In Khamisiyah, southern Iraq, 1991, a man made plague was unleashed. Some of the world’s deadliest chemical and biological warfare agents were housed in Khamisiyah, a sprawling desert bunker complex – and then released into the atmosphere. Released by allied soldiers who are now dying in their thousands, and released over the very same Iraqi population whom the U.S. hopes to “liberate”.

Was this an accident? Did the U.S. administration know what they were exposing their soldiers to? Why were safety measures not taken during the weapons’ destruction? What is the truth about the origins of Saddam’s arsenal, and the fate of those exposed to it? In a Scoop Exclusive Mo Abbas reports on the secrets of Khamisiyah and makes a suggestion as to how the many unanswered questions might be resolved.

A U.S. led war seems inevitable unless weapons inspectors are allowed unfettered access to Iraq’s much touted chemical and biological arsenal. But from whom did Saddam acquire these weapons?

For the suppliers of Saddam’s quality genocidal apparatus, we need look no further than our global policemen. When not engaged ensuring a terrorist free democratic world based on truth justice and liberty, America, Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Italy (amongst others) sell arms to despotic regimes.

Arms exports are the United States’ and the UK’s biggest export earners and Iraqi petro-dollars were more than welcome in the U.S. as late as 1989.

It is widely known and reported that the U.S. supplied chemical and biological weapons “technology” and “seed stocks” in the 1980s. What is not so well known is that the sales of weapons of mass destruction by the U.S. and UK to Iraq went far further than this.

The American Gulf War Veteran Association, campaigning over the issue of Gulf War Syndrome, have video documentary evidence of the huge chemical and biological weapons cache destroyed at Khamisiyah, the existence of which was denied officially till the mid 1990s.

Their video footage – taken by a U.S. soldier at the time - shows clearly that Iraq was not simply supplied the “technology” and “seed stocks” to make its own chemical weapons. Iraq was supplied fully functional weapons of mass destruction in the form of fully weaponised chemical and biological munitions.

It is disturbing in light of this evidence to consider the mass smallpox immunisation plans presently being considered in at least the U.S., Australia and Germany. Is there something we ought to be told about the weaponisation and export of smallpox munitions that we haven’t been told?

Bush’s administration claims to have taken the plight of the Iraqi people into consideration in its latest quest for authorisation to begin Gulf War II.

The Iraqi people, Bush says, need to be rid of an evil dictator who even used chemical weapons on his own people.

UK PM Tony Blair’s “dossier” on Iraq’s WMD programme makes much of the 5000 Iraqis who died in the chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabjah.

An image of Halabjah From The UK Dossier On Iraqi WMDs

But who manufactured the gas used there? A factory in Baghdad, or one in Bristol or Birmingham?

Officially – according to the Capitol Hill testimony of both Stormin’ Norman Swartzkopf and General Colin Powell in the mid 1990s – there were no chemical weapons either used by Iraq or found by U.S. troops during Gulf War 1. None at all, period.

And officially - according to the Veterans Administration – the great majority of so called “Gulf War Syndrome” cases are in fact manifestations of psychosomatic symptoms.

But Unofficially 16,000 Gulf War Veterans have died in the decade since Gulf War 1. (see also U.S. V.A .Data Confirms Massive Delayed Gulf War I Casualties)

An Air Force Photo Of Khamisiyah Weapons Storage Complex
Note: Each Bunker Is The Size Of A Football Field

KHAMISIYAH AND GULF WAR SYNDROME

Once the casualty rate of U.S. service members is considered - who were exposed for just a few months to the fallout from the demolition of the Khamisiyah chemical weapons dump – it is also worth considering the fate of the Iraqis who have no choice but to live in these contaminated zones.

Since the Gulf War, the incidence of child cancer in southern Iraq has increased by at least 400%. The use of illegal depleted uranium in allied munitions as well as the allied exploding of Iraqi chemical and biological ordinance are thought to be the main culprits.

When coupled with the estimates of over one million deaths caused by U.N (U.S/U.K) economic sanctions, it is hard to avoid comparisons between Saddam’s massacres of his own people, and the deaths in Iraq attributable to foreign powers .

(References for further reading:
- BBC- Veterans back Iraq over Gulf war illness
- Pravda - Gulf War Syndrome Confirmed By British Hospitals
- The Independent - Allies blamed for Iraq cancer torment)

At the very least, Saddam appears to be in good company when he turns on his fellow Iraqis.

Video evidence from the American Gulf War Veterans Association shows that in the destruction of Khamisiyah, the U.S. government knowingly exposed its soldiers to a lethal cocktail of depleted uranium, chemicals and biological agents.

According to health researchers the resulting diseases, collectively known as Gulf War Syndrome, have so far killed a shocking 16000 of America’s armed service members (compared with 148 soldiers killed in action in the Gulf). Tens of thousands more have been incapacitated by Gulf War related illnesses.

These are shocking figures indeed for an “imaginary” disease (according to the Pentagon) concocted (they say) to extort compensation money out of the U.S. government.

Symptoms experienced by the victims of this “imaginary” disease include chronic fatigue, memory loss, aching joints, rashes, cancer and not so imaginary limbless children. Most frighteningly, aspects of the disease also appear to be contagious, with the spouses and children of veterans suffering many of the same symptoms.

The U.S. government has constantly frustrated attempts to seriously investigate Gulf War Syndrome or treat or compensate victims. Why?

Perhaps because the very existence of Khamisiyah is such a damning indictment of western arms dealing hypocrisy.

The Veterans’ video clearly shows the munitions dump was packed with illegal western made weapons of mass destruction. Boxes of munitions with U.S., UK and Russian markings are clearly visible as soldiers inspect the huge underground bunkers of Kamisiyah.

