[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 35 (Thursday, March 14, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2095-S2097]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          REMEMBERING HALABJA

  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, this weekend will mark the anniversary of 
one of

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humanity's darkest moments. Eight years ago, on March 16, 1988, Iraqi 
President Saddam Hussein's forces, besieged by Iranian forces on the 
Faw Peninsula and losing ground to Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq, 
commenced an attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja. There, Iraqi forces 
used poison gas resulting in the death of as many as 5 to 6 thousand 
Kurds, most of whom were innocent noncombatants.
  In the 8 years since the poison gas attack, Halabja has become the 
single most important symbol of the plight of the Kurdish people--the 
very embodiment of Iraq's brutality towards the Kurds. The 
unforgettable images of the victims--a man frozen in death with his 
infant son; a little girl wearing a scarf, her face swollen in the 
first stages of decomposition--remain seared in the Kurdish psyche. 
Much as the Bosnians will never forget the ethnic cleansing of 
Srebrenica, the Kurds will never forget the attack on Halabja.
  Incredibly, as we now know, Halabja was not the only instance when 
Iraq employed chemical weapons against the Kurds, nor was it the end of 
Iraqi repression against the Kurds. Although clearly the most dramatic, 
Halabja was but one of a series of Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds. 
Beginning in the mid to late 1980's--and culminating in the infamous 
Anfal campaign of 1988--Iraqi forces systematically rounded up Kurdish 
villagers and forced them into relocation camps, took tens of thousands 
of Kurds into custody where they were never heard from again, and 
destroyed hundreds of Kurdish villages and towns. By some estimates as 
many as 150,000 Kurds are missing from this period and presumed dead. 
Collectively, these actions amount to an Iraqi campaign of genocide 
against the Kurds.
  I, along with the distinguished chairman of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, Senator Helms, have tried very hard to call attention to the 
persecution of the Kurds, including by introducing the first-ever 
sanctions bill against Iraq in 1988 for its use of poison gas against 
the Kurds.
  Since then, a wealth of evidence has been uncovered documenting 
Iraq's brutality against the Kurds, much of which was written in Iraq's 
own hand. The Foreign Relations Committee--particularly through the 
vigorous efforts of former staff member, now United States Ambassador 
to Croatia Peter Galbraith--led an effort to retrieve more than 18 tons 
of Iraqi Secret Police documents captured by the Kurds in 1991, which 
charts out Iraq's criminal behavior in excruciating detail. Human 
Rights Watch, the independent human rights organization, has done a 
superb job of analyzing those documents to mount an overwhelming case 
that Iraq has engaged in genocide against the Kurds.
  This is a story that must be told. As some of my colleagues may know, 
the issue of genocide has a particularly strong resonance for me. Just 
after World War II, my father, Herbert Claiborne Pell, played a 
significant role in seeing that genocide would be considered a war 
crime. Although he met stiff resistance, my father ultimately succeeded 
and I learned much from his tenacity and commitment to principle. The 
world must oppose genocide wherever and whenever it occurs; Halabja 
cannot be forgotten, and Iraq must be held accountable for its 
atrocities against the Kurds. We simply cannot afford to let this 
opportunity pass by.
  I wish I could say that there is a happy ending to the tragic story 
of the Kurds in Iraq, that there was a lesson learned by the Iraqi 
leadership. Sadly, I cannot. Although the Iraqi Kurds now control a 
significant portion of Kurdistan--a consequence of the Persian Gulf 
war--Saddam's ill treatment of the Kurds continues. Iraqi agents 
continually carry out terrorist acts against Kurdish targets, and Iraq 
maintains an airtight blockade of the Kurdish-controlled provinces. 
Since there also is a U.N. embargo on all of Iraq, the Kurds are forced 
to live under the unbearable economic weight of a dual embargo. In 
addition, Kurds in other portions of the region--particularly in Iran 
and Turkey--have been subjected to serious abuses of human rights and 
outright represssion, demonstrating that the Kurdish plight knows no 
boundaries. The situation has become so dire that for the past 18 
months, the Iraqi Kurds --once united in their quest for autonomy and 
their hatred for Saddam Hussein, have resorted to fighting amongst 
themselves.
  The situation does not seem right or fair to me. Nor does there seem 
to have been a proper response by the international community to the 
horrifying legacy of Halabja. I think there should be a much greater 
effort to look at ways to help the Iraqi Kurds dispel the painful 
memories of the past, to graduate from the status of dependency on the 
international donor community, and to confront our common enemy--Saddam 
Hussein. Only then can Iraqi Kurdistan emerge as the cornerstone of a 
free and democratic Iraq.
  At a minimum, the international community--and the United States in 
particular--must reaffirm its commitment to protect the Kurds. Under 
Operation Provide Comfort, an international coalition including United 
States, British, and French forces, continues to provide air cover and 
protection to the Iraqi Kurds, and to facilitate the supply of 
humanitarian relief. The recent political changes in Turkey, however, 
have cast new doubt on the long-term viability of Provide Comfort, and 
overall economic conditions in Kurdistan continue to deteriorate. The 
current situation does not serve United States or international 
interests, nor does it help to rectify the sad history of repression 
against the Kurds. Our work in Iraq--both against Saddam and in support 
of the Kurds--is not yet done.
  Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, I join with my distinguished friend, 
Senator Pell, the able ranking member of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, in recalling the massacre of thousands of Kurdish civilians 
8 years ago at the town of Halabja.
  On March 16, 1988, Iraqi jets, without warning, dropped chemical 
weapons on Halabja, a Kurdish village in northern Iraq. The attack, 
horrific even by Iraq's barbaric standards, killed thousands of unarmed 
men, women, and children.
  The massacre at Halabja drew attention to Saddam Hussein's campaign 
of genocide directed against the Kurds of northern Iraq. However, that 
attention was not enough to prevent the systematic killing of hundreds 
of thousands of Kurdish civilians by the Government of Iraq.
  Mr. President, I must commend Senator Pell for being one of the few 
willing to speak out about the plight of the Kurds. I worked with him 
in 1988 to sanction Iraq for its reprehensible behavior. Had more 
people around the world, and especially here in the United States, 
heeded Senator Pell's pleas to protect the Kurds, perhaps more could 
have been saved.
  The final act of this tragedy, however, has not yet played out. 
Saddam Hussein has not abandoned his crusade against the Kurdish 
citizens of Iraq. If he cannot eliminate them, he will do all he can to 
deprive them of their basic human rights.
  Mr. President, thanks to Senator Pell, the plight of the Kurds has 
the attention of the world. They must never be forgotten.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, 8 years ago this week, in the closing 
weeks of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi forces to crush a 
rebellion among the Kurds of northern Iraq. In the assault, centered on 
the city of Halabja, Saddam's forces rained poison gas down upon the 
city, and over 5,000 Kurds, many of them civilians, lost their lives in 
horrifying fashion.
  As research since the end of the Iran-Iraq war has shown, Halabja was 
only the most brutal chapter in Saddam's genocidal campaign against the 
Kurds of northern Iraq. From the mid-1980's through the end of the war, 
Iraq forced hundreds of thousands of Kurdish citizens into detention 
camps, kidnapped tens of thousands of others, most of whom are presumed 
dead, and attacked Kurdish towns and villages, often with deadly poison 
gas. Some 150,000 Kurds lost their lives in this infamous Anfal 
campaign--which can only be described as a campaign of genocide by 
Saddam Hussein against the Kurds of Iraq.
  Sadly, this is not the only incident of Saddam's brutality against 
his own people. The threshold crossed by Iraq during the Anfal campaign 
laid the groundwork for Saddam's most recent genocidal killing spree, 
this time against the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. In the years 
following the gulf

