Halabja poison gas attack

Halabja poison gas attack
Part of Iran-Iraq War Operation Zafar 7
A street of Halabja after the attack (A photo by Iranian photographer Sayeed Janbozorgi (three more). Janbozorgi died in 2003 due to chemical weapon injuries.)
Date March 16–17, 1988 Location 35°11′N 45°59′E / 35.183°N 45.983°E / 35.183; 45.983 (Halabja Poison Gas Attack)Coordinates: 35°11′N 45°59′E / 35.183°N 45.983°E / 35.183; 45.983 (Halabja Poison Gas Attack) Halabja, Iraqi Kurdistan Result Kurds and Iranian forces abandon Halabja, subsequent capture and demolition of the city by Iraqi forces
Belligerents
Iraq	Iran Peshmerga
Commanders and leaders
Ali Hassan al-Majid	Ali Sayad Shirazi Nawshirwan Mustafa
Casualties and losses
Up to 15,000 killed and injured (mostly civilians)

[hide] v • d • e Iran–Iraq War Related U.S. operations in bold Kaman 99 – Abadan – 1st Khorramshahr –Morvarid – Dezful – Undeniable Victory –2nd Khorramshahr – Samen-ol-A’emeh –Jerusalem Way – Jerusalem – Ramadan –Before the Dawn – Dawn 1 – Dawn 2 –Dawn 3 – Dawn 4 – Dawn 5 – Dawn 6 –Marshes – Kheibar – Badr –Al-Anfal Campaign – 1st Al Faw – Dawn 8 –Karbala 4 – Karbala-5 – Karbala-6 –USS Stark Incident – Karbala Ten – Nasr 4 –Earnest Will – Prime Chance –Eager Glacier – Nimble Archer – Halabja –Zafar 7 – 2nd Al Faw – Praying Mantis –Air Flight 655 Incident – Mersad

The Halabja poison gas attack (Kurdish: Kîmyabarana Helebce), also known as Halabja massacre or Bloody Friday,^[1] was a incident that took place on March 16, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War, when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured around 7,000 and 10,000 more, most of them civilians;^[1][2] thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack.^[3]genocide against the Kurdish people in Iraq,^[4] was and still remains the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history.^[5] The incident, which has been officially defined as an act of

The Halabja attack has been recognized as a separate event from the Anfal Genocide that was also conducted against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein.^[6] The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as act of genocide on March 1, 2010, in decision welcomed by the Kurdistan Regional Government.^[7] The attack was also condemned as a crime against humanity by the Parliament of Canada.^[8]

Contents [show] 1 Background 2 Chemical attacks 3 Discovery 4 Aftermath 4.1 Destruction and partial restoration of the city 4.2 Medical and genetic consequences 4.3 Trials 5 International sources for technology and chemical precursors 6 Controversies 6.1 Allegations of Iranian involvement 6.2 2006 Halabja memorial riot 7 In popular culture 8 See also 9 References 10 Literature 11 External links

[edit] Background

Main articles: Al-Anfal Campaign and Operation Zafar 7

It was an event that is historically separate from the Operation Anfal (the 1986-1989 campaign conducted by Saddam Hussein‘s regime’s in order to terrorize the Kurdish rural population and end the peshmergaIranian troops allied to the rebels were also involved in the Halabja events. Nevertheless, the victims of the tragedy are often included in accounting the deaths attributable to the Anfal campaign, which was characterised by the widespread and indiscriminate use of chemical weapons by Iraq.^[9] rebellions by brutal means), as the

[edit] Chemical attacks

The five-hour attack began early in the evening of March 16, 1988, following a series of indiscriminate conventional (rocket and napalm) attacks, when Iraqi MiG and Mirage aircraft began dropping chemical bombs on Halabja’s residential areas, far from the besieged Iraqi army base on the outskirts of the town. According to regional Kurdish rebel commanders, Iraqi aircraft conducted up to 14 bombings in sorties of seven to eight planes each; helicopters coordinating the operation were also seen. Eyewitnesses told of clouds of smoke billowing upward “white, black and then yellow”‘, rising as a column about 150 feet (46 m) in the air.^[1]

Survivors said the gas at first smelled of sweet apples;^[10] they said people died in a number of ways, suggesting a combination of toxic chemicals (some of the victims “just dropped dead” while others “died of laughing”; while still others took a few minutes to die, first “burning and blistering” or coughing up green vomit).^[11] It is believed that Iraqi forces used multiple chemical agents during the attack, including mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX;^[3] some sources have also pointed to the blood agent hydrogen cyanide (most of the wounded taken to hospitals in the Iranian capital Tehran were suffering from mustard gas exposure).^[1]

[edit] Discovery

Chemical attack victims

The first images after the attack were taken by Iranian journalists who later spread the pictures in Iranian newspapers; a film of the atrocity was also shown worldwide via news programmes. Some of those first pictures were taken by Iranian photographer Kaveh Golestan. Recalling the scenes at Halabja, Golestan described the scene to Guy Dinmore of the Financial Times: he was about eight kilometres outside Halabja with a military helicopter when the Iraqi MiG-23 fighter-bombers flew in. “It was not as big as a nuclear mushroom cloud, but several smaller ones: thick smoke,” he said. He was shocked by the scenes on his arrival in the town, though he had seen gas attacks before during the brutal Iran-Iraq War:

It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. You went into a room, a kitchen and you saw the body of a woman holding a knife where she had been cutting a carrot. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl’s mouth and she died in my arms.^[12]

Saddam Hussein’s government officially blamed Iran for the attack. The international response at the time was muted and the United States even suggested Iran was responsible.^[13] The United States, who, at the time, were allies of Iraq in their war with Iran, said the images could not be verified to be the responsibility of Iraq.

[edit] Aftermath

[edit] Destruction and partial restoration of the city

After the city was retaken from the hands of the Iranian and Kurdish forces, Iraqi troops in NBC suits came to Halabja to study the effectiveness of their weapons and attacks. The town, littered with unburied dead, was then systematically razed by the Iraqi forces using bulldozers and explosives. It was partially rebuilt by the returning Kurds later, even as chemical weapons contaminated the food and water supplies,^[3] soil, and animal populations.^[14] In 2003, some 50,000 people lived in the city, compared to some 80,000 in 1988. As of 2008, it is believed there are still undiscovered mass graves in Halabja.

[edit] Medical and genetic consequences

In surveys by local doctors, a higher percentage of medical disorders, miscarriages (14 times higher), and colon cancer (10 times higher) was found in Halabja compared to Chamchamal; additionally, “other cancers, respiratory ailments, skin and eye problems, fertility and reproductive disorders are measurably higher in Halabja and other areas caught in chemical attacks”.^[15] Some of those who survived the attack or were apparently injured only lightly at the time, later developed medical problems doctors believe stemmed from the chemicals, and there are concerns that the attack may be having a lasting genetic impact on the Kurdish population, as preliminary surveys show increased rates of birth defects.^[15]

[edit] Trials

On December 23, 2005, a Dutch court sentenced Frans van Anraat, a businessman who bought chemicals on the world market and sold them to Saddam’s regime, to 15 years in prison. The Dutch court ruled that Saddam committed genocide against the people of Halabja;^[16] this was the first time a court described the Halabja attack as an act of genocide. On 12 March 2008, the government of Iraq announced plans to take further legal action against the suppliers of chemicals used in the poison gas attack.^[17]

