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In the course of the World War I, and amid the hideous scenes caused by the war, the sight of women and children, who were hospitalized because of their injuries caused by mustard gas, was especially shocking.
Swollen eyelids, inflamed faces, and blisters all over the skin, on which the injured person had to sleep, painful moaning of the persons burned with chemical substances, and the fear of becoming blind and losing sight, were some of the most horrendous aspects of chemical warfare that were noticed by the people of the world.
People, particularly in Europe, were living in such a condition that they had to always carry their protective masks with them, and at any moment expect a cloud of poisonous gases to appear in the sky above their heads.
It is true that during the World War I, the casualty caused by chemical weapons was much less than that of conventional weapons, but the sufferings and torturous pains undergone by the victims of chemical weapons before their gradual death, made chemical weapons be considered as a prohibited weapon; the use of chemical weapons was finally banned by the Geneva protocol in 1925.
Since the adoption of this protocol, the world has indifferently witnessed the repeated violations of this protocol. No doubt, the most important of such violations are the Iraqi chemical attacks against the. Islamic Republic of Iran, the details of some of which have been already submitted to the UN Security Council through reports prepared by UN expert teams in 1984, 1985 and 1986.
Among chemical attacks carried out by Iraq, the most tragic ones have been those aimed at residential areas in which women, children and the civilian population were injured. If an international organization ever decides to look into the violation of human rights, chemical attacks against the civilian population should be the first case to be studied.
How Chemical Attacks Started: the Iraqi all- out invasion of the Iranian territory started on 22 September, 1980. In these attacks, large areas of Iran were occupied by the Iraqi troops. Following several operations carried out by Iranian Muslim combatants, major parts of the Iranian occupied territories were gradually liberated, causing intensive pressure on Iraqi troops. With a view to alleviating this military pressure, the Iraqi regime decided to deploy chemical weapons, hoping to be thus able to get the upperhand in the battlefield.
It was in late 1980, that Iraq carried out its first chemical attacks gradually expanded to include the civilian population in addition to military targets.
Here, mention is going to be made of some of the Iraqi chemical attacks carried out against purely civilian targets, even though Iraq has mainly used the banned chemical weapons against military targets… | 