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war, as Iraqi Shiite rebels took refuge in the remote communities of 
the Marsh Arabs, Saddam turned his army on this community. In the last 
3 years, thousands of Marsh Arabs have disappeared, never to be heard 
from again, and entire villages have been burned to the ground. This 
time, the genocide was accompanied by an environmental outrage, as 
Iraqi engineers drained thousands of acres of marshlands in order to 
reach remote villages, wiping out a fragile ecosystem and obliterating 
the centuries-old way of life of the Marsh Arabs.
  The Kurds, too, continue to suffer at Saddam's hand. They narrowly 
escaped a new round of massacres at the end of the gulf war in 1991, 
thanks to the intervention of the United States and our allies. Today, 
although the Kurds of Iraq govern the northern provinces autonomously 
under the protection of Operation Provide Comfort--a cooperative effort 
by the United States, Britain, and France--they remain subject to an 
internal blockade by Saddam's forces, as well as the U.N. embargo 
against all of Iraq, and periodic Iraqi attacks against Kurdish towns 
and individuals.
  No Member of this body has done more to publicize and address the 
plight of the Kurds than the distinguished ranking member of the 
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Pell. Thanks in large part to his 
efforts, and those of the distinguished Chairman of the Foreign 
Relations Committee, Senator Helms, over 18 tons of Iraqi Government 
and secret police documents detailing Iraq's genocidal campaign against 
the Kurds--after being captured by Kurdish rebels in 1991--were brought 
to the United States for research and analysis. The result has been a 
well-documented history of Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds, 
including the horrific use of poison gas.
  On this tragic anniversary, I want to commend Senator Pell and 
Senator Helms for their leadership on this issue. I hope that the 
United States will continue to take a leadership role in working to 
ensure a better life for the Kurds of Iraq, both until and after Saddam 
Hussein is driven from power.

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