Story by: Sgt. Sean Kimmons
HALABJA, Iraq -- Throughout Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, thousands of people were murdered and thousands more lost homes, hope under multiple atrocities he carried out in his own country.
While on a recent border patrol mission, Soldiers from Headquarters and Headquarters Service Battery, Task Force 2-11 Field Artillery, visited a memorial honoring the victims of Hussein's most vicious massacre -- the poisonous gas bombardment on this town in 1988.
The March 16th attack delivered lethal mustard gas fumes to this Kurdish mountain town of 36,000 residents, which eventually left 5,000 people dead and 10,000 injured.
The attack was living proof that Hussein had the capability and intent to use weapons-of-mass destruction.
The night before the memorial visit, a few of the Soldiers listened to stories from their Kurdish counterparts in the Halabja District's Department of Border Enforcement who survived the attack 16 years ago.
The survivors spoke of how while serving in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's Peshmerga (Kurdish Army), they fought against Hussein's military forces that invaded their land before the gas attack.
They said that Hussein's reason behind the horrendous gas attack was to put down Kurdish rebellion in the area that stood in the way of his military forces, which were flushing the Kurds out of Northern Iraq.
Hussein's forces leveled about 4,500 Kurdish villages, and destroyed many towns and cities in an effort to rid Kurds from his country. The gas attack here was by far the worst single incident.
Lt. Col. Mansur Hamasharif, Halabja DBE operations officer, lost his sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew in the gas attack.
Hamasharif was about 10 minutes away from here when he heard the planes drop the bombs.
"When we moved into Halabja after the attack, we saw everybody escaping the city," Hamasharif said through an interpreter. "I saw thick smoke, like steam covering the whole city. It smelled like apples, garlic and burnt onion."
Poisonous fumes were still in the air at that time and affected Hamasharif, who was later transported to Iran for further treatment.
Lt. Col. Majed Mohamed Mawlud, Halabja DBE executive officer, was inside Halabja when the attack occurred.
"We stayed in an underground Mosque and heard a big bomb. When we came out, it smelled like apples. So, we found some blankets, put water on them and hanged them to [block] the gas," Mawlud said through an interpreter.
The next morning, Mawlud conducted a patrol with other Peshmerga soldiers in a nearby village.
"I saw five people that were lying down by a pool, looking like they were drinking water. But when I checked them, they were all dead," Mawlud said.
One of the dead was a Peshmerga soldier and his friend named Omar.
Mawlud then moved into Halabja to search for more dead bodies.
"When we searched the houses, we found people sitting with children in their arms," Mawlud said. "They looked like they had survived but were also dead."
Mawlud said he rolled up the dead bodies in blankets, while other soldiers put them in a mass grave.
1st Lt. Matthew Chau, Border Team 3 officer-in-charge from HHS, TF 2-11 FA, was present to hear these stories from his counterparts and felt that the Kurds as a whole suffered a great deal of cruelty during Hussein's regime.
"They went through a lot of oppression [and saw] they're own people killed ruthlessly without cause. In some ways, I can relate with them growing up in Vietnam," Chau said.
Hearing what the Kurds had to go through under Hussein, reassured Chau even more on the United States" decision to rid him from power.
"For the Kurds, I think it is a very good thing now that they are free from this tyrant," he said. "Now, they are free to advance their culture and progress as they want to be and not be held back because of one man."
Team 3 Soldiers toured the memorial here on Jan. 12. A guide took them to each of the rooms, where they saw a representation of the gas attack and graphic photos of its victims.
In the middle of the museum, the names of the dead were engraved into walls encircling a huge Kurdistan flag draped in the center.
The Soldiers also visited a mass grave site, where many of the gas attack victims were buried.
Even though the visits weren't the most cheerful places to be, Chau thought it was important for his Soldiers to bear witness to what the Kurds went through under Saddam.
"It's good to see what this tyrant did to his people. I think it will give them a much better understanding of why we're here," he said.
| Date Taken: | 01.26.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 01.26.2005 09:53 |
| Story ID: | 932 |
| Location: | HALABJA, IQ |
| Web Views: | 46 |
| Downloads: | 16 |
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