Neither Saddam Hussein nor his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (who commanded Iraqi forces in northern Iraq in that period, which earned him a nickname of “Chemical Ali”) were charged by the Iraqi Special Tribunal for crimes against humanity relating to the events at Halabja. However, the Iraqi prosecutors had “500 documented baskets of crimes during the Hussein regime” and Hussein was condemned to death based on just one case (the 1982 Dujail Massacre).^[18] Among several documents revealed during the trial of Saddam Hussein, one was a 1987 memorandum from Iraq’s military intelligence seeking permission from the president’s office to use mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin against Kurds. A second document said in reply that Saddam had ordered military intelligence to study the possibility of a “sudden strike” using such weapons against Iranian and Kurdish forces. An internal memo written by military intelligence confirmed it had received approval from the president’s office for a strike using “special ammunition” and emphasized that no strike would be launched without first informing the president.^[19]

On 18 December 2006, Saddam Hussein told the court:

In relation to Iran, if any military or civil official claims that Saddam gave orders to use either conventional or special ammunition, which as explained is chemical, I will take responsibility with honor. But I will discuss any act committed against our people and any Iraqi citizen, whether Arab or Kurdish. I don’t accept any insult to my principles or to me personally.^[20]

Ali Hassan al-Majid (“Chemical Ali”) was condemned to death by hanging by an Iraqi court in January 2010, after being found guilty of orchestrating the Halabja massacre. Majid was first sentenced to hang in 2007 for his role in a 1988 military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Operation Anfal; in 2008 he also twice received a death sentence for his crimes against the Iraqi Shia Muslims, in particular for his role in crushing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and his involvement in the 1999 killings in the Sadr City (then Saddam City) district of Baghdad. He was executed on January 25, 2010.^[21]

Aziz v. Iraq (Currently Pending US District Court//Fourth Circuit Appeals) Case No. 1:09-cv-00869-MJG

On March 18, 2009, Attorneys Kenneth J. McCallion of McCallion & Associates, Jeffrey D. Katz of JDKatz, P.C., and Stanley Todman of OffutKurman, P.A., filed suit against the Government of Iraq, and four US chemical companies as a class action on behalf of the the victims of the Gas Attack. The case was filed in the US District Court for Maryland, and is styled as Aziz v. Iraq. This was the first and only known action brought against the Government of Iraq and the manufacturers of the chemicals involved in the poison gas attacks. The case was subsequently dismissed by the US District Court, and is presently on appeal in the Fourth Circuit. A ruling is expected in February, 2011.

[edit] International sources for technology and chemical precursors

The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam’s regime from foreign firms.^[22] The largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in SingaporeNetherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West GermanyUnited Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.^[23] (4,515 tons), the (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie Ltd.) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to

The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald ReaganState Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq’s “Full, Final and Complete” disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips. Both companies have since undergone reorganization and Phillips, once a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum is now part of ConocoPhillips, an American oil and discount fossil fuel company, while Alcolac International has since dissolved and reformed as Alcolac Inc.^[24] Alcolac was named as a defendant in the Aziz v. Iraq case presently pending in the United States District Court (Case No. 1:09-cv-00869-MJG). administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Allegations of Iranian involvement

An investigation into responsibility for the Halabja massacre, by Dr Jean Pascal Zanders, Project Leader of the Chemical and Biological Warfare Project at the Stockholm International Peace Research InstituteIraq was the culprit, and not Iran. The U.S. State Department, however, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, took the official position based on examination of available evidence that Iran was partly to blame.^[13] concluded in 2007 that

A preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study at the time reported that it was Iran that was responsible for the attack, an assessment which was used subsequently by the Central Intelligence Agency^[25] which contained a brief summary of the DIA study’s key points. The CIA altered its position radically in the late 1990s and cited Halabja frequently in its evidence of weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Pelletiere claimed that a fact that has not been successfully challenged is that Iraq was not known to have possessed the cyanide-based blood agents determined to have been responsible for the condition of the bodies that were examined,^[26] and that blue discolorations around the mouths of the victims and in their extremities,^[27] pointed to Iranian-used gas as the culprit. As of 2010 none of this fact-based evidence has been challenged, all subsequent re-evaluations have been based on careful selection of opinions and speculation by third-parties. Some opponents to the Iraq sanctions have cited the DIA report to support their position that Iraq was not responsible for the Halabja attack. (CIA) for much of the early 1990s. The CIA’s senior political analyst for the Iran-Iraq war, Stephen C. Pelletiere, co-authored an unclassified analysis of the war

