Memos show Saddam authorized “special ammunition” against Kurds
posted at 5:40 pm on December 18, 2006 by Allahpundit
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The chief prosecutor in Saddam Hussein’s trial presented memos Monday from the ousted president’s office approving chemical attacks against Kurdish villages, the most serious evidence against him in his genocide trial.
Munqith al-Faroon showed the Iraqi court trying Saddam and six other former regime members about 25 documents, including some presidential letters instructing the army to use “special ammunition” — identified as “mustard gas” — to quell a Kurdish rebellion in 1987. Some of the documents bore Saddam’s signature, al-Faroon said…
“Any strike whether it was by special ammunition — chemical as (the prosecutor) interpreted or conventional — and (claims) by any military or civil official who said Saddam Hussein ordered us to do so, I take the responsibility with honor, whether the order came from me or not,” Saddam told the court.
He admitted that he was not tolerant of “dissidents,” including Kurdish rebels, but insisted that he did not target women and children.
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That picture needs a content warning.
pullingmyhairout on December 18, 2006 at 5:48 PM
This is not going to help one bit with the haters. We have always known Sadam had and used WMD but the MSM truth is Bush lied.
RC2 on December 18, 2006 at 5:51 PM
Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us that have recourse unto thee.
That picture gets me every time..
Lonevoice on December 18, 2006 at 5:52 PM
Hardly. Every liberal should look at those photos everyday until their brain develops it’s self-defense mechanism.
Griz on December 18, 2006 at 5:52 PM
But you know they libs will say it was pre-1991 and thus it doesn’t count.
Iblis on December 18, 2006 at 5:53 PM
Damn Karl Rove and his chemical factory.
right2bright on December 18, 2006 at 6:05 PM
“This is not going to help one bit with the haters. We have always known Sadam had and used WMD but the MSM truth is Bush lied.”
We keep seeing more than ample proof that it is the MSM and the Left who lie,cheat,steal and destroy with impunity, and yet they keep repeating that old poppycock.
bbz123 on December 18, 2006 at 6:16 PM
The truth has no effect on a liberal’s mind.
Gregor on December 18, 2006 at 6:42 PM
The “Duh” factor is revealed once again, and just as before, it has no impact on the so-called Liberal “mind”.
CliffHanger on December 18, 2006 at 6:58 PM
Aside from the fact that the Dems spent 13 years leading up to the war making the case, that Clinton a month after making regime change our policy, attacked Iraq with as strong if not stronger language than Bush used, and the pile of evidence indicating RECENT WMDs were moved to/through Syria….
We know we already found the stuff! Remember the 500 “old” weapons? Let me tell you something about that “old” stuff. I don’t care how usable it was, it was a smoking gun in and of itself. How? Wasn’t he breaking resolution after resolution, wasn’t he given a final chance to “disarm or disclose“. The fact that we found this stuff, some time after we entered the country, is proof he was NOT DISCLOSING! Perhaps everyone already understand that, but I rarely see it framed this way.
Consider one other thing – don’t you think he’d have worked even harder to had the “good” stuff? We KNOW that he never thought we’d take the entire country and that he’d be overthrown. He believed he was going to still be around, he knew that the international community had bitched out, so he wasn’t going to make himself the bad guy by using the good stuff.
Now we have documents showing he was hiding Russian and Turkish scientists from the most recent UN inspectors, satellite photos of truck convoys crossing the border, Rockefeller bragging in 2005 that he took a trip to the region in Jan. 2002 (over a year before the war) telling all regional leaders that he thought Bush was determined to go to war, reports of Russian military vehicles moving the WMDs to Syria, former generals saying they were taken to Syria, and of course the barely ever mentioned David Gaubatz. While that’s an older article, Gaubatz certainly hasn’t given up his fight, but there is absolutely NO media coverage for this guy. If I can find the time I’ll probably write a post about his ongoing efforts.
RightWinged on December 18, 2006 at 8:02 PM
(spam filter?)
RightWinged on December 18, 2006 at 8:02 PM
But, but…Iraq was better off under Saddam!
Actually, Flopping Ace just did a post on the media and the left disinterest in Saddam’s brutal regime:
In a pathetically small quip of an AP report that seems only a Joo paper had interest in picking up:
Topsecretk9 on December 18, 2006 at 8:12 PM
Suggested reading for HotAirheads – “Saddam’s Secrets” by General Georges Sada.
