Nerve Gas used in Northern Iraq on Kurds

jijaji · September 23, 2001

Press release, April 29, 1993

For the first time ever, scientists have been able to prove the use of chemical weapons through the analysis of environmental residues taken years after such an attack occurred. In a development that could have far-reaching consequences for the enforcement of the chemical weapons treaty, soil samples taken from bomb craters near a Kurdish village in northern Iraq by a team of forensic scientists have been found to contain trace evidence of nerve gas.

The samples were collected on June 10, 1992 by a forensic team assembled by the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the New York-based Middle East Watch (MEW), a division of Human Rights Watch (HRW). The samples were forwarded to the Chemical & Biological Defence Establishment (CBDE) of Great Britain's Ministry of Defence at Porton Down which analyzed them.

Eyewitnesses have said that Iraqi warplanes dropped three clusters each of four bombs on the village of Birjinni on August 25, 1988. Observers recall seeing a plume of black, then yellowish smoke, followed by a not-unpleasant odor similar to fertilizer, and also a smell like rotten garlic. Shortly afterwards, villagers began to have trouble breathing, their eyes watered, their skin blistered, and many vomited--some of whom died. All of these symptoms are consistent with a poison gas attack.

"These scientific results prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Iraqi government has consistently lied to the world on denying that these attacks occurred," said PHR and HRW. "They also send a clear signal that chemical weapons attacks cannot be launched in the belief that the natural elements will quickly cover up the evidence."