By Faramarz Kouhpayeh
TEHRAN – On March 16, 1988, the town of Halabja in northern Iraq experienced unspeakable horror. It was the day Saddam Hussein unleashed the deadliest chemical attack in history against his own people—a crime born out of the brutal Iran-Iraq War; a conflict fueled with Western support.
Subsequently, numerous Western companies faced charges in various courts for supplying the Ba'athist regime with the lethal agents used in the brutal campaign.
At the time, the town was controlled by fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), who had allied themselves with Iran against Saddam’s Ba’athist regime. Consequently, the attacking regime framed the event as a conventional assault targeting pro-Iranian insurgents.
A subsequent United Nations investigation concluded that mustard gas and other, as yet unidentified, nerve agents had been deployed against the civilian population. The United States Defense Intelligence Agency initially attributed the attack to Iran, in support of their ally in Baghdad. However, mounting evidence later revealed that Iraq had used chemical weapons to reinforce a military offensive against Iran, rival Kurdish fighters, and the civilian population of Halabja.
On June 20, 2010, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal in Baghdad recognized the chemical bombardment of Halabja as an act of genocide, rather than merely a crime against humanity. Ali Hussein Majid, Saddam's defense minister, infamously known as ‘Chemical Ali', and others were convicted of ordering and orchestrating the gas attack, which resulted in the deaths of over 5,000 civilians and injuries to approximately 10,000 more.
Kurdish historians contend that the Arab League convened a meeting a week after the tragedy but deliberately ignored the event, possibly due to fear of reprisals from the Saddam regime and its Western backers.
Western companies' role in the genocide
After the tragedy, especially after the Saddam regime was overthrown, tribunals were held in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in which Western companies were discovered to have played a central role in making the genocide campaign possible.
It was clear that Saddam Hussein ordered the genocide, but he did not do it alone. Saddam had the knowing consent and willing assistance of hundreds of some of Europe’s largest corporations, some of whom knowingly chose to profit off the murder and prolonged suffering of innocent children and families. The Iraqi Ba’ath regime in fact, acquired the capability to produce gas and chemical bombs with the help of Western countries.
The TUI AG, a German multinational entity, was one of those European companies. The other German company that was involved in supplying the Ba’athist regime was Karl Kolb GmbH & Co. KG Scientific Technical Supplies. The other company that made money from the genocide was the German Heberger Bau A.G..
There were other corporations from France, the Netherlands, Canada, the Soviet Union, the United States and some other Western states who were involved in providing the highest concentration of lethal substances ever used against a civilian population.
Western states’ double standards
Several researches have shown that Iran was attacked 387 times with chemical bombs, missiles, and artillery shells during the 1980-88 Iraqi Imposed War. More than 1,000 tons of sulfur mustard gas were used by the Ba’athist regime against the Iranian troops and unarmed people. On 28 June 1987, Iraqi warplanes dropped mustard gas bombs on rural areas in Iran’s Sardasht County in West Azerbaijan Province. In two separate bombing runs on four residential areas, 130 people were killed and as many as 8,000 were injured.
It was Iran that played a major role in bringing the tragedy into the spotlight. Iranian troops from across the border went to Halabja to assist the civilians there. The video footage and pictures that still exist of the massacre, which were handed over to the courts, were all taken by journalists that were accompanying the Iranian troops who rushed to help the suffering civilians on the other side of the border.
Islamic Republic of Iran also played a major role in compiling evidence on the genocide and also warning the world to the danger of the chemical weapons. Iran also contributed to the signing of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention which prohibits the use of chemical weapons, and the large-scale development, production, stockpiling, or transfer of chemical weapons or their precursors.
As a main victim of Saddam regime’s chemical bombardment during the Imposed War, Iran has constantly criticized Western governments for their duplicity on dealing with weapons of mass destruction.
Western states disgracefully targeted impoverished Iraqi nation with huge sanctions after Saddam regime’s invasion of Kuwait, which took place after receiving their tacit approval. The United States and its allies starved out the people of Iraq for about 13 years before toppling the Saddam regime in 2003 and occupying the country.
The same Western states have shamelessly imposed inhuman sanctions on the Iranian nation based on allegations of human rights violations and also for its peaceful nuclear program as well as defensive missiles.
Moreover, Western states, most notably Germany and France, have sheltered anti-Iran notorious terrorist organizations such as People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran also known as MKO or MEK that have the blood of thousands of innocent Iranians on their hands.
It is also worth mentioning that the United States and its western allies have disgracefully targeted the livelihood and health of the ordinary Iranian people by their sanctions on medicine and food despite all their claims on advocating human rights.
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