Iraq says to sue Halabja chemical weapons suppliers

BAGHDAD, March 12 (Reuters) - Iraq plans to take legal action against the suppliers of chemicals used in a poison gas attack on the town of Halabja in Iraq's Kurdish north, which killed 5,000 people in 1988, the government said on Wednesday.

Iraq's cabinet also approved $6 million to finance construction in the town ahead of the 20th anniversary of the attack on March 16, it said in a statement.

"The cabinet decided to take legal measures to sue the companies who provided the ex-regime with the chemical weapons used in Halabja," the statement said, without naming the companies.

In 2005, a Dutch court sentenced a Dutch businessman to 15 years in prison, later raised to 17 years, for supplying the raw materials for poison gas to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The gas was used in Halabja, and also in Iraq's 1980-1988 war with Iran.

A spokesman for the government of the largely autonomous Kurdish region, Jamal Abdulla, said they had not been informed of the decision, but welcomed it as a positive step.

Residents of Halabja have long complained of neglect by Kurdish and Iraqi government authorities, although development in the town has accelerated in the last two years.

The town's mayor Fouad Salih also welcomed the decision.

"The former regime's crime destroyed the whole town. And this decision taken by the Iraqi government will help to enhance and develop the services delivered to its citizens," he said.

Saddam's government waged a military campaign, codenamed Anfal, Arabic for spoils of war, against Iraq's Kurds in the 1980s that killed tens of thousands.

Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, widely known as "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas, was sentenced to death last June for his role in the genocidal campaign. A legal wrangle has held up his execution. (Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad and Sherko Raouf in Sulaimaniya, writing by Mohammed Abbas, editing by Ross Colvin)