already.

To proceed then...

For ease of reference we shall hereafter refer to Raju Thomas' account as "Version 1", and Glen Rangwala's account as "Version 2".

Central to the whole issue, and contrary to what might be inferred from a superficial reading, neither account actually attributes blame!
Version 1 proposes a scenario in which the Iranian forces may have been the guilty party. On careful reading it will be seen that it does no more than that.
Version 2, on the other hand (and by far a more satisfactory account in terms of technical detail), suggests the probability that the guilt lay with the Iraqi forces.

It has to be said that, on the basis of the evidence so far presented, Iraq certainly seems to be the more probable culprit.

However, let us remind ourselves of the stakes here. The Halabjah incident has been repeatedly used to bolster the accusations of President Hussein's inhumanity, and as testimony to his preparedness to wage horrendous chemical warfare upon vast numbers of people.
Such rhetoric has clearly been intended to help cultivate the sort of mind-set necessary for peace-loving peoples to sanction extreme military engagements. It has in fact become one of the principal "props" of the entire pro-war effort.

Given how so much else accrues therefrom, were one dealing with men of principle then one would expect, nay demand, that the evidence for such a central argument is unimpeachable — is, in a word, irrefutable.
And this is one of the main problems. For so many elements of the evidence are, in effect, circumstantial. The strongest case that can be made is one of probability. And, when so many more hundreds, if not thousands, of lives may hang in the balance on the strength of decisions informed by this allegation, then probability is simply not good enough.

One of the problems we face is in the matter of the bodies. Version 1 tells us:

"To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds — in Turkey where they had gone for asylum — failed to discover any. Nor were there any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

Whilst we wouldn't seek to belittle the Kurds through questioning the veracity of the testimony they gave, lets not overlook that this testimony was apparently taken by "staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee".

The taking of testimony is a skill in itself. It is simply too easy for testimony to be distorted, not by the witnesses but by the interviewers, even if only using such rudimentary techniques as "right" answers being implicit within the questions asked, being "selective" in the specific questions asked, and reformulating the answers in the absence of the witnesses.

And, given the doubts that are raised by subsequent features of both accounts, the integrity of the interviewers cannot be taken for granted.
For the testimony to be regarded as fully acceptable, much more information about it is needed than is offered by either Version.

Version 2, notwithstanding its more comprehensive technical detail, is no less frustrating:

"The sole evidential material provided is that the photos of Kurdish victims showed blue discoloration of extremities, and this was an indication of use of..."

In the matter of these photos, Version 1 tells us:

"Note it was the Iranians who arrived at the scene first, who reported the incident to U.N. observers, and who took pictures of the gassed Kurdish civilians."

And then goes on to say:

"Photographs of the Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemical weapons in this operation..."

Are these three excerpts talking about the same set of photos? If so, then we have a problem straight away, for the "chain of custody" is questionable.
And if not, then precisely how many different sets of photos are in existence, where do they come from, and what are their respective "chains of custody"?

In possible substantiation of this evidence, Version 2 reveals:

"By contrast, the presence of cyanide which Dr Johnson claims (but is still disputed; the claim stems primarily from Iranian autopsies on victims I believe, but are not independently confirmed)..."

Were these autopsies conducted on victims of the Halabjah events, or of some other incident? The account does not make this very clear.
And if they were upon the victims of the Halabjah events then, to say the least, such findings have to be regarded with extreme circumspection.

It is the nature of all this "evidence" that's one of the main problems. This entire line of reasoning has to be abandoned until the answers to certain critical questions have been obtained:
Were any bodies satisfactorily established to have been victims of the Halabjah events found?
If so, how many, where, and under what circumstances?
Have any mass graves been identified and exhumed?
Have any autopsies been performed by independent, qualified, and competent persons (i.e., other than those performed by the Iranians who, given the circumstances at the time, can hardly be regarded as independent and unbiased)?
Where do the figures referring to the number of casualties originally come from?
Is there any independent evidence to support or verify those figures?

Unless and until satisfactory answers can be provided to all these questions, the entire matter must remain one of hearsay alone. That is not sufficient to pursue any discussion along these lines further.
Thus, no definitive judgment upon the matter can be formulated, and the entire matter should necessarily be held in abeyance until such time as the allegations can be supported by more concrete evidence.

