'Idealist' tried to halt Saddam's Kurdish slaughter

When President Bush sent the troops into Iraq, first it was because of our security. Then some of the people on the right pointed out how Saddam killed the Kurds, as if it had just happened. It was the talking point of the time when the WMD claim fell flat on the face of the all involved. The truth was, when it came to a choice between people and business, business won and people died.

After the Gulf War, President Bush (41) was blamed for telling the Kurds to rise up against Saddam and they would have the backing of the America. We didn't help them at all. The only thing that was done was the establishment of the no-fly zone under the UN sanctions. By then it was too late for hundreds of Kurds.

What really gets me in all of this is that when the Kurdish north was being bombed by Turkey and Iran because of the new freedom the Kurds had, the media never really covered any of it.

Well, now can know the rest of the story if you haven't read any of the history of what went on in Iraq.

'Idealist' tried to halt Saddam's Kurdish slaughter

Scream Bloody Murder
Christiane Amanpour introduces you to the courageous few who saw evil and tried to stop the killing.December 4, 9 p.m. ET
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Story Highlights
Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's Kurds

Peter Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to see the effects of the killing

A Senate staffer at the time, he tried to invoke the U.N. Genocide Convention

The House killed his sanctions bill with backing from the Reagan White House

By Andy Segal
CNN Senior Producer

(CNN) -- Years before the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq's Kurds with bombs, bullets and gas


The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied with Iraq's enemy, Iran.

But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse.

"A light went off in my head, and I said, 'Saddam Hussein is committing genocide,'" said Galbraith, who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time.

An unabashed idealist, Galbraith was known for tackling unconventional issues.

"If you're going to be idealistic in life, you're going to be disappointed," he said. "But that's not a reason to abandon idealism."

Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to witness the effects of the slaughter. During a fact-finding trip for the Senate in 1987, he saw something troubling.


"When we crossed from the Arab part of Iraq into the Kurdish part of Iraq, the villages and towns that showed on our maps just weren't there," he said. Bulldozing Kurdish villages was just the first phase of Hussein's war against the Kurds. In 1988, it escalated with chemical weapons.

"Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people were killed in those attacks, and then Iraqi troops moved into those villages and gunned down the survivors."

Galbraith wanted to invoke the U.N.'s Genocide Convention, which requires countries to prevent and punish such crimes.

"We could not stand aside and allow Saddam Hussein to commit genocide against the Kurds of Iraq."

With the support of his boss, Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, Galbraith drafted a bill -- the Prevention of Genocide Act -- that would cut off U.S. foreign aid to Iraq and impose a trade embargo.


"That would have been an appropriate response to a dictator who is gassing his own people," Galbraith said. "I thought with a name like that it would garner a lot of support."

But the compelling name was not enough. So Galbraith went back to the region to gather more evidence.


Tens of thousands of Kurds had fled to Turkey. Survivors described blinding, burning clouds of poison gas that dropped people in their tracks.

"These people don't make up these stories. These are real stories. And if you talk to them, if you simply talk to them ... you know that they're telling the truth," Galbraith said.

His report was still not enough to persuade the White House to punish Saddam.


The Reagan administration had invested several years cultivating Iraq as an ally against Iran, their mutual enemy, and as a market for U.S. products, including more than $1 billion a year in farm exports.

The Prevention of Genocide Act would end the diplomatic courtship and hurt U.S businesses.
Read once-secret documents from the Reagan administration
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/11/20/sbm.iraq.galbraith/index.html