PBS
Jan 16, 2001

Saddam attracts attention. And he has a personality which sometimes deceives some people
at the beginning.
 

Q. What do you know about the possible extent of U.S. and Western involvement in the
1968 coup in Iraq?

I'm not very sure that there was so much involvement, but I am sure of one thing. We were
in the mountains--the Kurdish leadership--with Barzani and others. ... And the coup
happened. Before the coup and after the coup, we had tried very hard to have a relationship
with the United States of America. ... But Americans never talked to us, officially. Neither
before the coup, nor after the coup. ...

And we noticed that after the coup, the Americans were more negative towards our contacts.
They were always talking that they don't want any problems with Iraq and they don't want
any interference and--'this is a new regime, try to have a sort of settlement with these people.'
So that's what we saw. ... So possibly that may be an indication.

And ... our contacts even when we started with Americans in 1972 it started with CIA. It was
secret. They were never, ready to make open contacts. Or political ones. It was on the CIA
level and it was led by Helms who was the CIA chief at that time. And that started in
1972--only when the Iraqi regime started having a pact with Soviet Union. ... Then the Shah
of Iran was moved by that. He was afraid. He told the Americans to try to make contacts to
Barzani and so on. And Nixon and Kissinger agreed to make contacts with us, and that was
only through CIA. And it was me and Idris Barzani--who is the son of Barzani, who has died
now.

We went together. We were the first delegation to go to United States to make official, but
secret, contacts. And we went to Langley, whatever they call it, and we met Helms. And
somebody from State Department and somebody from Pentagon. But Helms was leading it
and it was secret and the contact bases were in Tehran. And the minute the Shah said 'stop' in
1975, the contacts were all stopped.

Q. When you went to Washington for those first meetings, were you optimistic?

We were happy about it really. Because it was a breakthrough. We thought maybe gradually
with time, it will be better and expand more. And maybe because America came in, it must
be an improvement. But America came in because the Shah told them to do so. And we are
sure of that because, in 1975, we had the setback with the Algiers agreement between the
Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. And they stopped helping us. The American contacts
were so abruptly cut, you can never imagine. ... When the Shah said 'stop.' everything was
stopped. That was not a nice way for a great power to deal with people like us.

Q. And there is your story about the telegram that Henry Kissinger sent, after the contacts
were stopped...

In March 1975, we were in Tehran with Barzani, we were a delegation. I was with him also.
We came to Tehran the 28th of February to see the Shah. We were hearing some rumors
about an agreement between Iran and Iraq and the Iranians told us, wait here, Shah has a
visit in Algiers and when he comes back, he will see you. And he went there and signed the
deal [with Iraq]. When we heard the deal from the radio, Barzani didn't believe it. Didn't
believe we would be the victim, because he said United States is in the picture this time--it is
different. Although he didn't believe in Iran, he thought if America is in it, so things must be
different.

But the next day we heard that things were real different and everything was cut. Then
Barzani--he was in shock, really--he wrote a telegraph to Kissinger ... saying, 'look this has
happened to us, at least deal with this from a humanitarian point of view--we have a quarter
of a million of refugees in Iran and it's a disaster. People are not happy to go back to
Saddam Hussein.'

... The answer of Kissinger to it was that well, this is politics. There are no moral values in
politics. And usually when two sides agree on something which is important, maybe a third
side would suffer or whatever it is, and I am sorry to say this is not human rights, this is not
a moral issue, this is politics.

And we were very much disappointed. I think maybe part of the thing was because we were
a bit short-sighted in evaluating American policy. We didn't have much experience. And
Barzani personally was very much disappointed and after that he went to America. He was
you know ill. And then he died there also. Even when he went there, till he died, they
didn't see him and they didn't care about it really.

Q. Can you talk about your personal dealings with Saddam Hussein in 1970, negotiating the
agreement. On a personal level, how would you describe him? And what were those
negotiations actually like for you personally?

Well, I was leading the Kurdish delegation then, and he was leading the Iraqi delegation. At
that time he was vice-president and dealing with the Kurdish file; usually they always put the
Kurdish file to the vice-president to deal with it. And we had months of negotiations with
Saddam. I saw him many many times, then, at that time. I think he's a clever tactician,
or he was at least at that time. ... And he made a lot of tactics with the communists. Because
he wanted to reach Soviet Union, he made pact with Soviet Union. And then, he just changed
his policy. And then he made the front with the communists, against the Kurds.

