ON THE CAPTURE OF CHEMICAL ALI

TO THIS day, scientists have yet to figure out what chemicals exactly were used on Halabja on 16 March, 1988, in the final months of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.

Witnesses described a morning of intense conventional bombing that drove residents into their cellars. Then, a number of planes and helicopters began flying overhead. Witnesses said they smelled apples and mustard. The next morning, corpses of women and children littered the streets.

The Kurds of northern Iraq who suffered chemical bombardment at the hands of Ali Hassan al-Majid say it wasn't enough to just hear about the capture of the man they’ve nicknamed Chemical Ali for his gassing of Kurdish villagers.

They’ll have to see him publicly paraded in chains to be totally convinced of his demise.

"It’s just like Uday and Qusay," said Ala Noori Talabani, a Kurdish resident of the northern city of Sulaymaniyah, whose relatives were killed in Saddam Hussein’s notorious campaign. "We won't believe it until we see it on television."...

Dilshad Miran, the London representative of Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish political parties, said al-Majid haunted the nightmares of ordinary Iraqis.

"His arrest is positive news for all Iraqis, particularly the Kurds, and it will have a great pyschological effect," Miran said. "It will also serve to leave Saddam Hussein very isolated."

Wonder why he is so hated? Read this.

The capture of Ali Hassan al-Majid brought early calls yesterday for the open and public trial of a man called a killer on a scale second only to Saddam himself.

In 1988 "Chemical Ali" was captured on a tape describing his plans for the Kurds to a group of senior Iraqi officials.

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? F*** them, the international community, and those who listen to them!

"I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for 15 days."