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Abstract
Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurdish civilians in 1987 and 1988 is among the most morally troubling events in the latter half of the twentieth century. Most of the questions surrounding the attack, including why, when, and how, have been addressed in path-breaking research by Joost Hiltermann and other researchers from Human Rights Watch. However, even as more records and internal documents from the period have come to light, one question remains unresolved: Did Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s leader, directly order the gassing of Iraqi Kurds? This study reassesses the Halabja attack of 1988—in particular, Saddam’s thinking and behavior relating to the attack—in light of the post-2003 evidence. It synthesizes insights from the Iraqi records at the Conflict Records Research Center and Stanford University; debriefings of Iraqi principals, which the authors obtained in response to Mandatory Declassification Review requests; recent memoirs of Iraqi and US officials; and other previously unexplored sources. Although these records provide no direct proof that Saddam Hussein issued an explicit order to gas Halabja, it is clear he created a command environment in which the indiscriminate gassing of Iraqi Kurds was considered permissible and even desirable.
Notes
2 The regime began gassing Iraqi Kurdish villages in April 1987. From February 23, 1988 until September 6, 1988, it waged a series of counterinsurgency campaigns, which it labeled “the Anfal.” The word “Al-Anfal” is the title of the eighth sura (chapter) of the Quran, meaning “The Spoils,” which Baghdad appropriated in an attempt to legitimize the gassings, forced resettlements, and other atrocities at the heart of its military operations in the north. The gassing of Halabja was not a part of the Anfal, which involved actions against villages only. For a succinct overview of the campaign, see Beth K. Dougherty and Edmund A. Ghareeb, Historical Dictionary of Iraq, 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013), pp. 75–76.
3 The phrase “Kurdish Hiroshima” is found in Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2013), p. 189. The phrase “Kurdish Auschwitz” is discussed in Harvey Morris, “Waiting for Saddam to Turn Again … ” The Independent, April 4, 1993.
4 Most of the major questions surrounding the attack were resolved years ago in research by Joost Hiltermann and other researchers from Human Rights Watch, who interviewed survivors and defectors and scoured millions of pages of captured Ba’ath Party records. See Joost R. Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007). See also Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
5 Peter Slevin, “The Trial of Saddam Hussein: Choosing the Evidence,” Washington Post, January 2, 2004.
6 Quil Lawrence, Invisible Nation: How the Kurds’ Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East (New York: Walker, 2008), p. 35.
7 For more on the CRRC, see Michael R. Gordon, “Archive of Captured Enemy Documents Closes,” New York Times, June 21, 2015.
8 Pierre Razoux, The Iran–Iraq War, trans. Nicholas Elliott (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), pp. xv, 438. This study received the Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award in 2016. See also the praise in Graeme Wood’s December 29, 2015 review in the New York Times, Bartle Bull’s November 11, 2015 review in the Wall Street Journal, and Robert Asaadi, “Review of Razoux, Pierre, The Iran–Iraq War,” H-War, August 2016, <www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=45851>.
9 Zach Fredman, “Shoring up Iraq, 1983 to 1990: Washington and the Chemical Weapons Controversy,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 23 (2012), p. 550. Razoux indicates that he had full “access to the well-known ‘Saddam audiotapes’ seized by the American army in Baghdad in 2003.” This collection, which includes some 2300 digital copies of captured Iraqi audio and video files of meetings in which Saddam participated, is accessible only via a restricted US government database. Razoux, a French citizen, would not have been allowed access to this database. Nor did Razoux have access to the full CRRC collection, which contains several hundred audio and video files. Rather, he appears only to have seen a subset of CRRC records made available to conference participants in support of a CRRC–Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War International History Project conference on the Iran–Iraq War. For a description of the restricted database, see Kevin M. Woods, David D. Palkki, and Mark E. Stout, The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime, 1978–2001 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 4 note 12.
10 Pesach Malovany, Wars of Modern Babylon: A History of the Iraqi Army from 1921 to 2003, trans. Ronna Englesberg (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017), pp. 371–72.
