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Iraq I: United States to Interrogate “Chemical Ali” U.S. officials plan to interrogate the recently captured Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali,” for ordering chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq in 1988, U.S. officials said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 21). Al-Majid may be connected to the continuing attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, said Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command. “‘Chemical Ali’ has been active in some ways in influencing people around him in a regional way,” Abizaid said during a U.S. Defense Department press conference yesterday. Abizaid refused to provide details as to the circumstances surrounding al-Majid’s capture, saying that doing so “would give away things we do not want to give away” (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Newsday, Aug. 21). Former Iraqi intelligence chief Wafiq Samarrai said he believed al-Majid was captured near the northern Iraqi city of Samarra. A senior U.S. defense official said al-Majid was captured Sunday in northern Iraq in the company of five or six bodyguards. The announcement of al-Majid’s capture was delayed to allow time to confirm his identity and to avoid tipping off other wanted senior Iraqi officials, the U.S. defense official said. Many Iraqis have expressed relief and a sense of satisfaction that al-Majid has been apprehended, according to the Washington Post. Laith Zuheir, a 25-year-old Iraqi worker, said he wanted first a public trial for al-Majid, then his execution. “I wish I could torture him with my own hands, shoot him with a pistol, beginning in his leg until I reached his head, so that he could feel the pain of every innocent person he killed,” Zuheir said. ‘Then he would see how they suffered,” he added. Some U.N. officials have proposed that a war crimes trial for captured senior Iraqi officials be conducted by a mixed panel of Iraqi and international experts, according to the Post. U.S. officials have suggested a war crimes tribunal led by Iraqis — a popular idea among Iraqis themselves. “We want a public trial,” said Ahmed Hussein, an employee at Fayha, a store in Baghdad that sells refrigerators, air conditioners and fans. “We want all those criminals to admit their crimes in front of the Iraqi people and confess to everything they did,” he said (Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, Aug. 22).
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