The Gulf Trading Blows

The latest cease-fire lasted only a few hours. Shortly after Iran announced last week that it was suspending attacks on Iraqi cities and called upon the Baghdad government to reciprocate, Iraqi warplanes attacked two tankers hauling oil from Iran's Kharg Island and launched raids on Tehran and nine other Iranian cities, killing more than 300 and wounding dozens. In retaliation, Iran fired what appeared to be another surface-to-surface missile into the heart of Baghdad; more than 70 people were reported to have died in the blast.

But the most chilling news of the week was evidence that Iraq had once again used chemical weapons against its enemy. Physicians in London, Vienna, Munich and other West European cities confirmed that about 50 Iranian soldiers flown to their medical centers for treatment had been exposed to mustard gas. In Washington, Secretary of State George Shultz bluntly informed Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of U.S. objections to the use of chemical weapons, noting that Iraq is a signatory of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which prohibits them.

Iraq, which first used gas against Iranian troops last year, denied the new accusations. Although U.S. intelligence sources were convinced that Baghdad was guilty, they found it difficult to pin down where the wounded Iranians being treated in Western Europe had been exposed to gas. Iranian troops driving deep into the Huwaiza marshes in western Iraq two weeks ago were equipped with gas masks; Western observers of the aftermath of the struggle reported that none of the dead were wearing the masks. Nor did they show signs of having been exposed to toxic agents. While denying that chemical weapons were brought to bear against the invaders, however, Major General Sultan Hashem Ahmed, an Iraqi sector commander, said, "If we had gas, we would have used it."

There is little doubt that Iraq still possesses stockpiles of chemical weapons-- and none at all that mustard gas had severely injured the Iranians taken to Western Europe. Doctors treating the men reported burns and blisters of the skin, lung lesions that inhibit breathing, and chemical traces of the gas in body fluids. Said Burn Specialist Max von Karlmann of the Isar Right- Bank Clinic in Munich: "The clinical picture shows clear evidence of injury inflicted by mustard gas."

^ More disturbing were signs that another, as yet unidentified toxic substance had been used on some of the soldiers. Since doctors do not know what that agent is, they are not sure how to treat the victims or what the extent of their injuries will be.