11 The best study on Saddam’s thinking and behavior during the broader war is unquestionably Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods, The Iran–Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). However, this study’s treatment of the Halabja massacre is only a few pages, does not address whether Saddam ordered the attack, and was published too early to make use of recently released interrogation reports and memoirs.
12 For a brief overview of the principle of command responsibility, see Guenael Mettraux, “The Doctrine of Superior/Command Responsibility,” Peace and Justice Initiative, <www.peaceandjusticeinitiative.org/implementation-resources/command-responsibility>.
13 Amatzia Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968–2003: Ba’thi Iraq from Secularism to Faith (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018); Dina Khoury, Iraq in Wartime: Soldiering, Martyrdom and Remembrance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods, The Iran–Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Joseph Sassoon, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Woods et al., Saddam Tapes.
14 Razoux cites the CRRC record SH-GMID-D-000-468. The full citation for this document is SH-GMID-D-000-468, “Telegrams Regarding Plans to Face the Enemies Attacking Halabjah and Enemy Loses from the ‘Special Strikes,’” March 15, 1988. See Razoux, Iran–Iraq War, pp. 438, 593 note 5.
15 Razoux cites the CRRC record SH-GMID-D-001-125. The full citation is SH-GMID-D-001-125, “Correspondence from the General Military Intelligence Directorate Regarding Iranian Use of Chemical Weapons on Iraqi Troops in the Battlefield,” April 14, 1987. See Razoux, Iran–Iraq War, pp. 438, 591 note 6. For the correct speaker and source for the “Kill them all” quote, see Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, p. 257. Razoux’s problematic claims about Halabja are not limited to his treatment of CRRC records. For instance, he writes that, “during his 2004 trial,” Saddam “did not deny” ordering the gassing of Halabja. As the New York Times reported, however, Saddam “rebutted the Halabja and Kuwait charges” in his 2004 arraignment. Razoux is apparently referring to this same pretrial arraignment hearing when he speaks of Saddam’s trial, which did not formally begin until 2005. A separate problem is that, whereas Razoux claims the Halabja attack “would provide the grounds for [Saddam’s] death sentence,” Saddam was sentenced to death for the 1982 Dujail massacre in which the regime executed 148 Shiites. His conviction had nothing to do with Halabja and his execution took place before the court issued a ruling regarding Halabja. See Razoux, Iran–Iraq War, p. 438; John F. Burns and Ian Fisher, “A Defiant Hussein Rejects Charges in Iraqi Court,” New York Times, July 1, 2004.
16 In this study, the terms “interrogator” and “debriefer” are used interchangeably. As Admiral William McRaven writes, during Saddam’s meetings with the CIA the “questioning was more like an interview than an interrogation.” This was also true of his meetings with the FBI. See William H. McRaven, Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations (New York: Grand Central, 2019), p. 195.
17 The CIA interrogations began on or very shortly after Saddam’s third day in captivity and lasted just over two weeks. The FBI then replaced the CIA in conducting the interrogations. See McRaven, Sea Stories, p. 195.
18 John Nixon, Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2016), p. 149.
19 McRaven, Sea Stories, p. 196.
20 FBI, “Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning Saddam Hussein,” March 10, 2005 (declassified May 11, 2009), p. 42.
21 Ibid.; Iraqi High Tribunal, Al Anfal, Case No. 1/C Second/2006, Second Criminal Court Special Verdict, June 24, 2007, p. 293, <www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/1233/Al-Anfal/>; Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, p. 257.
22 George Piro, “Tariq Aziz” (“Description: Original Notes re Interview of Tariq Aziz”), February 2, 2004, Baghdad, universal case file number 315E-HQ-1448534-1AZ4, p. 10.
23 Radio Free Iraq, “Former Iraqi Air Force Officer Discusses Halabjah, Current State of Iraqi Air Force,” December 4, 2000, cited in Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair, p. 262 note 76.
