This guy, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was supposed to be dead according to media reports last November. Guess not. In his interview published on the Time magazine website, al-Douri claims that he and other Saddam loyalists are behind much of the insurgency. One of Saddam’s top henchmen, al-Douri was a senior leader in charge of the forces that doused Halabja with chemicals in 1988 during the Anfal campaign. During the first Gulf War, he warned Kurds to stay out of the fight or face another chemical attack: “If you have forgotten Halabja, we are ready to repeat the operation.” Saddam and his senior Baathist leadership targeted Halabja (and other towns) with a mixture of mustard gas and nerve agent. Here’s a reminder of the result:

(source: http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil) And here’s what the Iraq Survey Group concluded on Saddam’s wmd production capability: