[Peace] Iran CW use (on Halabja)

[Margaret E. Kosal]

Below is an excerpt from a _draft_ version of a *technical* analysis paper 
on Allegations of Iranian Use of
Chemical Weapons in the 1980–88 Gulf War (with references ... what a novel 
concept!) ... still not primary data but a lot closer.

"Analysis of blood and urine samples indicated that the victims from 
Halabja being treated in the United States had been exposed to mustard gas, 
a nerve agent and a cyanide compound."

The section below is extraordinarily informative but really not complete 
without the rest of the report, which i have in pdf form.  Email me if you 
want it.

The author is Dr. Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader, Chemical & 
Biological Warfare Project, Stockholm International Peace Research 
Institute (SIPRI), Signalistgatan 9, S-169 70 Solna, Sweden. 
http://www.sipri.se

Namaste,
Margaret

"CW use against Halabja
In the period of 16–18 March 1988 Halabja and its surroundings were 
attacked with CW.
According to Iranian figures, there were 12500 casualties, including more 
than 5500
fatalities.54 A Kurdish researcher later concluded that at least 3200 
residents are known to
have died.55 It is impossible to reconstruct exactly the events in and 
around Halabja.
Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that the Iraqi military forces were 
solely responsible for
the attack against a civilian target. Yet, shortly after the events sources 
in the United States
began to hint that Iranian troops might have actually killed the majority 
of the civilians. The
latter version assumes that the Iranians had not occupied Halabja and that 
the Kurdish
inhabitants were killed by a chemical warfare agent that was never in the 
Iraqi arsenal.56
Most significantly, it suggests that Iran had achieved an advanced stage of 
assimilation of
CW into its military doctrine.
According to the generally accepted account of events, Halabja was attacked 
with CW,
which included mustard agent and sarin, beginning on 16 March 1988. Three 
days earlier
Iran had launched a new offensive in the area and begun to infiltrate the 
town together with
Kurdish Peshmerga. By the night of 15 March they had all but captured it. 
However, as
Iraqi public employees had been ordered to evacuate Halabja that day, there 
was widespread
anticipation of reprisals by the Iraqi regime. The next morning Iraqi 
forces shelled
the town with conventional munitions and launched sustained air strikes, 
dropping incendiary
ordinance (possibly napalm or phosphorus). In the mid-afternoon chemical 
warfare
agents were used in the northern part and the chemical attacks may have 
continued into the
evening. Iranian soldiers wearing protective clothing and gas masks were 
seen in the streets
of Halabja.57 Local people took refuge in cellars and other shelters 
against the bombing, but
did not appear to anticipate the CW attacks. A joint Netherlands–Belgian 
team of Médecins
sans Frontières visited Halabja on 24–27 March 1988 as the first foreign 
medical organization.
It noted in its report ‘that people seemed to be killed by surprise during 
their daily
activities (car driving, eating, water collecting, ...)’.58 Narratives 
recorded by US doctors
treating civilian victims from the Halabja area in New York also described 
how the chemical
agents were delivered by planes while the families were still at home.59
On 23 March 1988, US State Department spokesman Charles Redman said that Iraq
appeared to have used CW, but added that ‘there are indications that Iran 
may also have
used chemical artillery shells in this fighting’. He did not elaborate.60 
Later reports stated
that Iraqi planes initially bombed the town with mustard agent. When the 
Kurdish civilians
began to flee the Iranians, thinking that they were Iraqi troops, fired 
munitions filled with
hydrogen cyanide (HCN).61 The US claims were said to be based on intercepts 
of battlefield
communications and other highly classified, but unspecified intelligence 
sources. However,
the original allegation of Iran’s use of a cyanide compound in Halabja may 
have been based
on conjecture. On the same day of Redman’s statement, the Special Security 
Offices of the
US Defense Intelligence Agency circulated an update of the Iran–Iraq war, 
which stated in
paragraph 6:
‘Most of the casualties in Halabjah were reportedly caused by cyangen
chloride. This agent has never been used by Iraq, but Iran has shown
interest in it. Mustard gas casualties in the town were probably caused by
Iraqi weapons because Iran has never been noted using that agent.’62
Cyanogen chloride is a chemical warfare agent of World War 1 vintage and 
may have
indeed been explored by Iran in the early stages of its CW programme. 
Investigation is still
a long step from weaponization and deployment.
Some of the unspecified intelligence sources may have been Iraqi, which 
cannot be ruled
out in the light of the increasing US tilt towards Iraq (see below). The 
Iraqi ambassador in
London, Dr Mohammed Al-Mashat, was quick to blame Iran for the attack, but 
his statement
was not considered credible.63 On 29 March 1988 a Jordanian newspaper quoted an
Iraqi spokesperson who claimed that Iran had used CW against Halabja and 
many other
villages inside Iraq. As a consequence, Iraq reserved the right to 
retaliate with CW against
Iranian cities as a deterrent.64 On 4 April the Iraqi News Agency reported 
that Iranian
artillery and aircraft had attacked Iraqi troops in the Halabja area with 
CW during
30–31 March.65
Central to the US interpretation of events is the identification of the 
chemical warfare
agent. Early descriptions of the consequences of the attack almost 
invariably pointed to the
use of a cyanide-based compound. The clinical findings (blue cheeks; blue 
finger and toe
nails, blisters) led the team of Médecins sans Frontières to conclude with 
a very high
degree of probability that ‘cyanide’ and mustard agent had been used.66 
Analysis of blood
and urine samples indicated that the victims from Halabja being treated in 
the United States
had been exposed to mustard gas, a nerve agent and a cyanide compound.67 
During a tour
of Halabja the Iranians also showed foreign journalists the remnants of 
what they claimed
to be a 100-litre cyanide container dropped by an Iraqi plane.68
At the time few people doubted that a cyanide-based compound had been used in
Halabja, but several US sources noted that Iraq never employed HCN during 
the war and
claimed that the compound was part of Iran’s array of chemical warfare 
agents.69 Iraq relied
more on persistent agents because it was on the defensive, whereas Iran had 
developed
rapidly dissipating agents of the chlorine and cyanide types in order not 
to hamper its
advances.70 Iran was also said to have adapted plastic plants built under 
the Shah to help
produce HCN.71 The inspections by the UN Special Commission on Iraq, which was
created after the 1990–91 Gulf War, did not contradict this specific claim. 
In 1991 Iraqi
officials categorically denied to UNSCOM inspectors that Iraq had ever used 
or produced
with the intent of using hydrogen cyanide or cyanogen chloride as a 
chemical weapon.72 A
summary report of the UNSCOM findings submitted to the UN Security Council 
in January
1999 does not mention HCN or cyanogen chloride.73 However, while Iraq’s 
weaponization
of HCN cannot be clearly demonstrated, it did have the starting materials 
for HCN production
as cyanide is used in the manufacture of the nerve agent tabun. It also 
possessed
equipment for filling CW at low temperatures, which would have been 
required for munitions
containing HCN.74

