Iraq War: Meet the new boss...

Laura Rozen points out a BBC item reporting that Nizar Al-Khazraji, an Iraqi general involved in the notorious poison gas attack at Halabja - one of the main propaganda exhihits in the Bush administration's reminders about Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" and his general evilness - is now advising the interim Iraqi government.

Gen. Khazraji has been a bit of a mystery figure the last couple of years.  See CIA's 'brightest prospect' for Iraq presidency missing: Former army chief facing war crimes trial in Denmark by Robin Shulman San Francisco Chronicle 04/16/03.

Three weeks ago, former Iraqi army Chief of Staff Nizar Khazraji disappeared from Denmark, where he was under house arrest after being charged with war crimes for his part in military attacks in the 1980s that resulted in the deaths of some 180,000 Iraqi Kurds.

As recently as March 2002, Khazraji was touted as the CIA's pick for the presidency of Iraq after Saddam Hussein's removal. Writing in the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh said unnamed officials told him Khazraji was the CIA's "brightest prospect."

That month, a story also appeared in the Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper saying that Khazraji topped a list of more than 55 dissident Sunni officers from which Washington would choose "Iraq's Karzai" -- a reference to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. ...

Born in the northern city of Mosul, Khazraji came of age in the generation entranced by a young, charismatic [Saddam] Hussein.

"He was a Kennedy in his age," Khazraji said [of Saddam]. "We were trying to build a country, and the slogans of the party were grand: unity of the Arab countries, freedom for Arab people, a socialist system to make everyone equal."

Rozen links to this article by Julie Flint explaining how the US apparently decided early on to make use of some of Saddam's less innocent officials:  Looking for General Khazraji, Institute for War and Peace Reporting 05/06/03.

At the risk of encouraging one of those bad historical analogies, it does occur to me reading this that it might have helped if our government had learned from its past mistakes and misdeeds a little more effectively, such as those discussed in this article: U.S. coverup of Nazi scientists by Linda Hunt Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Apr 1985 (*.pdf file).  This article gives an account of the way in which competition with the Soviet Union for the services of German scientists in the postwar period led the Military to violate a presidential order against employing potential war criminals among them.

The most (in)famous among that group of scientists was Wernher von Braun (1912-1977), who became a major contributor to the postwar US weapons and space program.  The scientists had been investigated initially by the Office of Military Government U.S. (OMGUS).  In order to be approved for immigration to the US, the State Department had to certify that they were not suspected of having committed war crimes or of having been "ardent" Nazis.  The Joint Intelligence Objective Agency (JOIA) was the Pentagon's agency in charge of the scientists' project, known as Operation Paperclip.  JOIA pressured OMGUS to change their reports to cover up possible crimes or strong Nazi sympathies on the part of scientists they wanted to keep, including Von Braun.  Hunt writes:

In a secret memo to European Command, on December 4, 1947, the JIOA asked that OMGUS reports of 14 individuals, including von Braun’s, "be reviewed and that new security reports be submitted where such action is deemed appropriate." JIOA Director [Bosquet] Wev made it clear that there was "little possibility" State or Justice would approve immigration for specialists deemed "potential or actual" security threats. "This may result in the return to Germany of specialists whose skill and knowledge should be denied other nations in the interest of nationa1 security." Army sources quoted in the memo said OMGUS reports were "unrealistic" since "none of the subject specialists is described as politically active."

JIOA files reveal that one of the individuals in question had been arrested by Army Counter Intelligence Corps agents in 1946 as a war crimes suspect but was not charged.  There was evidence that two had mistreated slave labor.  Most had been long-time Nazi Party members; three were in the SS, one in an SS Deaths Head unit; four in the SA; and most had belonged to other Nazi organizations.

Following that memo, all 14 reports were changed. Originally, von Braun’s September 18, 1947 report had read in part: "He was an SS officer but no information is available to indicate that he was an ardent Nazi. Subject is regarded as a potential security threat by the Military Governor."

But five months later, OMGUS issued a new report that changed the security threat classification: "The extent of his Party participation cannot be determined in this Theater. Like the majority of members, he may have been a mere opportunist." OMGUS noted that von Braun had been in the United States more than two years and that, if his conduct had been exemplary, "he may not constitute a security threat to the U.S." The report showed von Braun had joined the Nazi Party in 1937, and was a major in the SS and a member of four other Nazi organizations.

The article doesn't elaborate on this particular point, but the notion that a major in the SS was anything but a dedicated Nazi seems pretty silly on the face of it.  The SS becamea huge organization, a sort of a state-within-a-state.  Some draftees were involuntarily assigned to the Waffen-SS, the conventional military wing of the SS.  But with that exception, the SS was a Party organization of volunteers who swore their allegiance to Hitler, and who knew they were signing up for potential criminal acts.  The SS was in charge of running the concentration camp system.

Hunt later published a book-length investigation of the topic, Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 (1991).