1987 chemical attack still haunts Iran

Iraq's deadly assault on the town of Sardasht continues to color the debate about Tehran's defenses.
By Borzou Daragahi
LA Times

March 19, 2007

SARDASHT, IRAN — The roots of Iran's nuclear ambitions wind through this mountaintop town of pine trees and streams along the Iraqi border. Here, on a crystal-clear afternoon 20 years ago, Saddam Hussein's warplanes unleashed a poisonous rain of chemical weapons, killing as many as 113 civilians and injuring thousands more.

The victims gasped and vomited on rusting buses as they were rushed to hospitals. They dropped dead on the cobbled streets of the town center. They cried out as their eyes burned and skin bubbled.

At the United Nations, Iran protested vehemently, to little avail, about the use of the weapons, which were banned under international treaties. The world's superpowers had little patience for complaints from the Islamic Republic, which supported attacks on U.S. Marines in Lebanon as well as on Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

Once the war ended, an indignant Iran stockpiled chemical weapons and embarked on a crash nuclear program that is now at the center of a global dispute.

(Continued here.)