Joost Hiltermann, who was the principal researcher for the Human Rights Watch between 1992–1994, conducted a two-year study of the massacre, including a field investigation in northern Iraq. According to his analysis of thousands of captured Iraqi secret police documents and declassified U.S. government documents, as well as interviews with scores of Kurdish survivors, senior Iraqi defectors and retired U.S. intelligence officers, it is clear that Iraq carried out the attack on Halabja, and that the United States, fully aware of this, accused Iran, Iraq’s enemy in a fierce war, of being partly responsible for the attack.^[13] This research concluded there were numerous other gas attacks, unquestionably perpetrated against the Kurds by the Iraqi armed forces. According to Hiltermann, the literature on the Iran-Iraq war reflects a number of allegations of chemical weapons use by Iran, but these are “marred by a lack of specificity as to time and place, and the failure to provide any sort of evidence”. Hiltermann called these allegations “mere assertions” and added that “no persuasive evidence of the claim that Iran was the primary culprit was ever presented.”

[edit] 2006 Halabja memorial riot

Memorial to the victims of the Halabja gas attack in 2005

In March 2003, a controversial Monument of Halabja Martyrs was built on the outskirts of the still largely-ruined city. On March 16, 2006, a few thousand Halabja residents rioted at the site in protest of what they perceived as the neglect of the living and capitalizing on the tragedy by the Kurdish leadership. The memorial was set on fire; one of the rioters was shot dead by the police and dozens of people were injured.^[28]

[edit] In popular culture

• The industrial band Skinny Puppy included a track called “VX Gas Attack” on their album VIVIsectVI, based on the Halabja poison gas attack. The backing video for this song used on their Too Dark Park album tour featured various video clips showing victims of the attacks being treated for their injuries, as well as the bodies of those who perished in the attacks.
• The Dutch death metal band The Monolith Deathcult composed a track about the gassing on the album “Trivmvirate”, called “Wrath of the Ba’ath“.
• The 2006 documentary film Screamers about the Armenian American band System of a Down featured a significant segment on the Halabja gas attack.
• The 2002 British horror film 28 Days Later features a scene where the protagonist walks into a deserted diner and finds a dead mother clutching her dead child on the floor; the director’s commentary reveals the scene was inspired by footage and pictures of the Halabja gas attack.

[edit] See also

• Al-Anfal Campaign
• Changde chemical weapon attack
• Chemical warfare
• List of events named massacres

Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: صدام حسين التكريتي Ṣaddām Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrītī^[1]; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Ba’ath Party, which espoused secular
pan-Arabism, economic modernization, and Arab socialism, Saddam played a key role in the 1968 coup that brought the party to long-term power.

As vice president under the ailing General Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, and at a time when many groups were considered capable of overthrowing the government, Saddam created security forces through which he tightly controlled conflict between the government and the armed forces. In the early 1970s, Saddam spearheaded Iraq’s nationalization of the Western-owned Iraq Petroleum Company, which had long held a monopoly on the country’s oil. Through the 1970s, Saddam cemented his authority over the apparatuses of government as Iraq’s economy grew at a rapid pace.^[6]

As president, Saddam maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 through 1988, and throughout the Persian Gulf War of 1991. During these conflicts, Saddam suppressed several movements, particularly Shi’a and Kurdish movements seeking to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively. Whereas some Arabs venerated him for his aggressive stance against foreign intervention and for his support for the Palestinians,^[7] other Arabs and Western leaders vilified him as the force behind both a deadly attack on northern Iraq in 1988 and, two years later, an invasion of Kuwait to the south.