54 CD/PV.450, 22 March 1988.
55 Human Rights Watch, Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign Against 
the Kurds (Yale University
Press: New Haven, 1995), p. 72. The figure of 3200 fatalities was reached 
by the Kurdish researcher Shorsh
Resool, who had assembled a list of names of people who died in the attack.
56 There exist also some accounts in which the Iranian troops passed 
through Halabja and nonetheless attacked the town with CW reportedly with 
the intention of blaming Iraq. See, for example, Henderson, S., Instant 
Empire: Saddam Hussein’s Ambition for Iraq (Mercury House: San Francisco, 
1991), p. 114. The author stated that this version is compatible with that 
of the United States, but based his claim on an unidentified diplomat who 
investigated the incident soon after it occurred.
57 For a detailed and documented account, see Human Rights Watch, 1995 
(note 55), pp. 68–72.
58 Artsen zonder Grenzen, MSF Holland, ‘Assessment of the by war affected 
population’, Report mission
Kurdistan, 24–27 Mar. 1988, p. 4.
59 Statement of Dr Deborah Lief-Dienstag, 9 February 1989 in Global Spread 
of Chemical and Biological
Weapons, Hearings before the Committee on Governmental Affairs and its 
Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, US Senate (US Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 
1990), pp. 46–47 and 249.
60 Reuter, ‘Iran chemical war threat’, Guardian, 24 March 1988, p. 24. This 
statement was also published in the Washington Times of 23 March, which is 
the earliest public source quoted in later US analyses. Some furtherdetails 
about the US allegations were provided in Ottaway, D. B., ‘Chemicals and 
missiles alter Middle East warfare’, International Herald Tribune, 6 April 
1988, p. 1.
61 A detailed overview of events was presented in a paper prepared by 
Anthony H. Cordesman entitled ‘The
Iran–Iraq War: gas warfare and the prospects for the use of nuclear 
weapons’ inserted in the statement by
Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona), Congressional Record–Senate, 30 
Sep. 1988, pp. 13804–07. It
erroneously stated that the Halabja attack took place on 26 February 1988. 
This sequence of events was so
included in Cordesman, A. H. and Wagner, A. R., The Lessons of Modern War, 
Volume II: The Iran–Iraq War (Westview Press: Boulder, Colorado, 1990), p. 
517. The details (including the wrong date) were incorporated in the 
unpublished study by White, D., Characterization and Historical Review of 
Chemical/Biological Weapons: Mid-Term Review (Science Applications 
International Corporation: San Diego, 1992). Some later analysts treated 
this document as an original source. Another often quoted publication is 
Pelletiere, S. C., Johnson II, D. V. and Rosenberger, L. R., Iraqi Power 
and U.S. Security in the Middle East (Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. 
Army War College: Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, 1990), p. 52. The 
authors did not elaborate on their claim, but it was reportedly based on a 
operational history of the final stages of the Iran–Iraq war by the Pentagon.
62 United States Defense Intelligence Agency, Special Security Offices, 
‘Iran-Iraq: war update’, 23 March 1988, Envelope PTTSZYUW RUEKJCS2867 
0850428-SSS–RUEALGX. (Text as in original.)
63 Muir, J., ‘Iraqi gas attacks revive horrors of the Great War’, Sunday 
Times, 27 March 1988, p. B3.
64 Al-Ra’y (Amman), 29 March 1988, p. 1, as translated from Arabic in 
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report–Near East and South 
Asia (FBIS-NES), FBIS-NES-88-060, 29 March 1988, p. 34 (as summarized in 
the Harvard–Sussex CBW Events Database).
65 INA (Baghdad), 4 April 1988, as translated from Arabic in Foreign 
Broadcast Information Service, Daily
