Political Quotes

“this weekend will mark the anniversary of one of humanity's darkest moments. Eight years ago, on March 16, 1988, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces, besieged by Iranian forces on the Faw Peninsula and losing ground to Kurdish insurgents in northern Iraq, commenced an attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja. There, Iraqi forces used poison gas resulting in the death of as many as 5 to 6 thousand Kurds, most of whom were innocent noncombatants. In the 8 years since the poison gas attack, Halabja has become the single most important symbol of the plight of the Kurdish people--the very embodiment of Iraq's brutality towards the Kurds. The unforgettable images of the victims--a man frozen in death with his infant son; a little girl wearing a scarf, her face swollen in the first stages of decomposition--remain seared in the Kurdish psyche. Much as the Bosnians will never forget the ethnic cleansing of Srebrenica, the Kurds will never forget the attack on Halabja. Incredibly, as we now know, Halabja was not the only instance when Iraq employed chemical weapons against the Kurds, nor was it the end of Iraqi repression against the Kurds. Although clearly the most dramatic, Halabja was but one of a series of Iraqi atrocities against the Kurds.”