Where Is the Outrage?

Given the gravity of the situation, the quip seemed inappropriate at best. "I was struck by the fact that you haven't brought your gas masks with you," Iraqi Defense Minister Adnan Khairallah chided Western journalists assembled in Baghdad. Yet when pressed, Khairallah was unable to deny categorically the allegation that Iraq employed chemical weapons -- outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol -- in putting down a rebellion of Kurds. Asserting that the use of poison gas was "technically impossible" in the Kurdish villages in dispute, Khairallah reiterated Baghdad's position that, in any case, its war against the Kurds was an internal...

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