John Burns Leaves Out U.S. Role in Account of Saddam Hussein's Poison Gas Attacks

Technorati Tags: Saddam Hussein, Iraq, chemical attacks, Halabja, Iran, Kurds, Colin Powell

Reading John Burns's account of Saddam Hussein's recorded voice (played in the Iraqi court yesterday) praising his own use of poison gas to kill tens of thousands of Kurds and Iranians, you would never know that all of those atrocities took place with U.S. knowledge and complicity, at a time when Saddam Hussein was Washington's friend. There is no mention, or even hint, in Burns's sanctimonious words about the dead mothers in Halabja clutching their dead babies to their hearts that the United States sold Saddam the chemicals to make those weapons; or that Colin Powell helped kill a 1988 bill called the Prevention of Genocide Act that Republicans and Democrats in Congress were trying to pass in direct response to what happened at Halabja.

Such dishonesty, such hypocrisy, is breathtaking.

Kevin Hayden also comments.