24 The quote beginning with “realized they were using chemical weapons extensively” is found in the interrogator’s handwritten notes, but not in the interrogator’s typed report. See Piro, “Tariq Aziz,” p. 10. Pages 7–8 of this handwritten draft also contain information that is missing from the typed report.
25 George Piro interview of Ahmed Hussein Khudaiyer, June 12, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HO-1448534-97, pp. 3–4.
26 Khazraji, when describing this incident in his memoirs, does not mention that the Iranian forces left before the Halabja attack. Abdel al-Karim Faisal Nizar al-Khazraji, Al-Harb Al-Iraqiyya Al-Iraniyya: Muthakerat Muqatil [The Iraq–Iran War 1980–1988: memoirs of a fighter] (Doha: Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies, 2014), pp. 464–66.
27 Project PUK/NID Collection, Serial no. 0721378/Sheet number 01224, letter dated March 16, 1988, from the Head of Sulaymaniyah’s Police Department to the Police Department of Regional Security.
28 John Nixon, Debriefing the President, pp. 105, 149–50.
29 Nixon, Debriefing the President, p. 85.
30 For a short list of examples of false and misleading claims Saddam made to his FBI interrogator, see Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, pp. 329–30.
31 Peter Landesman, “Who v. Saddam,” New York Times, July 11, 2004; Peter Slevin, “The Trial of Hussein: Choosing the Evidence,” Washington Post, January 2, 2004.
32 Ronald Kessler, The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack (New York: Crown Forum, 2008), p. 149. For a similar account, see Scott Pelley, “Interrogator Shares Saddam’s Confessions,” 60 Minutes Online, January 24, 2008, <www.cbsnews.com/news/interrogator-shares-saddams-confessions/1/>. One finds no such discussion in the declassified FBI reports of Piro’s conversations with Saddam. This omission is striking, since the gassing of Halabja and the Anfal were probably the two greatest human rights violations by Saddam and would therefore have been of great interest to policy makers who were seeking to strengthen the foundation of legal charges against Saddam. On the other hand, Piro’s brief reports contain a number of omissions. For examples, see note 24.
33 George L. Piro interview of Sabir Abd Al-Aziz Husayn al-Duri, Baghdad, June 11, 2004, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-80, p. 2.
34 Al-Khazraji interview in Al-Hayat (Lebanon), November 28, 2002, cited in Malovany, Wars of Modern Babylon, p. 371.
35 Just as Saddam provided inconsistent accounts, so too did al-Majid. In a subsequent interview, al-Majid stated, “I am certain chemical weapons were not used in the northern or southern sectors of Iraq, only in Halabja.” And in Halabja, he added, the regime was targeting Iranians. See George L. Piro interview of Ali Hasan al-Majid al-Tikriti, February 4, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-20, p. 4; Piro interview of Ali Hasan al-Majid al-Tikriti, April 9, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-59, p. 9.
36 Washington Times, “Court Moves to Prosecute Iraqi General,” November 20, 2002.
37 Chris Kutschera, “Le général perdu du raïs,” Le Point, March 21, 2003.
38 Seymour M. Hersh, “The Debate Within,” New Yorker, March 3, 2002, <www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/03/11/the-debate-within>.
39 Aziz claimed he was traveling abroad when the gassing of Halabja occurred, that there were no meetings of senior Iraqi leaders during this period, and that he did not communicate with Saddam via telephone while traveling. Khudaiyer inaccurately claimed that Revolutionary Command Council meetings did not involve discussions or consultations and either never occurred or were limited to only Saddam and his two or three closest aides. See George Piro interview of Tariq Aziz, May 6, 2004, Iraq, file number 315E-HO-1448534-64, pp. 4–5; George Piro interview of Ahmed Hussein Khudaiyer, June 12, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HO-1448534-97, p. 1. For a refutation of Khudaiyer’s claim, see Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, pp. 326–27.
40 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-857, “Saddam and Iraqi Officials Discussing the Liberation of al-Fao and Its Broader Implications,” April 18, 1988. See also Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, pp. 157–58.
41 Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq (New York: PublicAffairs, 2009), p. 367.