Also for the Kurds, he knew that he couldn't end the movement through fighting, so he was
thinking of trying to have a deal with the Kurds in a way that make the Kurds support his
policies. And if he couldn't succeed in that, then he will try to fight the Kurds. Because at
that time he had the pact with Soviet Union. They were giving a lot of arms to the Soviets,
and the Soviets told us very frankly in 1973 when the last delegation came to see us, say if
you have a war with Iraq, we will support Iraq all through it. Donít do that and try to be you
know, co-operative. And I mean, theyíre, able to crush the Kurdish movement through
cooperation with Soviet Union. Then he decided that he has no objection to making big
concessions to Iran, to agree with Iran to encircle and destroy the Kurdish movement. ...

So all the tactics with the Soviet Union, with us, against us, with Iran, against Iraq--Saddam
never had strategy for the Kurds except to either crush the Kurdish movement or contain it
and make it support him as a leader. I view him as a clever man.

Q. When you are sitting in a room with him, what is he like? Is he charismatic? Is he shy?
What is your impression?

Well, he attracts attention. And he has a personality which sometimes deceives some people
at the beginning because whatever points you put in, he agrees immediately. But he has
something at the back of his mind. He has an end result. He wants to reach something so he
agrees to this point that went so quickly and you think he is a very flexible and positive. But
there's a plan behind it. You don't know what it is. So he has always a double policy really.
One thing on the table, one thing under the table, so. And our experience with him,
experience of all Iraqis,is that he could never be trusted, And whatever he says one thing,
whatever he does is another thing. And he is a real killer. He is a very cruel man, a
dangerous man. He has used chemical weapons, biological weapons.

Q. You also have seen what he studied, his books. Can you give us an insight into his mind,
into his thinking?

We have seen him many times and I have seen his library. And he had a lot of books about
Stalin and the Stalin system and he liked it. And he actually liked the way Stalin was
dealing, was making policies-- he was following the same tactic.

I mean, some people say Saddam is like Hitler. Much different, I think. Hitler fought people
outside his country but Stalin--how he behaved in his own country against his own people
and the opposition--there are a lot of similarities with Saddam.

Q. What was it like for you, when you walked into that study and you saw these Stalin
books?

I was amazed. And when we asked him about communism, reading all those books, he says
'But even Stalin, was he a Communist? Stalin used communist party as a tool to stay in
power. To govern the country, to defend his country. And we have other tools.'

'It's not a matter of an ideology,' he says. 'A statesman usually uses an ideology here and
there to stay in power, to govern the country.' So that is why he thought that Stalin was more
a nationalist than a communist.

... At that time, in the 1970s, people were not much against Stalin as now. The Soviet Union
was still there, the leftist ideas were in the area, but later on when he started killing people
through poisoning, killings, chemical weapons, everything. ... You remember, [Saddam] was
trying to deport the whole Kurdish people to the South. He did half of it. Then came the war
with Kuwait and then the war with Iran. He couldn't finish it. And Stalin did the same. Stalin
deported the whole Chechen people from one area to many areas. We saw gradually that we
are dealing with a man, who's quite dangerous.

Q. Did he give you an impression that he'd actually collected books on Stalin, and was
actually studying his methods?

He didn't say 'I'm studying his method.' But he was fond of him as a good leader, a big,
important leader. He wanted [to study] Second World War, and so forth. And he really
looked to be imitating Stalin's ways of action.

... And he was benefiting at the same time from the Soviet bloc for his security plans against
his own people. [For example] when he made this very evil plan to kill Barzani on the
twenty ninth of September 1971. I was in the room with Barzani. He had the whole planning
and training and everything help from East Germany. Because Saddam was the first country
to recognize East Germany after the communist bloc and they were helping him, in security
terms, which was very dangerous to Kurds and the Iraqi people.

Q. Could you tell us that story, briefly, about Saddam's assassination attempt on Barzani?

There was some religious delegation who had come to see Barzani. ...

After several minutes, Barzani came in and sat there ... And they said 'we have come here to
listen to you to see what you think.' And they brought offers of religious book for him as a
present.

And he started to say thank you, when the man opposite him exploded. I mean, he became
pieces, you know, in the room, and four people were killed in the same explosion. Two on
his left side. Two on his right side. And somebody on the right side. Barzani was severely
wounded, but was safe. Both of us. At that time the coffee man who was putting tea for
that man who exploded, so apparently he has something, we saw later, he has a belt around
his tummy, and they have told him this is a recorder... Apparently two drivers were outside
the building. They had two cars. Security officers. It seems very devoted ones. They explo, I
mean they put, you know what you call it electronic or something on the recorder there, and
it exploded you know And the whole room was dark. Full of powder and the smoke, and we
came out, when we came out we went in front of the door, the two drivers saw us. And they
point and say look heís still alive, at Barzani. And they throw a hand grenade. This
explosion of the grenade took place in front of us. One was killed, fourteen were wounded. I
was safe, Bazani just had small rounded parts in his body which are not dangerous, which
we took out later.

