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Still, the scale of nerve weapon use by the Hussein
regime against the Shiites in southern Iraq appears
to be much smaller than a March 1988 chemical
weapons attack against Kurds in northern Iraq or the
regime’s use of chemical weapons during an
eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s. Post-Gulf War
restrictions imposed on Iraq after its defeat by a
U.S.-led coalition may have limited the
effectiveness of the attacks and prevented greater
casualties, the report said.
The ISG uncovered the incident through interviews
with several members of the Iraqi chemical weapons
program. But public attention focused on the
report’s broader conclusions that Iraq had destroyed
its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons,
as well as eliminated its nuclear weapons program by
the time of the invasion.
Hussein Kamel, a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein and
then-head of the Military Industrial Commission,
gave the order to ready chemical munitions for use.
According to the report, Kamel’s first chemical
agent choice was VX, a nerve agent. When informed
that there was no VX available, the Iraqis selected
sarin, another nerve agent, declining to use mustard
gas because it was easily detectable.
Technicians from the Muthanna State Establishment (MSE),
Iraq’s primary chemical weapons research,
development, and production facility, mixed sarin
components in R-400 aerial bombs at the Tamuz air
base on March 7. MI-8 helicopters from nearby bases
were armed with the R-400s and flew sorties against
Shiite rebels near Karbala. One account from a
senior official suggests that the helicopters
dropped 10-20 sarin-filled bombs, although another
account suggests that the total may have been as
high as 32.
Although the report notes that Iraq had used the
MI-8 helicopter in the 1980s to drop chemical
munitions during the Iraq-Iran War, the R-400—an
aerial bomb of Iraqi design—did not enter service
until 1990. Originally designed for low-altitude,
high-speed delivery of chemical and biological
weapons by Iraq’s fighter aircraft, the R-400s “most
likely did not activate properly when dropped from a
slow moving helicopter,” according to the report.
Cease-fire restrictions negotiated by the U.S.-led
coalition at Safwan just days earlier prohibited
Iraq from flying fixed-wing aircraft, although Iraq
convinced the coalition to allow it to continue
flying helicopters, supposedly to transport Iraqi
officials.
Following an angry call to a senior chemical weapons
official about the failure of the initial helicopter
sorties, technicians at MSE filled several large
aerial bombs with tear gas. According to the report,
helicopters dropped up to 200 of these bombs on
rebel targets near Karbala and Najaf. The report
also notes that Iraq brought several trailers with
mustard-filled aerial bombs to the base as well,
although the bombs were never unloaded or used.
Each R-400 aerial bomb can hold approximately 90
liters of chemical agent, and its effective use
would have probably caused substantial casualties,
but it is not clear how many casualties can be
attributed to the sarin use.
Ewen Buchanan, spokesperson for the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)
said that the selection and bungled use of the sarin-filled
R-400s made some sense from the regime’s
perspective. “As the Iraqis explained to me,
‘beggars can’t be choosers,’ and the R-400s were
likely what was available at the time,” he said,
noting that UNMOVIC had not uncovered this incident
during its investigation. “It was probably more
important to use some kind of chemical weapon for
its psychological effects on the enemy.”
By contrast, in the March
1988 attack, Iraq was free to use its full chemical
weapons arsenal. Iraq used mustard gas, tabun, VX,
and sarin against Kurds in Halabja in northern Iraq.
About 5,000 deaths are directly attributable to the
chemical weapons used, and another 10,000 people
were blinded, maimed, or disfigured. The Iraqi
Special Tribunal, established by the provisional
Iraqi government in 2003 to try war crimes and
crimes against humanity committed during the Ba`ath
Party’s reign, has been investigating the use of
chemical weapons against the Kurds. The body will be
responsible for the trials of Saddam Hussein and Ali
Hassan al-Majid, better known as “Chemical Ali,” the
general who allegedly ordered the use of chemical
weapons.
www.armscontrol.org
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