“No wounds, no blood, no traces of explosions can be found on the bodies - scores of men, women and children, livestock and pet animals - that litter the flat-topped dwellings and crude earthen streets in this remote and neglected Kurdish town...”
“The skin of the bodies is strangely discolored, with their eyes open and staring where they have not disappeared into their sockts, a grayish slime oozing from their mouths and their fingers still grotesquely twisted.”
“Death seemingly caught them almost unawares in the midst of their household chores. They had just the strength, some of them, to make it to the doorways of their homes, only to collapse there a few feet beyond. Here a mother seems to clasp her children in a last embrace, there an old man shields an infant from he cannot have known what...”
"It is hard to conceive of any explanation for the chemical bombardment of Halabja other than the one which Iranians and Kurds offer - revenge...”
"As artillery continues to rumble round the hills, Halabja stands silent and deserted except for what they can find and a dazed old man, absent during the bombing, who has come back in search of his family..."
The Kurds have claimed for a number of months, perhaps over a year, that Iraq has been using chemical agents against them. But this latest occasion seems to be the first really documented case that we have where chemical agents have been used.
Iraq has used chemical agents against Iran on a very large scale for three years now. And although the west and other countries have been condemnatory about that use, the country (Iraq) still felt secure enough to use chemical agents. They have used them because these agents are very effective against and opposition that has no protection and until such time as there is perhaps an end to war war, or sufficient sanctions against Iraq to persuade it not to use chemical agents, I'm afraid they will continue to use them or so it seems.
“The United Nations have had three investigations into the use of chemical warfare agnets in the Iraq-Iran war and they have said unequivocally on all three occasions that Iraq has used chemical warfare agents. They have said that mustard gas was certainly used on all three occasions, that is in 1984, 1986anti 1987. and they have also said that they have evidenced that a nerve agent, tabun, was also used. The investigation was carried by a well qualified team, so l have no doubt in my mind that they have been used.”