Consequently, under no circumstances should or can the alleged events at Halabjah be used as supportive material for accusations against the nature of either the Iraqi regime or the Iranian regime at the time of the alleged events.

In other words, in the absence of such evidence we don't even know that the alleged events actually occurred. It may all have been disinformation carefully crafted by the American administration of the time. We simply don't know.

Our assessment of the matter does not rest there though, for this matter of disinformation introduces another feature that is at least common to both Versions. In Version 1 we read:

"This USAWC study was released in the summer of 1990 before Iraq invaded Kuwait, when the US was anti-Iranian and even somewhat pro-Iraqi. The report would have substantiated the evils of the Iranian regime of Ayatollah Khomeini. Suddenly, however, Saddam Hussain's Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait in August and the truth of the Halabjah incident became inconvenient. I asked Professor Pelletiere in March 1991, when he thought their findings would come out. I recall him telling me that it would probably take about 5 years after emotions over the Gulf War crisis died down.

However, the USAWC report of 1990 has been dispatched into oblivion. The propaganda that Iraqis gassed their own Kurdish civilians is constantly invoked by the media. It was reactivated by President Clinton in December 1998 to justify the further bombing and destruction of Iraq. The Halabjah incident is one of the reasons being proposed now by President Bush for conducting a full-scale American military assault on Iraq."

In Version 2 we read:

"The source for most of these "exposes" of Halabja was a report entitled 'Iraqi power and US security in the Middle East' by Stephen Pelletiere (trained in politics, also claims Iran was behind the 1991 intifada in Southern Iraq), ret. Colonel Douglas V. Johnson (trained in strategic studies) and Leif Rosenberger (trained in economics). It was published by the US Army War College — not usually a source that campaigners take as providing the gospel truth."

And again, later:

"So why did these authors take this line? Well, the focus of their study is not on Halabja, human rights in Iraq or international welfare, but is indicated by the title of the study, "US security in the Middle East".
Straight after making their claim on Halabja, the authors detail what they mean by "US security in the Middle East":

"As a result of the outcome of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq is now the most powerful state in the Persian Gulf, an area in which we have vital interests. To maintain an uninterrupted flow of oil from the Gulf to the West, we need to develop good working relations with all of the Gulf states, and particularly with Iraq, the strongest." (p.53)

This is two sentences after their take on Halabja. Human rights organisations' attempts to penalise Iraq are "without sufficient thought for the adverse diplomatic effects" (p.53). Again, p.57: "under pressure from the Iraqis, all the Arab states of the Gulf — with the possible exception of Oman — would tacitly support a move to withdraw US privilieges in the Gulf" — and so Iraq needs to be kept on side, lest "US privileges" be withdrawn."

The foregoing excerpts indicate quite clearly that the veracity of American sources of information in matters of foreign policy is, or was, questionable.

And this is the most damning indictment of all to emerge from the entire unfortunate episode!

For if American sources could not be trusted for their honesty and integrity then (and virtually by their own admission they couldn't), what reason do we have to suppose they can be trusted now?

Its really all a question of credibility. Once credibility has been eroded then tremendous efforts at total transparency are required before such credibility can be reinstated. And such transparency has simply not occurred, at least, not under the present American administration.

Conclusions

We can do little other but conclude that no definitive statement is possible concerning the events that are alleged to have occurred at Halabjah.
If the events occurred then clearly someone was responsible. But the case against either Iraq or Iran remains unproven. It could just as easily have been another party entirely.
In the absence of such a definitive statement any reference to those alleged events in support of accusations against either the Iraqi or the Iranian regimes must be inadmissible, and regarded as seeking to foster prejudice.

[Note: As we are seeking to bring rationality and reason to bear on the whole matter of Bush's intentions to wage war on Iraq we are of necessity concerned to dispel much of the rhetoric that has accompanied the issue. We have no interest in the suppression of information, from either side. Consequently, should any additional information enter our possession that would cause us to substantially modify our conclusions about this matter, then the present Assessment will be revised accordingly, and a notice to that effect posted to our email lists.]