Kurdish witnesses recall bombs of poison smoke

As reported here, Saddam and six others have gone on trial for the Anfal Operation, in which poison gas was used by Iraqi forces, which wiped out several Kurdish villages, during the Iraq - Iran War of the late 1980's.

After tearful testimony by two survivors, "Saddam and his lawyers repeatedly accused the survivors of being coached in their testimony. At the same time, two of his six co-defendants insisted that Anfal did not target civilians but aimed only to wipe out Kurdish guerrillas they said were helping Iran as the two countries waged war in the 1980s."

How can they say with a straight face, that they were "only" targeting guerrillas and not civilians, by using chemical weapons? Chemical weapons are area weapons, meant to kill or disable everything in a given area. You cannot differentiate between civilians and combatants using chemical weapons! And just to make sure that enough people were killed, Saddam's forces later went in on the ground, killing more civilians, or "disappearing" them, burying them in mass graves to cover up their crimes.

"The 1987-88 military offensive was so notorious among the Kurds that it entered their vocabulary. Ahmed and Hama often described relatives as having been "anfalized" -- referring to those who disappeared only to be found later, if at all, in mass graves.

"Saddam and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, a Baath Party leader who allegedly organized Anfal, are charged with genocide -- which can be tough to prove since its requires showing their intention was to exterminate part of an ethnic group.

"Saddam and al-Majid also face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, as do their co-defendants, most of whom are former military figures."

It is well documented that Saddam wanted to eradicate the Kurds who were a constant source of "irritation" to him and his regime, as the Kurds constantly put up fierce resistance to the regime, so proving genocide against Saddam and his co-defendants may not be as difficult as the author of this article may want you to believe. In any case, the crimes against humanity and other war crimes, will be rather easy to prove, so the prosecutors may not even need to try to prove genocide.

"The Anfal trial is likely to take months as well. The campaign was on a far greater scale than the Dujail crackdown, with death toll estimates ranging from 50,000 to 180,000. Prosecutors plan to call up to 75 witnesses and to present extensive documents from the former regime, as well as evidence from mass graves." Since Saddam is also on trial for the Dujail incident, and very likely will be found guilty, the sentence for which is death by hanging, Saddam may very well not live to see the end of the Anfal trial.

However, his co-defendants should.