42 For evidence of such a discussion about Halabja, see FBI, George L. Piro interview of Sabir Abd Al-Aziz Husayn al-Duri, Baghdad, June 11, 2004, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-80, p. 2.
43 Duelfer, Hide and Seek, pp. 367, 373; George Piro interview of Tariq Aziz, May 6, 2004, Iraq, file number 315E-HO-1448534-64, p. 1; George Piro interview of Tariq Aziz, February 2, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-17, p. 8; George Piro interview of Ali Hasan al-Majid, March 27, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-37, p. 1.
44 FBI, “FBI Progress Report on Interviews with Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Former Ministers, Iraqi Presidential Advisors, and Military Leaders, Who Are Also in U.S. Military Custody,” March 21 2004, p. 2, available via US Declassified Documents Online, <http://tinyurl.galegroup.com/tinyurl/5s4gY7>.
45 CRRC SH-PDWN-D-000-730, “Transcript of an Armed Forces General Command Meeting Discussing the Iran–Iraq War and al-Fao,” May 26, 1988, pp. 78–79.
46 Ibid.
47 Malovany, Wars of Modern Babylon, pp. 370–72; Razoux, Iran–Iraq War, p. 437.
48 Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair, pp. 108–10, 139.
49 For evidence that a senior officer had argued in favor of delaying an Anfal campaign and that the commander of the Fifth Corps had been “reluctant” to carry out al-Majid’s bloody directives, see “Meeting to Welcome Hassan Ali al-Amiri, His Successor as Secretary General of the Northern Bureau, 15 April 1989,” in Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, pp. 257–58.
50 Memorandum from Intelligence System of the Eastern Zone (Section 1, Department 1) to General Military Intelligence Directorate (5th Headquarters), “Subject: Information,” March 22, 1988, p. 1 (of 3), in CRRC SH-GMID-D-001-026, “Reports Related to the General Military Intelligence Directorate Concerning the Status of the Iraqi Corps and Regiments during the Iraq–Iran War in Different Sectors of the Battlefield and Discussions about Halabja,” March 1988.
51 CRRC SH-IZAR-D-000-646, “Telegram from the Intelligence System of the Eastern Zone Revealing the Use of Chemical Weapons against Halabja,” March 20, 1988.
52 George Piro, “Tariq Aziz” (“Description: Original Notes re Interview of Tariq Aziz”), February 2, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-1AZ4, p. 10 of the handwritten notes.
53 Alternatively (or additionally), the creation of this committee may have found its inspiration in broader efforts to better integrate chemical weapons into ground operations. The committee was established in accordance with Secret Correspondence No. 646 (March 18, 1988), but additional information on the committee’s membership and purview is not provided. See CRRC SH-IZAR-D-000-655, “Orders to Start the 2nd Anfal in Qara Dagh on March 20, 1988, and Getting Approval to Use Special Air Strikes,” March 20, 1988.
54 CRRC SH-MODX-D-001-387, “Orders by the Ministry of Defense to Strike the Enemy with ‘Special Munitions,’” March 22, 1988.
55 CRRC SH-PDWN-D-000-730, “Transcript of an Armed Forces General Command Meeting Discussing the Iran–Iraq War and al-Fao,” May 26, 1988, p. 30.
56 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-857, “Saddam and Iraqi Officials Discussing the Liberation of al-Fao and Its Broader Implications,” April 18, 1988. See also Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, p. 158.
57 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-857, “Saddam and Iraqi Officials Discussing the Liberation of al-Fao and Its Broader Implications,” April 18, 1988. See also Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, p. 158.
58 CRRC SH-PDWN-D-000-730, “Transcript of an Armed Forces General Command Meeting Discussing the Iran–Iraq War and al-Fao,” May 26, 1988, pp. 31–34, 63–64.
