The New Yorker
Issue of 2002-03-25
Posted 2002-03-18
In this week's issue, Jeffrey Goldberg reports from Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, where, in the late nineteen-eighties, Saddam Hussein waged a devastating chemical and, possibly, biological war against the Kurdish people. Today, the Kurds have achieved limited autonomy, thanks to the U.S.-British no-fly zone, but they still face the threat of ethnic cleansing. Goldberg's report also raises questions about fears of future biochemical attacks against America or Israel—as well as Iraq's possible links to Al Qaeda. Here Goldberg discusses his trip to Kurdistan and his article.

THE NEW YORKER: To write this article, you travelled to Kurdistan. How did you get in? What were some of the barriers, and some of the risks? 

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Actually, one of the most difficult parts of reporting this story was simply figuring out a way into Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan has three neighbors: Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Turkey would seem like the obvious way to go—it's an American ally, after all. But the Turks seem to believe that any publicity for any Kurd anywhere would impact them negatively, so they refused to let me cross their border into Iraqi Kurdistan. (But the Turks are wrong; they fear that the Iraqi Kurds, if given half a chance, will agitate for independence, which would then cause Turkey's millions of Kurds to do the same. But the Iraqi Kurds have never asked for independence, even now that they are semi-free.) As for the other two countries, I approached the Iranians about getting permission to cross, but they weren't interested, so it was up to the Syrians, who, surprisingly, came through. I went to Damascus, then flew to Kameshli, and from there I went by Land Rover to the Tigris River, where I picked up a rowboat with a wheezy outboard engine and floated across into Kurdistan—a very scenic way to go, by the way.

Once I was in Kurdistan, my hosts—the two rival Kurdish parties—made things as easy as possible for me. They provided me with security and made sure I got to see the right people. They get very few visitors, and certainly very few American visitors.

Your account of Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks on Kurdish towns and villages in 1988 is horrifying, both because of what happened and because, fourteen years later, the full story is not well known. Why has the genocide of the Kurds not made a greater impression on the West? 

I think the answer is simple: the man who committed the genocide is still in power, fourteen years after the fact, and the world is still dealing with him. It is estimated that as many as two hundred thousand Kurds were killed, including five thousand in a single gas attack on the city of Halabja. Dozens of other towns and villages were also struck by chemical weapons. If the world were to fully acknowledge the crime that took place, wouldn't it be a moral necessity to remove Saddam Hussein from power? Imagine if Hitler remained in power into the early nineteen-sixties. I doubt we'd have heard as much about the Holocaust. There are other reasons, too. One is the physical isolation of the Kurds, and another is their relative lack of knowledge about how to play the Western game of public relations.

How were you received by the people you met there? 

The Kurds are, to my mind, one of the most naturally pro-American groups of people in the world. They want American troops to protect them from Saddam. (The American and British air forces already do that, enforcing a no-fly zone over much of Kurdish territory.) There's a certain frustration in Kurdistan over the American unwillingness so far to rush in and fix the problem, and there's also frustration on the part of the victims of the chemical attacks, who, even today, are still suffering and still in need of medical attention. Some Kurds I met in hospitals and clinics were disappointed to learn that I wasn't a doctor. And, in certain cases, I, too, was disappointed that I wasn't a doctor; some of the problems these people face could be solved with modern medicine and technology.

You note that the survivors' homes have never been decontaminated—they drink from wells that were poisoned and sleep in rooms that were once filled with gas. What is the long-range medical prognosis for the people in these communities? And how did you feel, as a visitor, breathing the air there and drinking the water? 

I could have assumed that the chemicals would have broken down by now, that they're not poisoning people who live in these towns and villages. But it is a dangerous assumption, because there is no definitive word on which chemical agents were used. There is no long-range medical prognosis for these communities, because there has been no large-scale, systematic study of the attacks or their effects. Did I feel safe? Yes. Maybe it was a bad assumption, but it got me through the day. I do try to drink bottled water when I can, of course, and avoid undercooked shish kebab.

The Kurds are one of Saddam Hussein's targets, but so is Israel. How vulnerable is Israel to chemical and biological attacks from Iraq? What do you think are the possible consequences of a showdown between the two countries? 

Some people will tell you that Israel is not ready to deal with the terrible danger it faces; others will tell you that Israel is fully prepared to protect itself. I agree with both camps. I think Israel is ready, but I also think that it simply takes one missile, or one low-flying bomber, or one terrorist with a supply of anthrax and access to the ventilation system of an office tower to make a horrible mess. The belief is, of course, that an Iraqi biological or chemical attack on Israel would be answered by a nuclear attack from Israel. Then we'd be in a new world altogether.

What, if anything, can you conclude about the connections between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda? 

I'm making no conclusions; I'm just reporting what I've heard. Without full access to secret intelligence, I'm not capable of making a definitive conclusion on this subject. The only thing I can say is that it seems worthy of further American investigation, because I spoke with people who seemed, to me, to be credible, who said they had information about such connections.

What are the United States' options with regard to Iraq? There is a fairly convincing argument that moral considerations need to play some role in foreign policy—that Saddam Hussein's murder of his own citizens should affect how we deal with him. This makes emotional sense, but is it practical? 

I believe that moral considerations need to play a role in the formulation of foreign policy, and I believe that all humans have a moral obligation to prevent genocide.

What do you see happening next? 

Ah, that's the big question. The only thing I can go by is what President Bush says, and it sounds like he means to do something. I don't think an invasion can take place immediately; Afghanistan is still on the table, for one thing. There's no doubt in my mind that America has the strength to remove this regime from power; the only question is, what will Saddam do when his back is against the wall—when he knows he's finished? That is the moment of highest danger for the Kurds, for the Israelis, for the Saudis—and for Americans, too.