Mass Graves and gassing his own people

[info being]

OK, I need help debunking. I know people don't like doing this, but I've been asked by a swing-voter coworker for information about Saddam gassing his own people and, specifically, the "Mass Graves" that John McCain is supposedly talking about.

We typically brush stuff aside, but there has to be a fine-line between standing up for Saddam and putting this all into perspective. Are there any good and "credible" sources I can point my friend to for proof?

[prodigal_green]

1. No need to stand up for Saddam, just remind this person

that we sold Saddam the gas and the mass graves were a result of Bush I not backing them up after encouraging them to rise up against their leader. This does not excuse Saddam, but we are highly culpable as well.

on edit: Republican policy toward Saddam Hussein has to be the deadliest flip-flop of all time.

[MissMarple]

2. "...the deadliest flip flop of all time." Priceless.

That deserves some airtime.

"Republican policy toward Saddam Hussein has to be the deadliest flip-flop of all time."

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Exactly, he was "our guy" and we were his enabler back then.

Where was the outrage for the past 15 years?

Then again.....

US Army War College: NO PROOF SADDAM GASSED THE KURDS!

Memo to Jess Helms from InfoTimes. Note excerpt from US Army War College report that no evidence exists to support US claims that Iraq used gas on the Kurds.

Link: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/helms.html

[info being]

6. Tried that. He doesn't believe me and I can't find good links

I'll keep looking. When did John McCain visit Iraq and see the graves?

[prodigal_green]

11. Remind him also that our good friends the Turks

have done their share of Kurd-killing too.

[nyhuskyfan]

9. When you think about it...

Saddam and Al Qaeda are BOTH examples of extreme blowback from Reagan era foreign policy decisions. I'm not going to argue that the Cold War Soviets and the 1980's Iran government weren't our enemies, but when you support madmen and geurillas when it suits your needs, you best not leave them alone to find mew enemies when you're done with them.

[BlueEyedSon]

16. Exactly, both SH and OBL were once on our payroll.

[zulchzulu]

4. A picture is worth a 1000 words

Rummy shaking hands with Saddam. Arms, poisons, military assistance sold to Saddam as well as some training too.

[creeksneakers2]

5. Tony Blair confessed the mass graves were exaggerated

Here's the link

http://www.politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1263901,00.html

Linked fixed


One fourth of all suspected mass graves in Iraq were unearthed and only 5,000 bodies were found. Those numbers are consistent with putting down uprisings years ago. The stories about a holocaust going on in Iraq were lies just like the WMD.

The investigation of mass graves has stopped because the safety of the investigators was not protected. Evidence of a holocaust would be essential to the prosecution of Saddam Hussein. If there was anything there this wouldn't be ignored.

[info being]

8. Broken link

Sorry, I can't find that article.

[nyhuskyfan]

7. That predates the first Gulf War

In 1991, we didn't use the gassing of the Kurds and the mass graves as an excuse to invade Iraq. It was the liberation of Kuwait. We didn't even mention the chemical weapons and everything, since the United States' fingerprints were still on those weapons, which we gave to Saddam during the 1980's Iran-Iraq conflict.

In 2003, though, we used the 15-year-old gassing story and mass graves as an example of Saddam's instability and the fact that he was a grave threat to the United States. Our government acted like it was something from recent history, the same way that we tried to mislead people that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Ass'n) report from 1991 that Saddam was six months away from a nuclear weapon was recent news.

In addition, the other mass killings that Saddam was behind came from the uprising in Southern Iraq at the end of the Gulf War. The United States encouraged the uprising, said we would be there to support it, then left those people high and dry to be slaughtered. Hence, many folks in Iraq have long since gone with the belief that you can't believe a word the United States (and the Bush family) says about anything.

Saddam was certainly not a particularly great person, the Nobel Committee will never be considering him for any of their major awards, and there were certainly many Iraqis that wished him out of power. But we did not go in there for humanitarian reasons, to bring freedom to oppressed Iraqi people. We went in there because Iraq was supposed to be a threat to us, because a U.S.-friendly government in Iraq would benefit the oil tycoons, and because they wanted to protect the value of the United States dollar (Iraq was starting to get involved in some trade with the European Union, which would have strengthened the value of the Euro and caused the value of the dollar to decline -- a big problem when you've already run up huge debts around the world).

[info being]

10. Great

I will use your words. THANK YOU!

[info being]

12. Wait a minute. Did the gassing happen before GW1 or after?

[nyhuskyfan]

13. Before (1988)

It was a 15-year-old event when we went into Iraq last year.

[hippiegranny]

15. a VERY informative post

need to bookmark this - thanks!

[BlueEyedSon]

14. Iraq DID NOT gas the Kurds!

Did Saddam Gas the Kurds?
By Juan Cole
Mr. Cole is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan. His website is http://www.juancole.com/.

In a recent New York Times op-ed, Stephen Pelletiere argued that the March, 1988, gassing of Kurds during the waning months of the Iran-Iraq war may have been perpetrated by Iran, not Iraq. This issue has taken on importance because Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds is often given as one ground for the U.S. to go to war to effect regime change. As it happens, Pelletiere, a former CIA analyst, is just plain wrong and appears not to have kept up with documentation made available during the past decade.

More: http://hnn.us/articles/1242.html