'Chemical Ali' Feared to Use Chemical Weapons

March 28, 2003 -- Some 14 tons of evidence against Gen. Ali Hassan Al Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin and the man called "Chemical Ali," from more than 10 years ago — videotapes, audiotapes and documents — were airlifted out of Iraq in 1992 in the days following the Persian Gulf War.

Today that information is being scrutinized more than ever as U.S. forces approach Baghdad, and as "Chemical Ali" is believed to be one of the lynchpins of the defense of Iraq. All who know him fear he will do what he's done before and use chemical weapons.

Majid, believed to be now leading the resistance to U.S. forces in the south of Iraq, was nicknamed "Chemical Ali" because he, with apparent zeal and relish, allegedly carried out a chemical attack that killed and permanently maimed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Majid denies that he has carried out such atrocities, but U.S. investigators say the trove of evidence against him is damning.

Former U.S. ambassador Peter Galbraith first discovered the evidence of Chemical Ali's activities more than 12 years ago.

"Mass killers do turn out to be bureaucrats," said Galbraith. "Nazi Germany kept its records. Saddam Hussein kept his records."

One particular videotape Galbraith and his team of war crime investigators found, made by the Iraqi security services, is of an execution of Kurdish dissidents, one of countless acts of brutality ordered by Majid.

"This is an incredibly cruel figure. This, this is a man who knows how to marshal all the instruments of terror and cruelty to promote his objectives," Galbraith told ABCNEWS. "And I think he's doing it today in the south of Iraq."

And people throughout Iraq know what Chemical Ali will do to those in his way.

"You can see here the crowd that's been forced to turn out for these executions," said Galbraith, pointing to the mass of people on the videotape, including children. It was a message to not defy Saddam's rule.

And after the executions, a final indignity: "All the officials come and each of them put a bullet into the body," said Galbraith, "Everybody then bonds together in committing these acts."

"This video is just the tip of the iceberg," he said.

General Isn't Afraid to Use Chemical Weapons Again

But it was the chemical attacks, allegedly ordered by Majid, that horrified the world and serve as a warning to U.S. and British troops now.

"Children, women, men, vomiting, screaming, crying with swollen eyes," one female victim said. "Everybody was, kids, they were, they were screaming, 'We are blind.' — 250 villages were attacked, the victims left lying in the streets where they died from the clouds of gas."

"They were experimenting with the lethality of different kinds of chemical weapons. Mustard gas, cyanide, nerve agents," said Galbraith. "Women, children, men, they were the guinea pigs in these experiments."

In what is described as a tape recording of one military planning session, a voice Galbraith and other war criminal investigators say is that of Chemical Ali, boasts of his willingness to use chemicals: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons. Who is going to say anything? The international community? F--- them. The international community, and those who listen to them."

And now, those in Iraq who survived the chemical attacks are the living testament of the tactics of Saddam Hussein and his cousin Chemical Ali.

"This is the world's largest population ever subjected to weapons of mass destruction," said Christine Godsen, an expert on malformations in babies, who went back to the area where Majid killed thousands in order to track the lasting effects on those who survived.

"They hate Chemical Ali," she said. "They see him as the cause of their relatives dying, their children being born and dying. Their own suffering."

Godsen described examples of horror, of a man who was gassed as a teenager and 10 years later, is barely able to walk a few feet.

"Some of them can't feel their fingers and toes or have terrible tremors," said Godsen. "They had increased incidences of cancers and birth defects. They were suffering terribly."

Gotten Away With Murder

And for his efforts, Majid has lived the good life as Hussein's trusted henchman and mass murderer. He is cool and calculated, according to former CIA agent Bob Baer, now an ABCNEWS consultant on the Middle East.

"I don't think he is a psychopath at all," said Baer. "He just, there is nothing that he'll stop at to keep Saddam in power."

Baer also says the U.S. ignored reports of Majid's cruelty when the U.S. was helping Iraq fight Iran in the 1980s.

"The U.S. certainly knew what he was doing in the '80s," said Baer. "I mean this was not a big secret. Iraq was under threat, Saddam was about ready to fall and we turned a blind eye. So if Saddam and Chemical Ali wanted to kill Kurds no one complained."

It's a much different story now as Majid plays a pivotal role leading the fight against U.S. and British forces in the south, in the southern city of Basra, where he is also well remembered for how he put down a short-lived rebellion in 1991.

Survivors say Ali's forces arbitrarily rounded up and executed young men by the thousands.

"They take them for interrogation and mostly their fate would be execution," said Mohammed Hanon, a Shiite uprising survivor. "It was horrible, they were left to be eaten by dogs and animals."

An estimated 200,000 people were killed in Basra on Majid's orders.

"If we believed that there would not be sufficient force in the south, loyal to Saddam, willing to take the orders of Ali Hassan Majid, that was a huge miscalculation," said Galbraith.