Witness to Terror

Another Saddam trial, this time for the chemical attack on the Iraqi Kurds. Washington Post, (also in the Tribune):

Villagers had endured bombing runs by Iraqi warplanes before, but the explosions from these bombs were comparatively quiet, and quickly followed by a strange smell, "like rotting apples, or garlic," Hama testified.

"Minutes later, a lot of people, their eyes became sore and they started crying," he said. Villagers fled to caves and mountains beyond the village. "On the way I saw a number of people who were lying down in the street," Hama testified. "Our bodies were burning us, and we lost the ability to see. The echo of our screams was coming from wherever we were, and we had nothing other than God."

A pregnant woman hiding near him went into labor after her escape, Hama recalled. She delivered a boy, who died as he drew his first breaths, Hama said. The woman named her dead son Kimyawi, or Chemical, he testified.

And another witness:

Adiba Oula Bayez described the August 16, 1987 bombardment of her village of Balisan, saying warplanes dropped bombs that spread a smoke that smelled “like rotten apples”.

“Then my daughter Narjis came to me, complaining about pain in her eyes, chest and stomach. When I got close to see what’s wrong with her, she threw up all over me,” said Bayez, a mother of five. “When I took her in to wash her face … all my other children were throwing up.”

“Then my condition got bad, too. And that’s when we realised that the weapon was poisonous and chemical,” she said.

Bayez said the villagers fled to nearby caves on mules, “but the helicopters came and bombed the mountains to prevent the villagers from taking refuge anywhere”.

Like many villagers, she was blinded by the gas, she said. In the caves, people were vomiting blood and many had burns. “All I knew was that I was holding tight my five children,” she said. “I couldn’t see, I couldn’t do anything, the only thing I did was scream: 'Don’t take my kids away from me'.”

The villagers were taken by the military to a prison camp, and Bayez said four people kept in the same room with her died. On the fifth day in jail, she pried open her swollen eyes with her fingers to see, and “I saw my children’s’ eyes swollen, their skin blackened,” she said.

Does this compare to Abu Ghraib? Can any honest person suggest a moral equivalence between Saddam's using chemical weapons on innocent people and a few renegades in our military using Larry Flynt material to humiliate captured Taliban terrorists?

Saddam was at war with us, defying the UN, terrorized his entire country, his neighbors, and gave direct financial support to terrorists. Iraq remains a key battleground in the terror war.