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Speaker Quotes

Joseph Sassoon

鈥淚 think there is one aspect of [the Iran-Iraq War] that triggered the whole issue of using chemical weapons, and that is the child soldiers problem. Many Iraqi鈥檚 talked about it, definitely in years later, that they could not find a solution to these children committing suicide in waves and waves鈥� against the Iraqi鈥nd Iraq therefore decided to use chemical weapons to stop those attacks.鈥�

鈥淚n the last few years there was a depletion of those [biological weapons] and that鈥檚 really why at the end of the [U.S.] invasion, the chase for W.M.D. did not reap any harvest and really turned out to be a false reason for the invasion.鈥�

 鈥淸Iran鈥檚 use of chemical weapons] was a matter of deterrence, control, and punishment.鈥�

Asher Orkaby

鈥淪addam was fairly confident that there would not be any condemnation of any of Iraq鈥檚 military decisions, certainly not of chemical weapons, because of this broad anti-Iranian public opinion鈥� In general, [Saddam understood] that the UN General Assembly would not condemn Saddam鈥檚 use of chemical weapons during the 1980s and therefore he could use it with impunity.鈥�

鈥淧erhaps what happens in the highlands of Yemen and north of Sana鈥檃 has a direct connection to Iraq and understanding the parallels between why Egypt used chemical weapons and why Iraq used chemical weapons can give us great insight into why it continues to be used in Syria and what warning signs we might look for in future conflicts.鈥�

鈥淭here was a military advantage in using [chemical weapons]... There is military support for Hezbollah and others, but there鈥檚 also a sense of chemical weapons being an equalizer in some ways to compensate for differences in population. There is also a general sense鈥攁t least a palpable fear among the Assad regime鈥攖hat if this war is lost then the next crisis in Syria will be an Alawite genocide, where the rest of the Syrian population is taking revenge upon a minority rule that鈥檚 been responsible for destruction and death鈥� for the past several decades.鈥�

Michael Brill

鈥淚raq鈥檚 defensive military reliance on [its] weapons鈥� has been well documented and benefited greatly from the availability of internal Iraqi records. In contrast, the subject of Iran鈥檚 chemical weapons program and battlefield use on a limited scale later in the war remains controversial and debated by scholars and policymakers more than three decades later. One of the largest obstacles impeding efforts to get to the bottom of the subject has been the lack of research access to internal Iranian records.鈥�

鈥淩ather than any of the official stated reasons given by Iran, I suggest that it鈥檚 more likely that [Iran] decided that its program achieved insufficient results or that limited chemical stocks risked further Iraqi chemical escalation and had more value in trade for mines or missiles.鈥�

鈥淭here are clear, politicized assessments鈥� but in terms of the actual, nitty-gritty of day-to-day battlefield assessments, [Iran] did appear motivated by passing on accurate information.鈥