CHEMICAL CRISPY ALI?
The Brits claim they killed Chemical Ali in their raid yesterday. This would be a good thing:
Among Iraq’s Kurds, no Ba’athist leader is more hated than the man who led the Anfal campaigns in the late 1980s, including the use of chemical weapons against civilians – attacks that earned him his infamous nickname.
In 1988, a time when Iraq’s regime was a friend of the west and the international community turned a blind eye to the government’s massive human rights abuses, Mr al-Majid is reported to have said that a one-day chemical attack against the Kurds would not be sufficient. “I will continue to attack them with chemicals for 15 days,” he pledged. Mr Hussein’s hatchet man has also been accused by human rights organisations of a leading role in the bombings and destruction of Iraq’s Marsh Arab population.
As the effective governor of Kuwait for a period following the 1990 invasion, he has also been accused of gross abuses, including murder, torture and looting of an occupied territory.
A major tactical and propaganda plus if he is indeed dead.