Q. Jumping forward some years, the next contact you had with the U.S. was in the 1980s.
You yourself were subject to the Iraqi chemical attack on the Kurds. And after that, there
was the beginning of a small opening in America, with Congress. What kind of a response
did you get then in Washington, after Saddam Hussein's chemical attack?

In 1986 I went to Washington as a representative of Kurdish movement. Couldn't see
anybody. They had good relations with Saddam then. Saddam was at war with Khomeini
and the U.S. thought the danger is Khomeini and they were supporting Saddam therefore.

... And of course in 1988, when I went again as a representative of the Kurdistan Front,
which was the Front which was from the all Kurdish groups at that time, we had had
chemical weapons attack in 1987-88, and I was myself a victim of chemical weapon. We
didn't die, of course, but we had suffering. Even now my throat has some problem.

... We came to Washington and we tried to see anybody in State Department,or at the Iraqi
desk, or at the human rights desk. To talk to them about our sufferings, especially the
chemical weapons because it is prohibited internationally. So Saddam is doing something
which is violating all international laws so they should at least stand for the international
laws, if they don't stand for the Kurds.

And I remember I had some help also from Jonathan Randolph, from Jim Hoagland, from
William Safire, from David Ottoway. These are great journalists in America. And they
helped us really. And they also contacted the State Department for someone to see me. They
promised me that they will see me first.

... And then after twenty four hours official phoned me in Washington. Saying well, 'look, I
will see you, but you have to remember two points. One, we are not with violence, so if you
want to change regime with violence, we will not support you. Second, we are not for the
partition of Iraq. So you have to know that you are with Iraq unity.' And I told him on the
phone, I said 'look, we have to use violence because the regime is killing us anyway, but still
I haven't come here to ask you to support me for the violence. I am just coming here to talk
about the suffering of Kurdish people, the chemical weapons, etc. a humanitarian plight for
us. And secondly, we have asked for autonomy within Iraq. We haven't asked for partition,
so it's okay, I could meet your conditions and come and see you.' He says okay.

After another twenty four hours he phoned me again. He says "look we have this Kurdish
thing with Mr Schultz who was the Secretary of State. And I am sorry to tell you I cannot
see you. Because in our policy on this, it may complicate things. We are trying to talk to Iraq
through diplomatic channels about your issue, but if we see you, it might be
counter-productive, for them it may be provocative.'

The explanation was nonsense. And I said okay if you don't see me then let the Iraqi desk
come and see me. He say well this policy goes for all of us. I say well there are human-right
section. You have a human-right section in your state department. And this is human-rights
issue. We have been killed. I have been nearly killed myself and I want to come and tell the
story. Won't you listen to people like us?

They contacted the head of human rights section in the State Department and they talked to
him about the whole story. And he said 'well I will let you know.' He was positive himself.
Then apparently when consulting again, with Mr. Schultz, that's when they said no. ... And
nobody saw us. And I stayed there three months trying to see somebody. And they never saw
anybody.

Francois Mitterand, then the French president, and some other world leaders asked for a
summit in Paris, in January 1989, on prohibiting chemical weapons, and the main issue was
Saddam. And we went there, to the Kurdish Institute in Paris. We tried just to talk to
somebody in the conference about chemical weapons. Who are the victims? We are the
victims, so listen to us. And we brought some of the people who were burned by chemical
weapons and nobody allowed us in or listened to us. And the final result of the conference
was not at all about Iraq. Nobody talked about Iraq at all. It was about Libya. As Libya is
going to have chemical weapon factory. And they completely acquitted Saddam, and
America had a big hand in that conference to acquit Saddam. And I have seen that
personally.

Q. After the Gulf War, the balance of power changed and suddenly America began trying to
work with the Kurds. How would you describe that relationship in the 1990s? Do you think
there was skepticism on the part of the Kurdish parties which America supported?

In general the Kurdish parties have had skepticism towards America. From 1946 ... then in
1975, when they have the setback and the U.S. supported Saddam, and so on. In 1988 as I
told you, they didn't care about our issue. And later on they were co-operating with Turkey,
with Iran, with Arabs. And of course all the while Kurds were becoming the victims.

In 1991 things changed, of course, and Saddam was becoming a danger to them [the U.S.].
So they started having a bit different position towards the Kurds. Also, because Kurds were
an important element--they were the only armed strong opposition which

they have there on the ground. And they could challenge the government more than any
other opposition in Iraq so they had to deal with it.

After the war I was again in Washington as a head of a Kurdish delegation led by Kurdistan
Front. We were going there to see State Department again. Same old story. Something
happened in-between, which was not so good, and it was a mistake, I think from the Kurdish
side. They went into negotiation with Saddam while we were in America waiting for State
Department to see us. The whole delegation was in Baghdad, Talabani and the others were
... kissing Saddam... It was a blot on our mission. And I think it was a mistake.