The video also details military correspondence prohibiting the bulk destruction of chemical and biological weapons using the ‘field method’ – blowing them up where they were found. And yet this is precisely what the soldiers at Kamisiyah were ordered to do. The huge cache of weapons at Kamisiyah was destroyed hastily, and its existence then denied.

Perhaps this is because – according to Gulf War Veterans – some soldiers were sent into Khamisiyah and advised not to wear protective gear. Testimony from soldiers present and video footage showing unprotected soldiers observing the destruction of the weapons bunkers back this claim.

Yet subsequent (unsworn) testimonies from Colin Powell and Norman Schwarzkopf at a senate veteran’s affairs committee deny this.

Perhaps their denial came because these unprotected soldiers were sent into Khamisiyah after it had been bombed extensively from the air, releasing the very gasses they now intend to guard the world against.

Perhaps their silence is because illegal and experimental vaccines were given to soldiers without their consent. Norman Schwarzkopf insists that the Gulf War inoculations were voluntary and their trial nature explained. Soldiers however, contradict this and say they were either not informed of the voluntary nature of the inoculations, or the fact that a component of the vaccinations – squalene – is illegal and is known to cause auto – immune disease.

(References for further reading:
- Gulf war syndrome still eludes science
- Illegal vaccine link to Gulf war syndrome )

Alleged Washington Sniper John Allen Muhammad

GULF WAR SYNDROME AND THE WASHINGTON SNIPER

From an anthropological perspective it is interesting, or perhaps ironic and tragic, that another symptom of Gulf War Syndrome now recorded is severe mood swings and extreme aggression.

The alleged Washington sniper, John Allen Muhammad, is a Gulf War veteran who was involved in the clean up operation of chemical weapons in a depot near Khamisiyah.

Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh was also a Gulf War veteran, as was Robert Stewart Flores Jr, the nurse who shot three people dead before turning a gun on himself earlier this week.

Across the Atlantic British Gulf War veteran, Paul Delaney, is currently on trial for stabbing his girlfriend to death using three knives. During the trial the court heard from four defence psychiatrists who considered Delaney had suffered from Gulf War related post traumatic stresses disorder since the conflict, as well as a degree of clinical depression.

In the UK, a recent testimony to the house of Lords suggests that as many as 200 Gulf War vets are in prison for crimes that could be linked to mood swings.

Apart from acts of violence directed at others, there has also been an unprecedented level of suicide among Gulf War vets. A staggering 70% of dead British Gulf War vets took their own lives.

(References for further reading:
- BBC - Gulf War syndrome suicide link
- AP - Shooting suspect's classmates recall 'angry' student )

It would be tempting, in the wake of all this evidence of suffering in the countries who built the weapons destroyed at Khamisiyah, to invoke the cliché of chickens coming home to roost. But countless Iraqis are suffering the same symptoms - without the comfort of counselling, therapy and medicines.

And this is before Gulf War II has even begun.

SADDAM’S BIG PR OPPORTUNITY

It has been often observed lately that it would be strangely absurd if the U.S. were to go ahead and – illegally without a UN mandate - attack Iraq for breaking UN resolutions.

But it would seem surely even more absurd if it was widely known that the weapons which the U.S. is so desirous of removing from Saddam’s arsenal are in fact weapons that the U.S. illegally sold to Iraq in the first place.

Such a morally repugnant war would involve the equivalent of an arms-dealing policeman raiding the home of an offender on an arms violation, killing the offender’s innocent children on the way in, and then charging him in relation to weapons that he himself sold in the first place.

In recent weeks Saddam Hussein has shown something of a flair for upstaging his protagonists. His spectacular election turnout and subsequent amnesty for all prisoners were clearly events made for consumption by foreign media.

Saddam now arguably has a golden opportunity to take the PR battle one stage further. After all, he is now committed to disarming anyway.

And all he has to do is tell the truth.

Before the inspectors go in, Saddam and his accountants could have a look through the inventory books and supply a comprehensive list to the UN of the weapons of mass destruction that they were enabled to purchase (illegally it must be said) by the very same UN Security Council members whom are now so keen on disarming them.

Thus far the story of Kamisiyah has been told almost exclusively in the fringe media, on the Internet, and in home made productions such as the American Gulf War Veterans’ video.

Saddam has an opportunity to change all that. CNN, the BBC and indeed even the New York Times could hardly refuse to cover his attempt to finally set the record straight about what really happened at Kamisiyah in 1991.

Anti(c)opyright Scoop 2002

Despite repeatedly stating that a key demand was an end to administrative detention, and that no partial offer would be accepted, an Israeli offer was yesterday accepted by the Higher Committee for the Hunger Strikers on behalf of the prisoners. Although Israel has agreed to release 19 prisoners from solitary confinement - several of whom have been in isolation for more than ten years - and to lift the ban on family visits for prisoners from Gaza, the agreement states only that administrative detention will not be ‘renewed’ automatically and that after six months, the prisoner must be released, or charged. Current administrative detainees will be released, or charged, at the end of their current sentence. (video by Julie Webb-Pullman - Nakba Vox-pops with Gazans)More>>

REPORTS ON THE STRIKE END:

• Prisoner Interview - Julie Webb-Pullman: Jalal Saker’s Story
• Government Media Office - Victory of the prisoners in the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
• Palestinian Information Center - Palestinian prisoners win battle of empty stomachs
• International News Links - Palestinian prisoners, Israel make deal to end hunger strike
• Israel Security Agency - Terrorist Activity by Security Prisoners
• Israel Prison Service - End of the Hunger Strike

Julie Webb-Pullman: Gaza.Scoop.ps – Real Time News From Gaza

• Photo Essay: Al Jundy on Day 25 of the Battle of the Empty Stomachs
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