'Chemical Ali' Executed In Iraq

(AP) BAGHDAD - Iraq's government spokesman says Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin "Chemical Ali" was executed Monday about a week after being sentenced to death for the poison gas attacks that killed more than 5,000 Kurds in 1988.

News of the hanging came shortly after three suicide car bombs struck downtown Baghdad. It was not immediately clear whether the attacks were linked the execution of Ali Hassan al-Majid.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh confirmed the execution took place.

Al-Majid -- widely known as "Chemical Ali" for the gas attacks -- was convicted on Sunday for ordering the poison gas to be dropped on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 as part of a campaign against a Kurdish uprising.

It was the fourth death sentence against him for crimes against humanity.

Comments

[AkiraBergman]

11:46 PM on 01/25/2010

I guess we will never get justice for the agent orange used on Vietnam.

[Palemoon]

11:04 PM on 01/25/2010

And what exactly did this accomplish? Nothing. It's not going to bring back all of those thousands of Kurds, nor will it bring back those tens of thousands of Iranians who were also gassed at our request. I think the people who provided these things to him should be held as accountable. After all, we signed the treaties barring the use and exportation of chemical weapons. Yet we violated those very treaties when we armed Saddam with them. Which explains why all you get out of the US Govt is a "no comment" on whether they gave Saddam the weapons and means of delivery.

Meanwhile, we, the United States, continues to be the world's biggest manufacturer, and stockpiling, of chemical and biological weaponry.

We've had so much, for so long, that is so outdated, that there is an incinerator in Alabama to the west of me whose sole reason for existing is to purge the antiquated stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that have gotten so old that they are too dangerous to maintain in storage facilities we have spread around the country in strategic locations.

[GonzoFactor]

11:30 PM on 01/25/2010

If my memory is correct, wasn't the US representative to Iraq who sold them the materials to make poison gas one Donald Rumsfeld? And wasn't the "punitive" action taken after the gassing of the Kurds the reduction of shipments of the necessary chemicals by a whopping 15%?

[Palemoon]

12:12 AM on 01/26/2010

Yeah, I believe you are right, but I'd have to research it to know 100% for sure, lol. But I do know that Donald Rumsfeld was a special envoy to Iraq on behalf of President Reagan.

It should be noted, the crimes for which Saddam was hanged for took place in 1982. Donald Rumsfeld was meeting with Saddam in 1984 with full knowledge of that 1982 crackdown. Apparently he was ok with it then, but not in 2003. Why? ;o)

[Y2KCockroach]

04:10 PM on 01/26/2010

"Palemoon", it wasn't a treaty that prevented the sale of chemical precursors to Iraq; instead, the U.S. State Department had previously placed Iraq on its list of "States That Sponsor Terrorism", and that designation prevented the U.S. sale of "dual use technology" to Iraq. The Reagan administration specifically had Iraq de-listed from that category, so that the sale of chemical precursors and other "dual-use technology" could go forward to Iraq. Clearly, the U.S. did not want Iran winning that war, and was quite prepared to see Iranians gassed in order to prevent that outcome. Ironically, after the Kurds were gassed, the U.S. promptly (and mischievously) blamed Iran for it.

Rumsfeld went to visit and break bread with Saddam Hussein in December 1983 (that is when the infamous picture of him shaking Saddam's hand was taken). He later said that he had raised the issue of chemical weapons with Saddam at that time, but witnesses and documents to that meeting subsequently disclosed that he was lying.

And "AmandaBC" is correct (below): the gassing of the Kurds happened in 1988. Iraq used chemical weapons plenty during that war; whereas Iran did not do so at any time, notwithstanding losing hundreds of thousands of its own people, and almost losing the war at one stage. Something to consider, next time people demonize Iran for being "irresponsible" with its weaponry.

[MalloMel]

10:30 PM on 01/25/2010

We all have to go sometime, and that was his time. Those who judged and murdered him will have their time, also.

[brit prof]

09:01 PM on 01/25/2010

Was it worth it? Hundreds of thousands of innocents dead, millions displaced, a country in chaos.
Dare to say "yes"?
Doubtless there will be some. From the safety and security of their sofas waxing lyrical on matters of which they have reflected so little. Knee-jerk sound-bytes about democracy and evildoers.

[FearlessFreep]

11:47 PM on 01/25/2010

Death-penalty supporters should talk about knee-jerk sentiments.