Tony737 on December 18, 2006 at 9:22 PM
No, it does not. This should be in every college textbook. Maybe then they will know what real evil is instead of idiotically attributing it to George Bush. Then again, the koolaid is extra strong on our campuses.
jman on December 18, 2006 at 9:31 PM
But… The Kurds weren’t killed by the US, UK, Israel, or even New Iraq. Therefore there’s nothing to be gained from looking at the pictures.
Move along, nothing to see here.
The Monster on December 18, 2006 at 10:00 PM
Too little too late. Muslim extremists are a moot point until they appear on our door-steps.
We must now attend to the planning of Queen Nancy’s coronation.
Scotsman on December 18, 2006 at 10:49 PM
That is one of the most egregiously dishonest comments I have read on this site.
NOONE has suggested that Saddam Hussein did not use or did not ever possess significant stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
In fact, the trail of evidence documents the Reagan and Bush I administrations as Saddam enablers through the continued material and logistical support of Saddam’s biological, chemical, conventional and nuclear weapons programs, including direct authorisation for the export of dual-use technologies and countless billions in monetary support, all during a lengthy period of international condemnation against Iraq for the regular and repeated use of chemical and biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war and civillian uprisings.
Interesting that a photo from the Halabja massacre has been used to highlight the illogical conclusion of “We found the WMDs” and the “real evil” of Saddam… The Reagan/Bush administration blamed the incident on the Iranians whilst Secretary of State George Schultz argued that Kurdish refugees in Turkey did not support allegations of chemical and biological weapons by Saddam.
Funny how times change.
Flip, flop.
The (mostly) Liberal response to these photos was the Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988, but Reagan and House Republicans ultimately thought that doing business with Saddam was far more important than punishing him and the bill subsequently disappeared after being unanimously passed by the Senate.
MKR on December 19, 2006 at 4:18 AM
The picture is not meant as evidence that we found WMDs. It is meant to highlight the fact that Saddam used them. The fact that he did demonstrates that he is evil, which is not illogical. Saddam ordered they be used – not Reagan/Bush.
If you want to make the assertion that Reagan/Bush are also responsible because they gave “direct authorisation for the export of dual-use technologies and countless billions in monetary support” then you would have to acknowledge that Clinton is responsible for the problem of North Korea, as it was his administration did the same exact thing in Korea.
The difference is that the republican administion joined forces (with the lesser of two evils at the time) against a common enemy (the Soviets were on Irans side), the Clinton administration tried to appease North Korea.
jman on December 19, 2006 at 8:44 AM
The conclusion exists as the opening and only original sentence in this article other than the headline.
The photo has been selected to dispute the final paragraph of the quoted article, in which Saddam states that he did not target women and children.
The problem with selecting an image from Halabja, though, and as stated in my original comment, is that the Reagan/Bush I administration blamed the Iranians at the time and downplayed assertions in the international forum that Saddam was responsible.
I’m not knowledgable in that area, but if your assertion is correct then I absolutely agree with you. I’m no Clinton supporter, so the attempted diversion wasn’t really necessary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_contra
MKR on December 19, 2006 at 9:39 AM
Touche! Good point on the Iran-Contra Affair. I thing we can both agree with certainly, that appeasement has not worked in the past and it will not work now.
jman on December 19, 2006 at 10:52 AM
it was built before the kuwait invasion and the treaties were signed, so according to the left “it doesn’t count”.
One Angry Christian on December 19, 2006 at 2:02 PM
This is the picture that really hit home to me. I don’t understand how people can deny that Saddam had wmd (it has nothing to do with finding them..He USED them against his own people..what will he do if he gets worse stuff?). He needed to be taken out plain and simple..period end of story. Anyone who does not think so should take a trip to the kurds and look them in the eye and tell them Saddam should have remained in power.
It’s like people seeing the pictures of the holocaust and denying that it happened. Saddam’s WMD usage was horrible and his ditches that he shot people and they fell in are abundant. He killed hundreds of THOUSANDS of people! If we had only stepped in sooner against the holocaust, we could have kept it to a few hundred thousand instead of 6 million.
The WMD and the voices against the necessity of the removal of Saddam stun me every time I hear them and people try to reduce the argument down to ..well we just didn’t find them…WHAT????? and that has to do with what with the price of beans in china? I’ve made it a point to not have friends like that among my circle it is that big of a deal to me.
Highrise on December 19, 2006 at 3:46 PM
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