Double Standards on Chemical Warfare Denounced

An international law expert blasted the US double standards in its recent bombing of Syria over a suspected chemical attack in the Arab country that Washington blames on Damascus. When Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Iranians during the war from 1980 to 1988, not only did the US look the other way, but also "aided and abetted" Iraq in committing "war crimes", Reza Nasri, an Iranian international law expert at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, told Al Jazeera.  "The claim that the recent US attack on Syria was motivated by humanitarian considerations is not consistent with Iran's own experience as a victim of chemical attacks," he said. In a UN Security Council report dated March 1986, inspectors who visited Iran described as "distressing" the number of "chemical casualties" and the extent of their injuries.  The report said that despite previous UN findings of Iraqi chemical weapons use in 1984 and 1985, attacks continue "on a more intense scale than used previously". "Every Iranian--whether ordinary citizen or high-ranking politician--still remembers how world powers and neighboring countries, remained morbidly silent in face of these atrocities,” Nasri said.