http://the-news.net/cgi-bin/story.pl?title=Iraq%20-%20Did%20Portugal%20have%20all%20the%20facts?&edition=699
MAIN - 19/04/2003
Iraq - Did Portugal have all the
facts?
The
Portugal News has received a full transcript of a report by a former CIA senior
political analyst that states that Iran was responsible for the mass murder of
5,000 Kurds by chemicals at the Iraqi township of Halabja in 1988.
The Halabja massacre was one of the
pretexts put forward by the US Government for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Some political commentators, including Matthew Norman of the UK Guardian
newspaper, are saying that if the report had been made public before the build
up to the present conflict in Iraq, Portugal and Spain might well have had
second thoughts about supporting the US and British invasion.
The author
of the report, Mr. C. Pelletiere, who was responsible for investigating the
incident on behalf of the US Government, states that the gassing took place
during a battle between Iraqi and Iranian forces. Immediately after the battle
the United States Defence Intelligence Agency produced a classified report,
which clearly illustrated that it was Iranian gas that killed the
Kurds.
A team of investigators, under the direction of Pelletierre,
discovered that the condition of the Kurds’ bodies indicated they had been
killed by a cyanide-based gas, which the Iranians had been known to use. At that
time the Iraqis were using mustard gas and there is no record that they
possessed the cyanide based blood agent gas.
Pelletiere, who worked as a
CIA agent during the Iraq - Iran war and was also a professor at the US Army War
College from 1988 to 2000, was privy to much of the classified material that
flowed through Washington regarding the Persian Gulf. He headed a 1991 Army
investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the US.
Part
of his report on the Halabja massacre was published by the New York Times last
January but was ignored by other major newspapers and TV stations.
But
Pelletiere’s report is not the only example of political spin doctoring
concerning the drumming up of support for a war against Iraq. A claim by the
British Government that it was in possession of documents showing that Iraq had
attempted to buy 500 tons of uranium from Africa has been shown to be false.
Copies of the documents were handed to General Mohamed ElBaradei, Director of
the International Atomic Energy Agency. In a presentation to the United Nations
Security Council ElBaradei has proved that the documents were forgeries. His
testimony was backed up by the United Nations’ weapons inspectors. Senator Jay
Rockefeller of West Virginia, has called for an investigation into what he
describes as a campaign to deceive the public.