By 2003, the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush perceived that Saddam remained sufficiently relevant and dangerous to be overthrown. In March of that year, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, eventually deposing Saddam. Captured by U.S. forces on 13 December 2003, Saddam was brought to trial under the Iraqi interim government set up by U.S.-led forces. On 5 November 2006, he was convicted of charges related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites convicted of planning an assassination attempt against him, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Saddam was executed on 30 December 2006.^[8] By the time of his death, Saddam had become a prolific author. Among his works are multiple novels dealing with themes of romance, politics, and war.

The Iran–Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the Imposed War (جنگ
تحمیلی, Jang-e-tahmīlī) and Holy Defense (دفاع مقدس, Defā’-e-moghaddas) in Iran, Saddām’s
Qādisiyyah (قادسيّة صدّام, Qādisiyyat Ṣaddām) in Iraq, and the (First) Gulf War, was a war between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran lasting from September 1980 to August 1988. It was initially referred to in the western world as the “Persian Gulf War” prior to the “Gulf War” of 1990 with the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.

The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes, and fears of Shia insurgency among Iraq’s long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution. Iraq was also aiming to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state. Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of revolutionary chaos in Iran and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and within several months were repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June, 1982. For the next six years, Iran was on the offensive. Despite calls for a ceasefire by the United Nations Security Council, hostilities continued until 20 August 1988. The last prisoners of war were exchanged in 2003.

Afghanistan

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was an almost ten-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan at their own request against the Mujahideen Resistance when on December 27, 1979, 700 Soviet troops dressed in Afghan uniforms, including KGB and GRU special force officers from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target—the Tajbeg Presidential Palace. The mujahideen found other support from a variety of sources including the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt and other Muslim nations through the context of the Cold War.

The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979 under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.^[5] The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989 under the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Due to the interminable nature of the war and the damage it is perceived to have caused the USSR’s international standing and military morale, the conflict in Afghanistan has sometimes been referred to as the Soviet Union’s Vietnam War.^[6]

Kabul (Persian: کابل Kābol
IPA: [kɒːˈbol]; Pashto: کابل Kābul
IPA: [kɑˈbul];^[2] archaic Caubul), is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, located in the Kabul Province. According to the 2008 official estimates, the population of Kabul metropolitan area is 2.8 million people.

Monica Lewinsky

Monica Lewinsky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky as she appeared on her U.S. Government ID in 1995
Born	July 23, 1973 (1973-07-23) (age 36) San Francisco, California
Education	Bachelor’s degree in Psychology (Lewis & Clark College) Master’s degree in Social Psychology (London School of Economics)
Occupation	White House intern Fashion designer Television personality

Monica Samille Lewinsky (born July 23, 1973) is an American
woman with whom then-United States President
Bill Clinton admitted to having had an “improper relationship”^[1] while Lewinsky worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996. The affair and its repercussions, especially the impeachment of Bill Clinton, became known as the Lewinsky scandal.

Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Scandal 3 Subsequent life 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links

[edit] Early life

Monica Lewinsky was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Southern California on the west side of Los Angeles and in Beverly Hills. She is of Russian Jewish descent. Her father is Dr. Bernhard Lewinsky, an oncologist; her mother, Marcia Lewis, is an author. Her parents are divorced.^[2] Her stepfather, R. Peter Straus, is a media executive.^[3] For her primary education she attended the John Thomas Dye School in Bel-Air.^[4] She later attended Beverly Hills High School, but transferred to and graduated from Pacific Hills School, formerly known as Bel Air Prep, in 1991.^[2]

She attended two-year community college, Santa Monica College, and completed her undergraduate studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, graduating with a psychology degree in 1995. Lewinsky moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked at the White House as an unpaid summer intern starting in July 1995, moving to a paid position there in December 1995.^[2]

[edit] Scandal

Main article: Lewinsky scandal

Between November 1995 and March 1997, Lewinsky had an intimate relationship with President Bill Clinton. She later testified that the relationship involved fellatio in the Oval Office and other sexual contact but that sexual intercourse did not occur.

