"Saddam Hussein shocked the world when he used chemical weapons on his
Kurdish Iraqi countrymen 10 years ago. But even more shocking is the fact
that no one has investigated the horrible effects on the survivors and
their offspring in the town of Halabja until now."
                                              -- Ed Bradley March 1, 1998

Noam Chomsky has long studied the media as part of a bigger project in
analyzing legitimate and illegitimate institutional power and authority.
One of his most successful methods has been to follow the news coverage of
atrocities perpetrated by U.S. client regimes contrasted with those
simultaneously perpetrated by putative U.S enemies. In this way, his focus
on the Khmer Rouge attacks on Vietnamese civilians vs. the Indonesian
attack on the East Timorese in the 1970's convincingly demonstrated the
subservience of U.S. media to state and corporate interests.

This past week's _60 Minutes_ segment, "Halabja: Ten Years Later",
demonstrates the same. This time, however, the media's coverage of and
moral stance toward the same act, the wicked and devastating chemical
attack of Kurds by Saddam Hussein's regime, changed with the shifting
relationship between the U.S. and Iraq. In 1988, when the attack actually
happened, Iraq was wrapping up its long U.S. supported war with Iran and
doling out domestic punishment for those who didn't support the regime
ardently enough in its war efforts. The Kurds of Halabja fell into this
category. As effectively confessed by Ed Bradley and if my memory serves
correctly, media coverage was not extensive nor was it emotionally charged
like Sunday's broadcast.

In 1998, with Saddam now considered a "rogue" who must be controlled,
contained, or removed, _60 Minutes_ airs a powerful, emotionally wrenching
story of the attack and its disfigured, handicapped victims. Key
questions, however, not only go unanswered, but *unasked*! For starters,
who supplied the chemical agents and their delivery systems to Hussein and
Iraq? Where was the moral outrage and call for Hussein's ouster then? Did
Hussein's good relation with the U.S. at the time allow him to chemically
attack the Kurds without fear of international reprisals? How is it that
Arab Iraqis and the Kurds became "countrymen"? as Ed Bradley said

More sophisticated questions could arise, depending on answers to those
questions. For example, could the U.S. have supported Hussein through 1990
if our media properly covered the attack on Halabja? Which influences U.S.
foreign policy more, politics or human rights? and more essentially, is
supplying any regime with chemical weapons and other "weapons of mass
destruction" justifiable or becoming of a moral nation?

When denigrators and doubters of Chomsky's approach at institutional
analysis denigrate and denounce next time, offer this fresh example of
"Halabja: Ten Years Too Late".