I did some research this morning for I was too young to remember the details of the Kurdish massacres Saddam Hussein had ordered. I found pictures, articles, personal eyewitness accounts. There's a lot that should never be forgotten and anyone who says that Operation: Iraqi Freedom is about race or oil obviously is blind to the gruesome facts.
For those of you who are similar to me in that you do not quite recall the tragic events that took place I can sum up in a few brief explanations. Apparently the Iraqi force was incredibly decisive in an absolutely evil way. Villagers had built shelters/basements to shield from bombs. Saddam figured that if he bombed with artillery for several hours many Kurds would resort to shelters under their homes. Several bombs containing chemical agents mustard gas, nerve agents and the mother of all nerve agents VX were heavily dropped onto a population of almost 100,000. The result, bomb shelters became gas chambers. As many as 100 Kurds could be packed into one of these shelters. Children vomited violently, grown men and women bashed their heads into walls, eyes started burning and leaking grayish fluids. For those that were outside, death came quickly and painfully. Some children playing were found dead, draped over doorsteps to their own homes giving an idea that in great pain and fear, they tried to get home to their mothers and fathers but only made it to the entrance ways. Those that survived became blind for several days, some permanently. Burns covered their skins. Children are now born with severe birth defects and subject to Leukemia, Lung Cancer and esophagus cancer at VERY young ages. Miscarriages are vastly numbered. After the bombs were dropped the Iraqi military then came in and rounded up boys and men shooting them execution style and/beheading them. Women and young children were rounded up and taken to prisons where many of the children and elderly died of starvation. One woman recalls first her husband and three older sons taken away and then her three daughters and six year old son and herself being dragged to a prison. Her son became very ill with diarrhea. He died on her lap. The dead would be handed to Iraqi soldiers through a small window in one of the walls. She peeked through the window, making sure that her son would get a proper burial. Instead she saw a group of several dogs feeding on the bodies, actually seeing her son's arm and leg in one of the mouths of the dogs. She said at that moment her mind cracked. Her three daughters kept her alive and tried to bring her out of her stupor all the while still imprisoned. She is still searching for her husband and three older sons.
Iraq has always vehemently denied the exsistince of these nerve agents, especially VX, in their military. The Kurds speak the truth. I think we all need to remember these people. Since Hitler's Nazi regime there has been no larger genocide by gassing than Hussein's evil actions.
