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Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times A cemetery in Sewsenan, a Kurdish village in northern Iraq, holds the remains of nearly 70 people killed in a chemical attack by Saddam Hussein’s military forces on March 22, 1988. SEWSENAN, Iraq, Aug. 18 — When death came to this village, it had a sweet smell, like perfume. “People wanted to inhale it,” Robitan Hama Amin said. So went Mr. Amin’s memory of the first encounter between the Kurds of this mountain redoubt and Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons. The attack came at dinnertime on March 22, 1988. Mr. Amin had just...

WASHINGTON — The White House officially rejected a plan that would have created a federal corporation to purchase and redevelop Louisiana homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, introduced legislation last year to create the Louisiana Recovery Corp. The panel would use treasury bonds to buy damaged homes on parcels to be repackaged and redeveloped. But Allan Hubbard, the chief economic adviser for President Bush, indicated in conversations with Baker on Monday that the Bush does not support the legislation, Baker said Tuesday. “It’s dead now,” said Walter Isaacson, vice chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority,...