February 13, 2003 -- On Iraq Chemical Arms, West Once Looked the Other Way, more references

NY Times: On Iraq Chemical Arms, West Once Looked the Other Way


For a New York Times article showing how the US military advisors were
working with Iraq while the US knew Iraq was using chemical weapons
against Iran:
http://home.comcast.net/~mlyon01/articles/Iraqgas.htm


For an article showing how the US sold biological weapon precursors to
Iraq, with clickable links to US Government hearings confirming this:
http://home.comcast.net/~mlyon01/articles/Bloom.htm




New York Times, February 13, 2003

Iraq Chemical Arms Condemned, but West Once Looked the Other Way

By ELAINE SCIOLINO

ISFAHAN, Iran - His breath was loud and hard, his mouth open wide as
he struggled to force air into his lungs. "I am," said Muhammad
Moussavi, a "living martyr."

Almost 15 years after Iran's war with Iraq ended, Mr. Moussavi and
thousands of others like him are painful reminders of the long-lasting
effect of Iraq's use of chemical weapons in that eight-year conflict.

His story is typical of a war generation that fervently believed,
after Iraq invaded in 1980, in the need to defend Iran and, later, to
overthrow Saddam Hussein. So Mr. Moussavi took time off from his
engineering studies for months at a time to serve as a volunteer with
martyr brigades. In March 1988, four months before Iran declared a
cease-fire, he was badly wounded on the battlefield, not by bombs or
bullets but by mustard gas.

"We were wearing gas masks because we expected Saddam to use chemical
weapons," he recalled. "But there was too much gas. I suddenly felt a
bitter taste in my mouth, and then my mouth filled with blood. I put
on a new mask but the gas had already affected my body."

Today, at 40, Mr. Moussavi is chained to an oxygen concentrator. His
lungs and air passages are permanently scarred, his vision blurred,
his skin susceptible to peeling and rashes. When the breathing nearly
stops, he chokes and his chest heaves. Two inhalators bring only
partial relief. Words come slowly and, when they do, the sounds are
brittle and cracked.

"This is a very burdensome illness, both for me and my family," he
said. "I never feel I'm getting enough oxygen. The phlegm I cough is
filled with blood and hard like bricks." The perennial feeling of
being oxygen-deprived, he said, produces headaches, fatigue and body
pain.

During the war, about 100,000 people were killed or wounded in
chemical weapons attacks by the Iraqis, said Dr. Hamid Sohrabpour, a
pulmonary specialist and the director of Iran's chemical treatment
program, who studied at New York's Mount Sinai hospital. Iran has
compiled records for about 30,000 of them.

One in 10 of these victims died before receiving treatment, he said.
About 5,000 to 6,000 still receive regular medical care under
government-financed programs.

In building an argument for war against Iraq, President Bush has
stressed the need to rid the world of whatever may be left of Iraq's
ballistic missile arsenal and its chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons programs.

The fear that Iraq still might have such weapons drove the Security
Council last November to approve unanimously a resolution calling on
the Iraqi regime to disarm or face "serious consequences."

But there is deep resentment and anger here that it was Western
companies that helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal in the
first place and that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use
of chemical weapons throughout the war.

"The world knew," Mr. Moussavi said. "Iraq developed these weapons
with the help of the United States and the West. No matter how many
times Iranians shouted that Iraq was using chemical weapons, they were
ignored. I don't know why the United States has suddenly become kinder
than a mother for the suffering of us chemical weapons patients."

Dr. Sohrabpour, who has lectured around the world about chemical
weapons patients, is equally frustrated. "We took patients to Germany,
to Britain, to France, but no one stopped Saddam's regime from using
these terrible weapons," he said. "The United States let him develop,
stockpile and use these weapons. Now suddenly it's changed. The fact
is that the United States is only after its own interests. It doesn't
care about what has happened to people."

In the early 1980's, Iranian diplomats visited the United Nations and
the capitals of the world armed with disturbing photographs of wounded
and dead Iranian soldiers, their bodies swollen, blistered and burned.

