Hussein’s Victims Live Under a New Cloud

The demise of Saddam Hussein and his regime has become the preoccupation of George W. Bush, and rightly so.

It is believed that Hussein has stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. The threat he poses is real and potentially devastating. That threat manifested itself the first time through the use of chemical weapons against the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq in 1988.

Among the towns hit by Hussein’s poison chemicals was Halabja. From time to time, Halabja and its 5,000 fatalities are used as the justification for replacing the current Iraqi regime. It is inevitably mentioned how Hussein used poison gas on his own people.

I was born in Halabja. In 1988, I was living as a citizen in the United States and witnessed on television the horror in my native town. I lost dozens of family members, including my grandfather. My father was blinded, and others who survived are living with the aftermath of disease, pain and suffering.

This inhumane action against innocent civilians faced no challenge from the world community, in particular the superpowers, and, as a result, Hussein got away with genocide.

The tragedy didn’t end there. The town became a common place for incurable diseases and birth defects. Now, as they hear rumors of another war, the people of Halabja fear that Hussein will come back.

The Kurds do not count on anyone’s sympathy or help because of the world’s inaction after the 1988 attacks. When I talked to one of my relatives recently about possible U.S military action aimed at toppling Hussein, he responded, “We have seen Saddam in action once, and we can’t endure another episode of that.”

When Hussein devastated my hometown with his fatal chemical bombs, his atrocities became headline news. Journalists eloquently described the dead bodies of Kurdish children lying like dolls in their traditional clothes.

My hometown had a population of 70,000 then; the 5,000 who were killed died in just minutes.

What worries me now is the possibility of another episode of Hussein’s ungodly wrath. If he is ousted, he will not go alone. For certain he will take with him as many as he can.

This time his evil probably will not be limited to a little town but will spread to cities of millions, such as Mosul, Sulaymaniyah and Arbil. These cities are well within range of his killer missiles.

If only there were a way other than a bloody war to get rid of Hussein. After all, my people are not the ones who aided the rise of this evil; it was the West that allowed it. After a new war with Hussein, President Bush may feel good about getting rid of a tyrant, but the Kurds could inherit the casualties and a new leader who might be no different than several of his predecessors.

As the talk of war grows, so does my fear. My mother and my father now live in Sulaymaniyah. Where do I tell them to hide?

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Rauf Naqishbendi is a software engineer in the San Francisco area.