By Hisham Aldiwan
February 18, 2002

Retired General Nizar al-Khazraji, ex-chief of staff of the Iraqi armed forces,
secretly left Baghdad to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, from where he made
his way to Europe. He first went to Spain and then, to escape threats on his life, fled to Denmark where he was granted political asylum in 1999.

The general is a strong candidate ­ from a list of 55 Iraqi officers being circulated in Washington and London ­ to play the part of an “Iraqi Hamid
Karzai.” 

Commenting on his name being mentioned recently in Iraqi opposition circles
and in several Arab and foreign newspapers as being Washington’s choice to
replace Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ­ if and when American plans to topple the Iraqi leader succeed ­ Khazraji  told The Daily Star in a telephone interview: 

“It is a sacred duty that any Iraqi would be honored to be entrusted with.”

Khazraji led a reclusive life in a Copenhagen suburb until last September when
a Danish newspaper published a story claiming he was the field commander
when in March 1988 when Saddam’s army killed up to 5,000 Kurds with
mustard gas and nerve gas in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja, near the border with Iran. Khazraji denies these allegations and accuses the Iraqi intelligence services of being behind them to force him off the political stage.

The two major Iraqi Kurdish groups ­ the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan ­ have come out in support of Khazraji, but another group, the Kurdish National Congress, wrote to the Danish justice minister last December pressing for his prosecution.
 

The Daily Star: How can you hope of becoming a leader of your country while
you stand accused of committing the Halabja massacre?  It is said that you were in command of the Anfal operation in which chemical weapons were used to kill thousands of Kurds. 

Khazraji: These are rumors propagated by Baghdad in order to destroy Nizar
al-Khazraji. These allegations are totally baseless. There is not a shred of
evidence to prove these accusations. There are pro-Baghdad elements living in
Denmark today that applaud the Saddam Hussein regime. Some of them are
intelligence operatives and some are not. This issue was raised at a time when Denmark was in the midst of a general election, and it was used in that context … This forced the government to ask the attorney-general to investigate the issue.

The Daily Star:  Some Kurdish groups made the accusations. What can the
Danish attorney-general do? 

Khazraji: Quite the contrary. These accusations have no basis in fact, and the
Kurds know it. Many Kurdish and non-Kurdish groups and individuals told the
Danish authorities that Nizar al-Khazraji is a patriot, and that allegations that he
had taken part in the massacre at Halabja were nothing more than an attempt by the regime to discredit him. All these respondents stressed that it was the regime that was instigating this anti-Khazraji campaign, and that the regime was still capable of acting in Europe in ways that serve its purposes.

The Daily Star: What could Baghdad hope to get out of harassing you? 

Khazraji: It was part of an attempt to force all Iraqis, civilians and officers, to
stand behind Saddam Hussein in case any attempt was made to overthrow him.
I believe the Danish authorities now have a very clear picture that all these
allegations were rumors instigated by the regime.

The Daily Star: But the investigation is still officially open, isn’t it? 

Khazraji: There has never been an official investigation for it to be closed. All
that happened was that the attorney-general was asked to look into the matter
and find out whether the allegations formed a sufficient basis for prosecution. I
cooperated fully with the authorities, who also met with a number of Iraqi
individuals who supported me. The Danes then came to the conclusion that the
whole issue was fabricated.

What I want to make clear is that all that happened in Halabja had nothing to do with the Iraqi Army. It was the responsibility of Saddam Hussein and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed.