Main Points

Insurgency

an insurgency is defined as an organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict.

summary

counter balance Israeli Arsenal
fend off Iranian Human wave horde attacks
artillery was prohibitively expensive
gas was cheap
gas is very disruptive to the tempo of operations
US credibility was so weak that Iraq could deflect all criticism by pointing to the US support for Iran via Israel
because the US choose a side it felt obligated to defuse Iraqi blame in the atrocity
the US wanted to prevent international condemnation that might be traced back to US involvement
Iraqi's could effectively implicate the Iranians and suggest they had no choice but to level the playing field

absence of a of an early, strong, and unequivocal international condemnation
western companies are implicated in the pursuit of Iraqi chemical technology
US led but western supported refusal to strongly condemn chemical weapons could have re-stigmatized these weapons at no great diplomatic cost but that did not occur

Is peter Galbrieth the man to consult on Iraq?

demoralized support for war effort
encouraged nuclear program
gave iran an indispensable over due reality check
plunged them into a self reinforcing cycle in which they could not publicize Iraqi attacks out of fear they would incite mass panic but at this made them incapable of rallying international condemnation

because gas was readily available and proved effective it was inevitably absorbed as a tool of counter insurgency
in addition gas was becoming less effective as the Iranian defenses improved so they were looking for a new use for it
Saddam's desire to reassert power, reduce the Kurdish threat and punish the kurds evolved into ending their annoyance once and for all - genocide
increased the flight factor
increased pace of village relocation program
break the nexus between gurillas and villagers
funneled kurds out into the open for a genocide
demoralize the kurds in to believing that the insurgency could not protect the kurdish people
if they were shown to be incapable of doing that the population would be demoralized - hence gassing sarted to target civilians
it is unclear why but at some point the natural association between gas and insurgency naturally extended to genocide

eroded credibility
irreparable harm to US strategic Interests
eroded the stigmatization of employing chemical weapons
eroded the principal that their are benefits to putting constraints on acceptable warfare tactics, which promotes peace by preventing both sides from hardening their stances

page revision: 4, last edited: 05 Dec 2007 20:40