Washington, D.C. — Dr. Najmaldin O. Karim, President of the Washington Kurdish Institute (WKI),
today released the following statement concerning a recent piece in al-Jazeera:
“The al-Jazeera satellite TV website recently published an opinion piece
by Mohammed al-Obaidi entitled “What Happened in the Kurdish Halabja?”
It’s distortions and outright lies about the Washington Kurdish Institute’s Board
and Executive Director were basically acknowledged by text changes posted
after our initial complaint to the editors. Yet given al-Jazeera’s Arab chauvinist agenda,
it came as no surprise that our pointed refutation was otherwise ignored, as was
a request to remove the piece from their website. Further legal action will be considered.
The obvious fictions of this carefully timed political attack are easily refuted, yet
some issues raised underscore more disturbing general perceptions that should
also be laid to rest. First, the notion that Kurds and other Iraqis must unequivocally
reject bilateral relations with any nation, including Israel, or any group of people, is
both condescending and racist. As Kurds define their relations with other Iraqis,
the future government in Baghdad, and neighboring states, so too should they pursue
principled and mutually beneficial relations with any nation they choose. Anti-semitism,
the staple political diversion of illegitimate Middle Eastern despots, fortunately is not
endemic to Kurdistan, and will hopefully not become a staple in a new Iraq.
An additional point to address is the preposterous notion that Saddam Hussein’s regime
was not responsible for chemical weapons use on civilians in Halabja. This specific fallacy
raises its ugly head often enough to prompt one to ask why its propagators have yet to be
banished to the whacko realm of holocaust deniers and UFO cultists. Disturbingly, the main
underpinning of this accusation lies in an oft-cited US Army War College report by Stephen
Pelletiere, who blames Iranian military forces for the chemical casualties in Halabja.
With Saddam, Chemical Ali and other former regime leaders about to go on trial, evidence
from Pelletiere’s report and possibly other classified US government documents will prove
central to legal efforts by defense lawyers to cast doubt over responsibility for the chemical
weapons attacks. It is incomprehensible that no forensic evidence of chemical
weapons use has been gathered in Halabja or at other attack sites to irrefutably prove
the Iraqi regime’s culpability.
While the racism behind this latest fallacious Zionist conspiracy theory is just another day at the
office for racist Arab media hacks, the most pertinent question raised by the screed is why
anyone would deny that Saddam’s regime was responsible for chemical weapons use during
its genocidal campaign against the Kurds?”