Clinton had previously been confronted with allegations of sexual misconduct, most notably in regard to an alleged long-term relationship with singer Gennifer Flowers and an encounter with Arkansas state employee Paula Jones (née Corbin). These events were alleged to have occurred during Clinton’s time as Governor of Arkansas. Lewinsky’s name surfaced during legal proceedings connected to the latter matter, when Jones’s lawyers sought corroborating evidence of Clinton’s conduct to substantiate Jones’s allegations.

In April 1996, Lewinsky’s superiors relocated her job to The Pentagon because they felt she was spending too much time around Clinton.^[2] Lewinsky confided in a co-worker named Linda Tripp about her relationship with the President. Beginning in September 1997, Tripp began secretly recording their telephone conversations regarding the affair with Clinton. In January 1998, after Lewinsky had submitted an affidavit in the Paula Jones case denying any physical relationship with Clinton, and attempted to persuade Tripp to lie under oath in the Jones case, Tripp gave the tapes to Independent Counsel
Kenneth Starr, and these tapes added to his ongoing investigation into the Whitewater controversy. Starr broadened his investigation to include investigating Lewinsky, Clinton, and others for possible perjury and subornation of perjury in the Jones case. Noteworthy for its revelation of Tripp’s motivations was her reporting of their conversations to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg. Tripp also convinced Lewinsky to save the gifts that Clinton had given her during their affair, and not to dry clean what would later be infamously known as “the blue dress.”

While under oath, Clinton denied having had “a sexual affair,” “sexual relations,” or “a sexual relationship” with Lewinsky,^[5] and on January 26, 1998 claimed “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” in a nationally televised White House news conference.

Clinton also said, “there is not a sexual relationship, an improper sexual relationship or any other kind of improper relationship”^[6] which he defended as truthful on August 17, 1998, hearing because of the use of the present tense, famously arguing “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”^[7] (i.e., he was not, at the time he made that statement, still having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky). Under pressure from Starr, who, as Clinton learned, had obtained from Lewinsky a blue dress with Clinton’s semen stain, as well as testimony from Lewinsky that the President had inserted a cigar tube into her vagina, Clinton admitted that he lied to the American people and that he had inappropriate intimate contact with Lewinsky.^[8] Clinton denied having committed perjury because, according to Clinton, the legal definition^[9] of oral sex was not encompassed by “sex” per se. In addition, relying upon the definition of “sexual relations” as proposed by the prosecution and agreed by the defense and by Judge Susan Webber Wright, who was hearing the Paula Jones case, Clinton claimed that because certain acts were performed on him, not by him, he did not engage in sexual relations. Lewinsky’s testimony to the Starr Commission, however, contradicted Clinton’s claim of being totally passive in their encounters.^[10]

Both Clinton and Lewinsky were called before a grand jury; Clinton testified via closed-circuit television, Lewinsky in person. Given an opportunity to offer final words on the matter, Lewinsky told the jury, “I hate Linda Tripp.”^[11]

[edit] Subsequent life

The affair led to a period of pop culture celebrity for Lewinsky as a younger-generation focus of a political storm.^[12][13] In early 1999, Lewinsky declined to sign an autograph in an airport, saying “I’m kind of known for something that’s not so great to be known for.”^[14]

On March 3, 1999, Lewinsky was interviewed by Barbara Walters on ABC’s 20/20; the program was watched by 70 million Americans, which ABC said was a record for a news show.^[15] She cooperated with Andrew Morton in his telling of her life and her side of the Clinton affair, Monica’s Story.^[15][16] The book was published in March 1999 and also excerpted as the cover story in Time magazine.^[15][16] Lewinsky made about $500,000 from her participation in the book and another $1 million from international rights to the Walters interview, but was still beset by high legal bills and living costs.^[17] Lewinsky made a cameo appearance as herself in two sketches during the May 8, 1999, episode of NBC‘s Saturday Night Live, a program that had lampooned her relationship with Clinton over the prior sixteen months.

