( CNN ) -- Years before the first Gulf War , Saddam Hussein was slaughtering Iraq 's Kurds with bombs , bullets and gas . Kurdish refugees fleeing Saddam Hussein 's chemical weapons attacks in 1988 . The Reagan White House saw it as a ruthless attempt to put down a rebellion by a minority ethnic group fighting for independence and allied with Iraq 's enemy , Iran . But Peter Galbraith thought it was something worse . `` A light went off in my head , and I said , 'Saddam Hussein is committing genocide , ' '' said Galbraith , who was on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time . An unabashed idealist , Galbraith was known for tackling unconventional issues . `` If you 're going to be idealistic in life , you 're going to be disappointed , '' he said . `` But that 's not a reason to abandon idealism . '' Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to witness the effects of the slaughter . During a fact-finding trip for the Senate in 1987 , he saw something troubling . `` When we crossed from the Arab part of Iraq into the Kurdish part of Iraq , the villages and towns that showed on our maps just were n't there , '' he said . Bulldozing Kurdish villages was just the first phase of Hussein 's war against the Kurds . In 1988 , it escalated with chemical weapons . `` Thousands , maybe tens of thousands of people were killed in those attacks , and then Iraqi troops moved into those villages and gunned down the survivors . '' Galbraith wanted to invoke the U.N. 's Genocide Convention , which requires countries to prevent and punish such crimes . `` We could not stand aside and allow Saddam Hussein to commit genocide against the Kurds of Iraq . '' With the support of his boss , Democratic Sen. Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island , Galbraith drafted a bill -- the Prevention of Genocide Act -- that would cut off U.S. foreign aid to Iraq and impose a trade embargo . `` That would have been an appropriate response to a dictator who is gassing his own people , '' Galbraith said . `` I thought with a name like that it would garner a lot of support . '' But the compelling name was not enough . So Galbraith went back to the region to gather more evidence . Watch as Galbraith describes his fight to end the slaughter » . Tens of thousands of Kurds had fled to Turkey . Survivors described blinding , burning clouds of poison gas that dropped people in their tracks . `` These people do n't make up these stories . These are real stories . And if you talk to them , if you simply talk to them ... you know that they 're telling the truth , '' Galbraith said . His report was still not enough to persuade the White House to punish Saddam . Watch as Galbraith discusses genocide » . The Reagan administration had invested several years cultivating Iraq as an ally against Iran , their mutual enemy , and as a market for U.S. products , including more than $ 1 billion a year in farm exports . The Prevention of Genocide Act would end the diplomatic courtship and hurt U.S businesses . Read once-secret documents from the Reagan administration . `` I had a fellow who worked for one of the Louisiana senators call me up really in tears , '' Galbraith said . `` And when I talked about genocide against the Kurds , he talked about the genocide that I was committing against the rice farmers of Louisiana . '' Although then-Secretary of State George Schultz warned Iraq that use of outlawed chemical weapons jeopardized the two countries ' budding relationship , Schultz 's spokesman said imposing economic sanctions would be premature . Watch as George Schultz explains the administration 's position » . To Galbraith , `` that was a morally repugnant statement . '' The Reagan administration also claimed Galbraith 's bill used `` inaccurate terms like genocide . '' But for Galbraith , this was no time for semantics . `` Should we have waited until he used chemical weapons again ? Should we have waited until instead of 5 percent of the Kurdish population was murdered -- 10 ? 15 ? '' In the end , the House of Representatives killed Galbraith 's sanctions bill with backing from the Reagan administration . Politics had trumped principle . Galbraith calls the U.S. policy `` appeasement . '' `` We were not able to modify Iraq 's behavior , '' Galbraith said . `` And guess what ? '' Two years later , in August 1990 , Iraq invaded Kuwait , its oil-rich neighbor to the south . This time , the U.S. compared Saddam to Hitler . And with Kuwait 's oil at stake , the U.S finally screamed bloody murder .
Just before the first Gulf War , Saddam Hussein was killing Iraq 's Kurds . Peter Galbraith was one of the first Westerners to see the effects of the killing . A Senate staffer at the time , he tried to invoke the UN Genocide Convention . The House passed his sanctions bill with backing from the Reagan White House .