IRAQ IN TRANSITION
Poisoned Iraqi city still waits for help
Saddam Hussein's trial means little to victims of 1988 chemical attack

By Aamer Madhani
Tribune staff reporter
Published July 1, 2004

HALABJA, Iraq -- Like many others in this small Kurdish city who survived the most notorious chemical attack by Saddam Hussein's regime, Hamida Hassen Muhammad suffers from the distinctive raw cough that physicians say plagues the community.

Each day the 36-year-old widow wakes up hacking, and by the end of the day she finds herself spitting blood into her kitchen sink. The mustard gas used in the attack damaged her lungs, making even walking across her small home exhausting.

"It feels like the blade of a knife is scratching the inside of my neck when I breathe and when I eat," said Muhammad, who also suffered burns to her legs and stomach. "I have no money to get proper treatment. I am just waiting for my death."

The 1988 chemical attack in the northern Iraqi town killed 5,000 people and left thousands of survivors blind, lame and with irreparable damage to their respiratory systems. And while the residents say they feel forgotten, their suffering is expected to loom large on Thursday when the deposed dictator is due to appear before an Iraqi judge to hear the charges he faces for crimes he allegedly committed during his rule.

The attack, purportedly carried out at Hussein's command, was perhaps the regime's single most heinous act, said State Minister Kasim Daoud. "It demonstrated his savagery," Daoud said.

On Wednesday, Hussein was served with a warrant for his arrest, and his legal custody, along with that of 11 of his most senior deputies, was transferred to the Iraqi government. He is to remain in U.S. military custody for the time being but will be tried in an Iraqi court.

Salem Chalabi, head of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, told ABC television that Hussein was "visibly nervous" as he was served the warrant. Chalabi said Hussein appeared to have lost weight and his hair was a "a bit long."

"The whole process took maybe three or four minutes," Chalabi said.

The U.S.-led coalition also has cited the attack on Halabja as evidence that Hussein had the ability to obtain and the propensity to use weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. administration's foremost stated reason for invading Iraq.

`No one is listening'

Although the coalition has pointed to Halabja to symbolize Hussein's cruelty, Halabja's residents complain that the international community has done little to address the long-term health effects on the survivors.

"No one is listening to us, but they know our problems," said Kamal Abdul Kadi, 31, who lost a third of his lung tissue as a result of being exposed in the attack. "No one from the Americans or the international community is coming to confront our problems."

More than 40 percent of Halabja survivors suffer from serious respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, bronchitis and lung fibrosis, or loss of lung tissue, according to Dr. Fouad Baban, a general surgeon in nearby Sulaymaniyah who has conducted two studies on the medical effects of the attack with the University of Liverpool and the Washington Kurdish Institute.

Baban said cancer and miscarriage rates have also skyrocketed in the city of 50,000.

Exposure to mustard gas can damage the lungs and lead to cancer, Baban said. He said many residents suffered irreparable injuries. But in many cases, their suffering could be eased by proper medical attention, which is virtually unheard of in this impoverished city.

A living reminder

"This town has been totally destroyed in terms of the people's health physically and psychologically," said Baban, who treated victims in the years after the attack. "Nothing has been done to help these people--not by the Americans, not by the international community and not by the Kurdish regional government."

After the U.S. administration made its case for invading Iraq on the grounds that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, some Halabja residents held a glimmer of hope that the Americans would be obliged to help the Halabja survivors, said Ebrahem Hawramani, a survivor of the attack and the director of the Halabja Monument, a museum that memorializes the attack's victims.

But as time passed, Hawramani said he came to believe that it was in the U.S. administration's interest that Halabja remain as it is for the time being, a living reminder to the world of the ravages of Hussein's rule.

"America and the rest of the world has made Halabja the poster boy of chemical attacks because so many people died in Halabja," Hawramani said.

Dr. Fiak Mohammed Gulpi, a physician in nearby Sulaymaniyah who estimated that he has treated more than 1,000 survivors of Halabja over the years, theorized that the American and other Western governments have chosen to ignore the issue because of their culpability in the attack.

The attack on Halabja came as the Iraq-Iran war was winding down. Three days before the attack, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard reached Halabja accompanied by Iraqi-Kurdish fighters who were opposed to Hussein's regime. Most of Halabja's population, in fact, sided with Iran in the war.

Then on March 16, 1988, Iraqi fighter planes leveled the village with bombs and killed and maimed those who tried to escape to the nearby Surren Mountains with mustard and nerve gases.

Gulpi noted that the U.S. government sided with Hussein during the Iraq-Iran war, and other Western governments sold the Iraqis weapons.

"Saddam is mainly responsible for Halabja, but the Americans also hold some responsibility," Gulpi said.

Before the attack, Halabja was a place where families went for picnics and children played in the streets, recalled Aras Abid Akram, 36, a social worker who survived the attacks.

But over the last 16 years, he said, the city has felt like a graveyard, with the rubble of mud-brick homes that were damaged in the bombing and scores of walking wounded serving as a constant reminder of the atrocity.

"We feel very sad every day," Akram said. "We have no reason to believe anyone will help us."