collected 18 tons of Iraqi government documents which were captured by the Peshmerga during the 1991 uprising and airlifted them to the United States. In those files, HRW conducted research on the Anfal campaign in collaboration with United States federal government agencies such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Department. The US government provided Arabic translators and CD ROM scanners. HRW accepted the US government role under the condition that personnel involved worked under its direction. The files include documents which were collected by the Kurdish parties PUK and KDP, both parties hold the ultimate ownership of the documents that were airlifted to the US. In exchange for access to the National Archives documents, HRW agreed to help the United States government find information about Iraqi atrocities. Joost Hiltermann, HRW's lead researcher on Anfal, referred to these files as "the good stuff…material to smear the enemy with". Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi–American academic and pro-Iraq War advocate, criticized HRW for promising that the records proved genocide. He warned that the records contained neither "smoking guns" nor do they contain records of the "explosive nature" as HRW claimed. Furthermore, he said that certain documents that seemed incriminating could have been planted by Kurdish rebels. After the invasion of Iraq, Makiya said in December 2003 that the Iraqi document archives contained no "smoking gun" to convict Saddam Hussein of war crimes. After the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, mass graves were discovered in parts of western Iraq that had been under Ba'athist control. Legacy The event has become an important element in the constitution of Kurdish national identity. The Kurdistan Regional Government has set aside 14 April as a day of remembrance for the Al-Anfal campaign. In Sulaymanya a museum was established in the former prison of the Directorate of General Security. Many Iraqi Arabs reject that any mass killings of Kurds occurred during the Anfal campaign. On 28 February 2013, the British House of Commons formally recognized the Anfal as genocide following a campaign which was led by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who is of Kurdish descent. References Sources Further reading 1988 in Iraq Arabization Conflicts in 1988 Genocides in Asia Massacres in Iraq Military operations involving chemical weapons during the Iran–Iraq War Military operations of the Iran–Iraq War involving the Peshmerga Persecution of Kurds in Iraq War crimes in Iraq