[edgarcaycedoc]

09:00 PM on 01/25/2010

"Why do we kill people to show people that they are not to kill people?" I don't know who said it first, but I still wonder.

[brit prof]

09:13 PM on 01/25/2010

As Carl Sagan said, "Should the prohibition on the taking of human life be extended to the state"?

[SgtMac]

08:50 PM on 01/25/2010

Based on many conversations with Iraqi Kurds, when I was stationed west of Kirkuk in 2005, I can only say that hell has now received someone truly deserving of eternal damnation.

[William Young]

05:45 PM on 01/25/2010

Will this reveal the locations of those WMD's?

[RightWingBeagle]

05:41 PM on 01/25/2010

Good riddance

[donnajr]

05:40 PM on 01/25/2010

we won ,can we go home ?

[FearlessFreep]

11:49 PM on 01/25/2010

Unfortunately, Washington is still in the face-saving stage.

[local21]

05:24 PM on 01/25/2010

He gone.

[Ergon]

05:07 PM on 01/25/2010

No cell phone videos of HIS hanging. When Saddam was hanged, he died with pride, like a lion surrounded by yapping hyenas.
Yes he was a dictator, but it was the bravest thing I ever saw.

[brit prof]

09:03 PM on 01/25/2010

I don't wish to rain on your parade--I get your point--but as I understand it , he was sedated before the execution. This--apparently--is common practice in the States.

[Ergon]

07:25 AM on 01/26/2010

That's the story concocted afterwards. Did you watch the videos? He snarled back at the crowd, and didn't look sedated at all

[methinks9]

03:39 PM on 01/25/2010

History is always written by those who control power. Also, in a global political theater every crime committed against humanity has its center of origin elsewhere; if one is to search for the centre it evaporates perpetually enveloping multiple geo-political locations.

The economy of some of the world's countries, if not wholly, partially survives on weaponry and other high-tech machinery. Hence, the sustenance of such economies necessitates war and ethnic conflict. Furthermore, these thugs who used chemical weapons against their own people have history of having received an opportunity to have close ties with some of the most (?) democratic countries of the world. These thugs do not have the ingenuity and skill that is required to produce such massive and monstrous killers like the chemical weapon and machine guns and so forth. If the weapons never existed, in the first place, these thugs around the world (who are hungry for power) wouldn't receive the opportunity of using weapons against their own people.

Anyway, power defines meaning and the economies that are based on war should sustain.

[marco01]

04:31 PM on 01/25/2010

They would find the means to enact their atrocities, they always have.

[krr02]

03:30 PM on 01/25/2010

so we trust iraq to try, sentence, and execute those found guilty of murder....

sounds fair.....

UNLESS...they work for blackwater or haliburton....

only americans can get away with murder in iraq...

how nice....

[Golden111]

08:21 PM on 01/25/2010

or are BO...................

[KIVPossum]

03:12 PM on 01/25/2010

He kills 5000 Iraqi citizens and gets hung. Bush kills 1000 times that many and retires to Texas.

Strange world we live in

[RightWingBeagle]

05:43 PM on 01/25/2010

Bush killed 5 million? No doubt you got that from Olbermann.

[mr d]

07:37 PM on 01/25/2010

Ironic how Cheney is running around with his nonsensical rhetoric, and this guy gets executed. So much for accomplices to the crime. I guess it's a time when we were really friendly, and united against Iran.

[brit prof]

10:23 PM on 01/25/2010

You know what he means. Speak to that, please.

[FearlessFreep]

11:50 PM on 01/25/2010

"The big thieves hang the little ones"--Czech saying

[enquiringmind]

02:36 PM on 01/25/2010

There was a huge bomb blast in Iraq today at a hotel that is usually full of westerners. It coincided with the execution of this man.

I agree with other posters, Donald Rumsfeld sold them the stuff, the Trinity of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush should be at the Hague.

[SgtMac]

08:58 PM on 01/25/2010

Actually the chemical weapons technology was sold to Saddam's regime by a Dutch citizen who was tried and convicted by the Dutch government for illegal arms trafficking.
Presuming that America is the origin of all the world's ills is a bit too easy and emotionally convenient to be honest.
I'm no fan of the unholy trinity you speak of, but the Iraqis possessed chemical weapons long before Rumsfeld was SECDEF. Ask the Iranians, they know this firsthand.