59 For the intelligence report, see Memorandum from the Director of the Intelligence System of the Eastern Zone to General Military Intelligence Directorate (Headquarters), “Subject: Halabja Battles,” March 18, 1988, in CRRC SH-GMID-D-001-026, “Reports Related to the General Military Intelligence Directorate Concerning the Status of the Iraqi Corps and Regiments During the Iraq–Iran War in Different Sectors of the Battlefield and Discussions about Halabja,” March 1988. For recommendations that a summary of this report be sent to Saddam’s secretary and that a committee be formed to investigate the issue, see the memorandum on p. 43 of CRRC SH-GMID-D-001-026. Hiltermann confirms that “Iraqi morale crumbled and most troops simply surrendered” after the Iranians seized a key road that provided the only escape route for troops in and around Halabja. See Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair, p. 115.
60 CRRC SH-PDWN-D-000-730, “Transcript of an Armed Forces General Command Meeting Discussing the Iran–Iraq War and al-Fao,” May 26, 1988, pp. 31, 33.
61 Ibid., pp. 81–83.
62 Ibid., p. 35.
63 See the various documents in CRRC SH-GMID-D-000-616, “General Military Intelligence Directorate Regarding Orders by Saddam Hussein to Use Chemical Weapons in the ‘Balisan Basin,’” March 11 to May 6, 1987; FBI, “Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning Saddam Hussein,” March 10, 2005 (declassified May 11, 2009), pp. 5, 8–10. The authors thank Gregory Koblentz for making this point.
64 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-001-023, “Saddam and Ba’ath Party Members Discussing the Iran–Iraq War,” March 6, 1987.
65 CRRC SH-SHTP-A-000-857, “Saddam and Iraqi Officials Discussing the Liberation of al-Fao and Its Broader Implications,” April 18, 1988. See also Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, pp. 157–58. In US captivity, Aziz recalled how Saddam “micro-managed” military operations throughout the war. See George Piro interview of Tariq Aziz, February 2, 2004, Baghdad, file number 315E-HQ-1448534-17, p. 3.
66 See, for instance, “The Counties of Kifri,” Head of the Presidential Diwan to Comrade Ali Hassan al-Majid—the Honorable Secretary of the Office of the Northern Bureau, June 22, 1988, 025-2-2, pp. 189–93; Aaron M. Faust, The Ba’athification of Iraq: Saddam Hussein’s Totalitarianism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015), pp. 162–63.
67 Al-Anfal Trial Chamber Judgment, p. 499, cited in Jennifer Trahan, “A Critical Guide to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s Anfal Judgment: Genocide against the Kurds,” Michigan Journal of International Law, Vol. 30, No. 2 (2009), p. 327.
68 Saddam’s Killing Fields, documentary video produced by the Iraq Memory Foundation, serial no. 1095, indexed under “Video Documents from Post 2003—Collected by the Iraq Memory Foundation.”
69 CRRC SH-AFGC-D-000-647, “Memorandum Regarding Financial Rewards for Eight Officers Who Participated in the Planning and Implementation of the First and Second Anfal Operations,” May 5, 1988.
70 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1966), pp. 399–400.
71 Nuremberg Documents, PS 3063 in the Centre de Documentation Juive in Paris, cited in Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 399.
72 Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 400 note 31.
73 Ibid. (emphasis in original).
74 CIA, “Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD” (hereafter cited as “Duelfer Report”), Vol. 1, “Regime Strategic Intent,” September 30, 2004, p. 9.
75 Duelfer Report, Vol. 1, “Transmittal Message,” September 23, 2004, p. 3 (emphasis in original).
76 For an argument that an explicit order was required for Iraq to have a nuclear-weapon program, see Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, “Revisiting Osirak: Preventive Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation Risks,” International Security, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2011), pp. 101–32.
77 For evidence that Saddam’s key nuclear scientists and engineers believed they were supposed to build an atomic bomb even in the absence of an explicit order, see Mahdi Obeidi and Kurt Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam’s Nuclear Mastermind (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2005), pp. 48–49.
78 Saddam, al-Majid, and other Iraqis made to their interrogators many claims that captured audio recordings show to be inaccurate. For a few of Saddam’s falsehoods, see Woods et al., Saddam Tapes, p. 329.