... We went to State Department again. This time we were received of course. And they told
us, 'now look we have no policy to interfere in your country.' We told them, 'but people are
by the millions running to the frontier, this is not a matter of policy, it is humanitarian
tragedy. You have to do something about it. Six hundred thousand are staying on the
frontier of Turkey.' And at that time it was snow and winter, people are dying, children are
dying.

They say, 'no we can't interfere this is an old story you have with the Iraqis.' And we said,
'but, President Bush said in one of his speeches--we ask the Iraqi people to rise up and
change their regime.' But you didn't let us change the leader, because you allowed him to use
armed helicopters. So now we are his victims. He is running after us. We are running
because people are afraid of chemical weapons again. And they said no--'this is an internal
conflict.'

We went back to the hotel, disappointed with these people, and I told Mr. David
Mark--'look, I have been in this building and in this room, 25 ago in 1966. And I am very
sorry that there is still no change in American policy after 25 years.' And then in the evening
we heard that President Bush ordered 8,000 marines to go to Iraq, Kurdistan, to bring back
the refugees and create camps for them. Apparently it was because the Turkish president
phoned Bush. He said, 'there are six hundred thousand Iraqi Kurds on my frontier. I am not
ready to allow these people in. My Kurds are safe and we have no problem. We don't want
these people to come into my country, because they will disturb the whole Kurdish situation.
So please take them back to their country. If you don't, I will do it with my army.'

So George Bush had to do it. Because they didn't want the Turkish army to come in because
of Arabs and whatever. And that's why it was done. They then created the safe haven and
they started helping those refugees.

Q. Final question. If you look at the whole history of the U.S. relationship with Iraq and with
Saddam in particular and the Ba'ath Party, how would you sum it up?

I think they strengthened this man and his regime. They like this regime to be around.
Maybe they wanted to change Saddam in person, if possible, but not the regime. ... They are
not on good terms with Syria. And America doesn't like Iraq and Syria to be on good terms.
And, they are not on good terms with Iran also. So they don't like Iran, Iraq, Syria, to be on
good terms because there is a danger that they may make a front and Israel wouldn't like it,
and so on.

That's why I think they like this regime to stay on. And they always threaten the world
countries with Saddam and his regime--they have sold their arms to the Gulf States. And I
don't know why the Gulf States need arms. Against who? The factories are working for
them, the U.S., just because they're afraid. They say they [Iraq] threatens Kuwait and the
others. So I think American policy is that they like this regime to stay on, but definitely, they
are fed up with the person of Saddam who is difficult to deal with him.

They would like to change Saddam. Of course they have a hope of that. But I don't think
they have any plan to change Saddam. I think they have a hope. They want to encircle him
economically--which is more, dangerous to Iraqi people. And they have suffered more from
the regime. And they want to put pressure on him here and there by the Kurds, by Iraqi
opposition. Hoping that some day, somebody within Saddam's circle could kill him.

... Now Saddam is there in Baghdad. He has seventy-five thousand Republican Guards. And
a lot of other security forces around him. Nobody could reach him easily. ... We have always
asked the American government to indict this man. Put him before a trial. He is a criminal of
war. ... And their best evidence for that would be to dig the very huge mass graves in Iraq.
The infamous graves in which hundred and ninety thousand Kurds were buried alive. They
buried them in very big holes. And biological weapons were used on these poor people
before killing them. That's what everybody says. And then we have told the Americans,
when you dig it, then nobody would defend Saddam. Neither Russia, nor France or anybody.
And they told us, 'well look, how could you do that? Because this is a sovereign state and we
cannot go there unless we have permission from the Iraqi government.'

Secondly, they are not ready to bring even one of their soldiers into Iraq or to be wounded.
So they won't do a military operation. Thirdly, they are not ready to put up an Iraqi
government from opposition.

... How they will change Saddam? It's just a dream you know. I don't think they have any
plan to change him really. They hope to do that, but how they don't know. That's why when
the Iraqi opposition visits the U.S., they always go there with some hope, but they come back
without anything. Because Madeleine Albright told the last delegation when they went
there--'look, we want to get rid of this man, but we cannot tell you when and how.'

...Even the different U.S. political parties haven't yet agreed on a common plan what to do. I
think they had a golden opportunity to remove Saddam during the war. They had another
opportunity to remove him in the uprising after the war, and they didn't. And now it's more
complicated. They say they have been trying to remove Castro for forty years and they can't.
... They can't remove Khadaffi, it's not so easy. Opportunities come, but they don't seize it.
That is my point of view.
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The Kurdistan Observer
www.kurdistanobserver.com