ABSTRACT
The 1988 Anfal (“Spoils”) operations conducted by the Iraqi regime against part of its Kurdish population are among the best-documented cases of genocide. Ostensibly a counterinsurgency measure against Kurdish rebels, they in fact involved the deliberate killing of large numbers of noncombatants. Captured documents prove the regime’s genocidal intent: They make abundantly clear that the government aimed at killing Kurdish civilians as such. Estimates of the number of civilian casualties vary from 50,000 to almost 200,000; the number of displaced or otherwise affected persons is far greater. Over 1000 Kurdish villages were destroyed in the operations, as were their livestock and orchards. The operations are characterized by an unusual degree of bureaucratic organization, centralized implementation, and secrecy. But because they are documented not only by eyewitness and survivor testimonies, but also by a vast number of captured Iraqi government documents, they provide one of the strongest and most unambiguous legal cases for a genocide tribunal.