By early 1984, Iraq was making no secret of its war tactics. In one
broadcast, Baghdad's Voice of the Masses radio gave a hint, speaking
of "a certain insecticide for every insect," adding ominously, "We
have this insecticide."

After a small group of American and European journalists visiting the
war front in February 1984 independently verified the use of chemical
weapons, the State Department publicly stated that available evidence
suggested that Iraq had used the lethal weapons. It was the first
confirmed use of the banned substances since World War I. But the
United States, which tilted toward Iraq after it decided that Iran was
a more dangerous country, did nothing.

Two years later, Iraq began using chemical weapons as an "integral
part" of its battlefield strategy and a "regular and recurring
tactic," according to a declassified report by the Central
Intelligence Agency. Iranian soldiers often went into battle without
gas masks or with masks that did not fit properly. The widespread use
of the weapons also overwhelmed Iran's poorly trained and equipped
medical personnel, who were themselves sometimes contaminated during
rescue efforts. A move led by some Senate Democrats to impose
sanctions on Iraq after it used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds in the
town of Halabja in 1988 went nowhere.

The Iraqis used both liquid and dry forms of mustard agent, which
burns body tissue and causes blindness, severe blistering, skin
discoloration and lung damage, and nerve agents like sarin and tabun,
which paralyze the muscles and cause convulsions and vomiting before
death.

Nerve gas victims usually died on the spot unless they were
immediately treated with antidotes. But many mustard gas victims
survived, developing ailments that worsened over time and often led to
death.

The 12,000-page weapons declaration that Iraq delivered to the United
Nations in December identifies 31 major foreign suppliers for its
chemical weapons program, including 2 companies based in the United
States that are now defunct, 14 from Germany, 3 each from the
Netherlands and Switzerland and 2 each from France and Austria.

The plight of chemical weapons patients in Iran is complicated by the
fact that it has manipulated the legacy of the war for its own
purposes. Even now, a number of power centers in Iran use the "blood
of the martyrs" as a mechanism to hold on to power, demand sacrifice
and impose limits freedom. But a generation born since the war has
vowed not to be controlled or terrorized by this ideology or by the
voluntary, state-protected militias that continue to try to control
the streets.

Although there is deep sympathy for victims of chemical weapons
attacks, there is resentment toward the Foundation for the Deprived
and the War Disabled, a huge state-affiliated organization that
disperses aid to the victims and that has long been accused of
corruption and cronyism.

Mr. Moussavi, who was interviewed in the presence of two officials
from the foundation, praised the organization for its constant support
and said his sacrifice was worthwhile. "I'm very happy for the
sacrifices I've made," he said. "I'm happy I defended my religion and
my revolution."

Then, anger overtook him. "My anger is not targeted at anyone in
particular," he said. "It's because I can't breathe. All those who are
suffering from gas exposure have the same anger."

Mr. Moussavi's father, Reza, by contrast, is angry at the foundation.
He has been lobbying for years for a special oxygen maker made in the
United States that does not need to be refilled. "We've waited such a
long time for the new machine," he told a representative of the
foundation. "It will make so much difference for my son. You promised
us one. You promised."

Other chemical weapons victims have accused the foundation of ignoring
them because of their political beliefs.

The sentiment that the government is not doing enough is so deeply
felt that it has been explored in films about the war. The 1998
award-winning film "The Glass Agency," for example, deals with the
government's abandonment of the volunteer military forces by not
sending a dying war veteran abroad for special treatment. But the film
also explores the lack of public sympathy for the volunteers and the
privileges disabled war veterans enjoy.

For Dr. Sohrabpour, the issue is more complicated. "Some patients
agree with whatever the government tells them," he said, "but others
feel they were used by the government as a tool and now they have been
neglected. Then there are those who believe that because they are war
wounded all their demands should be met, even when we know there is no
cure or special treatment for them.

"My experience with all these patients is that they're very demanding.
They get nervous and depressed. And they have a right to be so."