State Dep’t: Halabja’s impact on US policy

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – Speaking at an online discussion to mark the 33rd anniversary of the Iraqi Baathist regime’s use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish city of Halabja, Joey Hood, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, reflected on the lessons learned from that terrible event.

President Joe Biden was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at that time, as Amb. Peter Galbraith, then a Senate staffer, who also spoke at the event, reminded his audience.

Galbraith played a key role in making Americans—and the world—aware of Saddam Hussein’s systematic use of chemical weapons against the Kurds.

Strong US Condemnation of the use of Chemical Weapons: Syria

“The horrors of that day” in Halabja, in which 5,000 people died, “are burned into the very core of America’s policy toward the Middle East,” Hood stated at Tuesday’s event, hosted by the Kurdistan Regional Government Representation in Washington and sponsored by Kurdistan 24.

One of the most direct and immediate consequences of Baghdad’s gas attack on Halabja has been the US position toward the Syrian regime, which has also used chemical weapons against its own people.

“The lessons of Halabja drive our commitment to seeing justice and accountability for the crimes of Saddam’s fellow Baathist in Syria,” Hood said, noting that these days mark the 10th anniversary of the Syrian uprising.

On Monday, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, issued a joint statement along with the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany, and Italy, as well as the British Foreign Secretary, denouncing the Syrian regime, including for its use of chemical weapons, and reaffirming their commitment to UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2254 of 2015, which calls for a political settlement of Syria’s civil war and free and fair elections.

The two Baathist regimes—in Syria and Iraq—have both gassed their own people, while Egypt’s Gamal Abdul Nasser used chemical weapons in Yemen, as he intervened in that country’s civil war in the 1960s.

Human Rights, including Religious Tolerance

Hood also explained that Halabja contributed to Biden’s determination to “put human rights at the core of America’s foreign policy agenda.”

“We’re elevating human rights issues,” Hood stated, “and we’ll defend the right of activists, political dissidents, and journalists around the world to seek to speak their minds freely, without fear of reprisal and violence.”

In that context, Hood acknowledged “the progress accomplished through the courage, the sacrifice, and the bravery of the people of the Kurdistan Region, and so many others throughout Iraq.”

He also hailed the recent visit of Pope Francis, noting that the pontiff had “just celebrated the mass in front of 10,000 faithful at the Francois Hariri stadium in Erbil.”

“I really have to applaud the Kurdistan Regional Government and all the people of Iraq and especially the Iraqi Kurdistan Region for opening their hearts and their doors to not only Pope Francis,” Hood continued, “but the religious and ethnic minorities from across Iraq and Syria who are displaced by ISIS’ genocide.”

Read More: Pope Francis thanks Kurdistan Region for warm welcome

“The Pope’s visit reaffirmed the Iraqi Kurdistan Region as a land of peaceful coexistence—and not just religious tolerance, but religious acceptance,” he stated.

After Galbraith’s work as a Senate staffer during which he uncovered and revealed Saddam’s use of chemical weapons against the Kurds, he went on to become US ambassador to Croatia.

As he spoke about Halabja, Galbraith emphasized that it was “not a unique event.” Rather, it was “part of a campaign that began in 1987.”

Moreover, Saddam’s chemical attacks continued after Halabja. “The last set of attacks took place between August 25 and August 28 in Duhok governorate,” where 49 villages were assaulted, he stated.

Iraq’s use of chemical weapons then, as Galbraith explained, ended only with the Senate passage of the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988, which he was instrumental in crafting and which called for stiff sanctions on the Iraqi regime.

Amb. Fareed Yasseen, Iraq’s representative in Washington since 2016, also participated in the discussion. He began by noting that Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi had, earlier that day, “received a number of members of parliament from Halabja.”

Kadhimi “had visited Halabja before,” Yasseen explained, “and was really marked by it.”

Yasseen also related another way in which Halabja has played an important role on the world stage in restricting the proliferation and use of chemical weapons.

Before becoming Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, Yasseen was Iraq’s ambassador to France, where he hosted an event on the 25th anniversary of the Halabja attack and learned how it had strengthened the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which proscribes just such activity.

That international treaty was negotiated in the late 1980s, in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Its provisions were, as Yasseen related, being debated in Geneva, “when news of Halabja broke.”

“One of the leaders of that process, Amb. Pierre Morel,” told me then that “the news of Halabja, woke them up,” Yasseen said. “They completed the draft of the convention, which now went beyond any previous convention, allowing, for example, for unannounced inspections.”

“They would not have been able to do that, without the impetus given by the shock of seeing the images of Halabja,” he stated.

What is ISIS? Former Iraqi Regime?

Since 9/11, many Americans, and other Westerners, have understood the threat posed by radical Islamic terrorists, including groups like ISIS and al-Qaida, in terms of a simplistic stereotype: one Islamic figure and his extremist followers, devoted to the ideology he espouses.

As Yasseen recounted the crimes of genocide carried out by Saddam’s regime, and then, starting in 2014, by ISIS, as well, he remarked, “There is a direct linkage, in my mind at least, in the ideology of the governance of ISIS, direct linkage to the Baath, sometimes cooperation, and, perhaps, even the same people.”

That, indeed, is the perspective presented in one of the best analyses of ISIS: a report in the German news magazine, Der Spiegel, which is based on captured ISIS documents and is, itself, a leak from German intelligence.

The article, entitled, “Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State,” explains that ISIS was founded, by an Iraqi, Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, in Syria, amid the chaos of its civil war.

Khlifawi, known by his nom de guerre, “Haji Bakr,” was a colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam’s air force. ISIS’ leadership, Der Spiegel explained, consists of figures like him. 

That is similar to the Kurdish view—and senior officials of the Kurdistan Region did not have to wait for documents to be seized and analyzed to reach that conclusion.

In June 2014, as Mosul fell to ISIS, the media advisor to Masoud Barzani, then President of the Kurdistan Region, explained, “We believe that many groups are in cooperation, including the former Ba’ath regime's supporters, former army members, and Ba’ath administrators…Most of the people in the region believe that the organization known as ISIL [ISIS] is actually founded and ruled by the Ba’ath.”

That is similar to what the late governor of Kirkuk, Najmaldin Karim, who headed Kirkuk’s provincial government through the fight against ISIS, told Kurdistan 24 that ISIS is basically a local phenomenon. “99 percent [of ISIS in Kirkuk] are local people from Kirkuk,” Karim said, adding, “We have their pictures, their DNA. They’re all from the area.”

Read More: Najmaldin Karim: Islamic State is resurgent, dominated by locals

Indeed, a decade before ISIS’ sudden emergence, Paul Wolfowitz, outgoing US Deputy Secretary of Defense, spoke with The Atlantic magazine.

“Almost no one says the real problem is that Saddam never surrendered,” Wolfowitz told the highly regarded journal in October 2004.

“And even though he was captured, his people never surrendered,” Wolfowitz continued. “His organization is still operating as though they have a chance to win, and they’re allied with people who want to help them win,” including Islamic extremists.

“But,” as Wolfowitz warned, “if you don’t see who the enemy is and why they’re fighting, you can’t win.”

Editing by John J. Catherine