Memoirs of Akbar Hashemi – March 23, 1988

I studied at home until half past eight in the morning. We went to Luqman al-Dawlah Hospital to visit the war wounded. The head of the hospital gave a short report and said that the hospital has five hundred beds, half of which have patients, and about half of these beds are war wounded and mostly chemically injured from the city of Halabja and Iraqi Kurds, and the rest of the beds have been kept ready for admission. Usually, during Eid, the hospital is quiet.

I saw heartbreaking scenes of the situation of the people of Halabja. Women and children who did not know about their relatives and men who did not know about their families. Children from one month to several years old... all of them were satisfied with the treatment of our forces and officials. A lot of work has been done to bring them to Tehran. They claimed that they have killed about six thousand people and injured more than that number, but our official authorities say that they have killed about two thousand people. The statistics are not yet accurate. Because there may be people in the houses and under the rubble and in the deserts of the region.

Most of them claim that the city of Halabja had a population of 100,000, which seems to be an exaggeration. Our insiders have estimated the main population to be about seventy thousand people, and about half of them were in the city when it was captured. There were a number of chemical casualties from our own forces, who were mainly bombed in Aqaba. Hezbollah is in Dezli and Serah, and some are in Halabja and Kharmal, and most of them are from the army of Ali bin Abi Talib (AS). They are in a good mood. Most of them were satisfied with the hospital. I had an interview, but I was emotional. We took a small gift for all the patients: pistachios, flowers and books.

I went to the parliament. I read the reports. Today, we did not have any mischief in the cities from Iraq. Mr. [Ebrahim] Sanjaghi came and told the time of the upcoming operation. He was supposed to go to the region. I came home in the evening.

Efat called Kerman and asked about Mohsen, Mahdi and Yaser. He said that Imam's family is also in Kerman. They are going to go to Rafsanjan, the house of Sheikh Mohammad [Hashemian] tomorrow. I told them to go to Nog.

Mr. [Mirhossein Mousavi], the Prime Minister, said on the phone that because today Iraq is not evil, it is good for us to stop [hitting Iraqi cities].

In the evening, Ahmed Agha came. He emphasized on dealing decisively and accepting the consequences of the war of cities, even by closing schools and making Tehran quiet, etc.

Mohsen brought the report of the missile group [Sana'i] of IRGC [Shahid Hammet] on parts of Iraqi missiles, which has differences with their previous statements, and there is still a possibility of changing the theory.