A federal lawsuit filed this week in Maryland claims that materials supplied by three U.S. firms helped former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to produce chemical weapons used in strikes against Kurds in his country, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 17).
Thousands of Kurds continue to suffer long-term health problems resulting from exposure to the chemical warfare materials, according to the lawsuit filed by five Iraqi expatriates and the Kurdish National Congress of North America. It requests unspecified compensation and establishment of a program supported by the companies to monitor the health of Kurds exposed to chemical warfare materials, along with family members and heirs.
The defendants are VWR International LLC of Pennsylvania, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. of Massachusetts and Alcolac Inc. of Maryland, along with the Republic of Iraq.
Alcolac acknowledged during a federal prosecution in 1989 that it illegally exported the mustard-gas precursor thiodiglycol, which eventually reached Iran.
The lawsuit says that Alcolac's predecessor firm provided Iraq with more than 300 tons of the material during the 1980s. The other two companies conducted similar operations during that decade, the complaint states.
The Hussein regime used poison gas in the 1980s during its crackdown on Iraqi Kurds, whom Baghdad suspected of supporting Iran while the two nations were at war from 1980 to 1988. As many as 180,000 Kurds are believed to have died during the campaign.
Thermo Fisher declined to comment on the lawsuit, while VWR did not respond to requests for comment, AP reported. A spokesman for Alcolac's parent firm, the Rhodia Group, noted that the two companies were not affiliated in the period covered by the lawsuit (David Dishneau, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 10).