Report–Near East and South Asia (FBIS-NES), FBIS-NES-88-065, 5 April 1988 
(as summarized in Chemical
Weapons Convention Bulletin, no. 1 (summer 1988), p. 11). The allegation 
formed the basis of the Iraqi request to the UN Secretary-General to have 
an investigation. See ‘Report of the Mission ...’, 25 April 1988 (note 28), 
p. 2.
66 Artsen zonder Grenzen, MSF Holland, ‘Assessment of the by war affected 
population’, Report mission
Kurdistan, 24–27 Mar. 1988. The report did not include the laboratory 
results of the toxicological tests on
samples. It should be noted, however, that following exposure to HCN, the 
victims would have been expected
to have a reddish rather than a blue colouring.
67 Heyndrickx, A., ‘Clinical toxicological reports and conclusions of the 
biological samples of men, sent to the Department of Toxicology at the 
State University of Ghent, for toxicological investigation’, Report
no. 88/NY/PJ881, Ghent (Belgium), 6 April 1988, 6p., in Global Spread of 
Chemical and Biological Weapons,
Hearings before the Committee on Governmental Affairs and its Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations,
US Senate (US Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1990), pp. 254–59.
The detection of rather high levels of cyanide compounds in these victims 
is surprising. The analysis of
cyanide in biological fluids is difficult and almost never available during 
the treatment phase (in part because
death will occur in 5–8 minutes at high dosages on the battlefield and in 
15–30 minutes at lower dosages).
Detoxification also occurs within the body. Aubin Heyndrickx led another 
mission to Halabja on 10–14 April 1988, but he could not trace any cyanides 
and analogues in six samples brought back to Belgium. He attributed this to 
the time delay between the attack and the visit, but nonetheless concluded 
‘with no doubt’ that cyanogen or derivatives had been used. Heyndrickx, A., 
Clinical and toxicological reports and conclusion of the biological samples 
of men and of the environmental samples, brought to the Department of 
Toxicology at the State University of Ghent, for toxicological 
investigation, Report no. 88/KU2/PJ881, Ghent (Belgium), 27 April 1988, p. 5.
68 Hirst, D., ‘Iran puts dead on show after gas raid’, Guardian, 22 March 1988.
69 Tyler, P. E., ‘Iran, too, faulted in gas attack on Kurds’, International 
Herald Tribune, 4 May 1990, pp. 1 and 4. See also the debate about the 
claim in Pelletiere, et al., 1990 (note 61), as reported in ‘8 November’, 
Chemical Weapons Convention Bulletin, no. 11 (March 1991), p. 5. 
Nevertheless, according to a statement in the Congressional Record of the 
US Senate of September 1988 Iraq produced hydrogen cyanide or cyanogen
chloride. ‘The Iran–Iraq War ...’, 30 September 1988 (note 29), p. 13805. 
Press reports in 1985 noted that
Western intelligence sources then believed that Iraq was producing ‘cyanide 
gases’ north of Baghdad. See
Beecher, 19 April 1995 (note 24).
70 Ottaway, D. B., ‘Chemicals and missiles alter Middle East warfare’, 
International Herald Tribune, 6 April
1988, p. 2.
71 ‘The Iran–Iraq War: gas warfare and the prospects for the use of nuclear 
weapons’, note 29, p. 13806.
72 Gee, J., ‘Iraqi declarations on chemical weapons: How much did they 
really have, and what was it?’, paper
prepared for an informal meeting on Iraq’s chemical arsenal, Stockholm, 8 
June 1992.
73 Letter dated 27 January 1999 from the Permanent Representatives of the 
Netherlands and Slovenia to the
United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, UN 
document S/1999/94, 29 January 1999, appendix 2, ‘Status of the 
verification of Iraq’s chemical weapons programme’.
74 Private communication by a former Swedish member of UNSCOM with the 
author, 17 June 2000.