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Chemical Weapons use in Kurdistan : Iraq's final offensive
A staff Report
To The Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate
LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL
SEPTEMBER 21, 1988.
The Honorable CLAIBORNE PELL,
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, Us. Senate, Washington, DC 20510
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: At your direction, we traveled to Turkey
from September 11-17 to assess the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan. This mission followed the sudden influx of more than 65,000 Iraqi Kurds into southeastern Turkey and extensive reporting that Iraq was using chemical weapons on its Kurdish population.
We spent 4 days in southeastern Turkey, traveling along that
country's border with Iraq. We visited every major encampment of Kurdish refugees in the region and spoke with several hundred witnesses to the events inside Iraqi Kurdistan.
Essential to the completion of this report were the contributlions
of Robert Finn of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara and Hamza Ulucay, a Foreign Service National employee of the U.S. consulate in Adana. Mr. Finn, a political officer with long experience in Turkey and fluent in the Turkish language, helped conduct the interviews upon which this report is based, helped evaluate the information elicited, and provided us with a typescript of his copious notes within a few hours of our return to Ankara. Mr. Ulucay, who follows political and economic developments in southeastern Turkey for the Adana consulate, was our translator in the Kurdish camps. At each refugee camp he was able to ferret out quickly important witnesses and to help us elicit the information we were seeking. We would also like to acknowledge gratefully the contribution of Yildirim Yazmur, our driver, who skillfully negotiated some of the most difficult roads imaginable in part of the over 1,500 land miles traversed during this mission.
In addition, we would like to acknowledge gratefully the assist
ance of Dr. Richard Preece of the Congressional Research Service, who helped prepare the background section of this report. Finally, we would note that, in preparing this report, we were also able to rely on the experience gained by Peter Galbraith during two previous visits to Iraqi Kurdistan.
While the contributions of Mr. Finn and Mr. Ulucay were criti
cal to the preparation of this report, the conclusions are our own.
This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the Committee
on Foreign Relations or any member thereof.
Sincerely yours,
PETER W. GALBRAITH
CHRISTOPHER VAN HOLLEN, Jr.
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