By her own account, Lewinsky had survived the intense media attention during the scandal period by knitting.^[17] In September 1999, Lewinsky took this interest further by beginning to sell a line of handbags bearing her name,^[18] under the company name The Real Monica, Inc.^[17] They were sold online as well as at Henri Bendel in New York, Fred Segal in California, and The Cross in London.^[19][18][17] Lewinsky both designed the bags – described by New York magazine as “hippie-ish, reversible totes” – and traveled frequently to supervise their manufacturing in Louisiana.^[17]

At the start of 2000, Lewinsky began appearing in television commercials for Jenny Craig, Inc.^[20] The $1 million endorsement deal, which required Lewinsky to lose 40 or more pounds in six months, gained considerable publicity at the time.^[17] Lewinsky said that despite her desire to return to a more private life, she needed the money to pay off legal fees and that she believed in the product,^[21] while a Jenny Craig spokesperson said of Lewinsky, “She represents a busy active woman of today with a hectic lifestyle. And she has had weight issues and weight struggles for a long time. That represents a lot of women in America.”^[20] The choice of Lewinsky as a role model proved controversial for Jenny Craig, and some of its private franchises switched to an older advertising campaign.^[17][21] Jenny Craig stopped running the Lewinsky ads in February, concluded her campaign entirely in April 2000, and only paid her $300,000 for her involvement.^[21][17]

Also at the start of 2000, Lewinsky moved to New York City, living in the West Village and becoming an A-list guest in the Manhattan social scene.^[17] In February 2000, Lewinsky appeared on MTV‘s The Tom Green Show in an episode in which the host took her to his parents’ home in Ottawa in search of fabric for her new business. Later in 2000, Lewinsky worked as a correspondent for British Channel 5 on the show Monica’s Postcards, reporting on U.S. culture and trends from a variety of locations.^[22][17]

In March 2002, Lewinsky – no longer bound by the terms of her agreement with the United States Office of the Independent Counsel^[17] – appeared in the HBO special “Monica in Black and White”, part of the America Undercover series.^[23] In it, she answered a studio audience’s questions about her life and the Clinton affair.^[23]

Lewinsky was the host of the reality television dating program Mr. Personality on Fox Television Network in 2003.^[12] There she advised young women contestants who were picking men hidden by masks.^[24] Some Americans tried to organize a boycott of advertisers on the show, in protest of Lewinsky capitalizing on her notoriety.^[25] Nevertheless, the show debuted to very high ratings,^[24] and The New York Times said that “after years of trying to cash in on her fame by designing handbags and other self-marketing schemes, Ms. Lewinsky has finally found a fitting niche on television.”^[26] However, the ratings slid each successive week,^[27] and after the show completed its limited run it did not reappear.^[28] The same year, she appeared as a guest on the programs V Graham Norton in the UK, High Chaparall in Sweden, and The View and Jimmy Kimmel Live! in the U.S.^[28]

After Clinton’s autobiography My Life appeared in 2004, Lewinsky said in an interview with the British tabloid Daily Mail:^[29]

He could have made it right with the book, but he hasn’t. He is a revisionist of history. He has lied. […] I really didn’t expect him to go into detail about our relationship. […] But if he had and he’d done it honestly, I wouldn’t have minded. […] I did, though, at least expect him to correct the false statements he made when he was trying to protect the Presidency. Instead, he talked about it as though I had laid it all out there for the taking. I was the buffet and he just couldn’t resist the dessert. […] This was a mutual relationship, mutual on all levels, right from the way it started and all the way through. […] I don’t accept that he had to completely desecrate my character.

By 2005, Lewinsky found that she could not escape her past in the U.S., with both her professional and personal life difficult.^[12] She stopped selling her handbag line^[18] and moved to London.^[12] In December 2006, Lewinsky graduated with a master’s degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics^[30] where she had been studying since September 2005.^[31] Her thesis was titled “In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third-person effect and Pre-Trial Publicity”. She has since tried to avoid publicity.^[12]