Deny's,
just to show you, that not only france and Germany dealt with Iraq and did
business whenever it is profitable.
This is not to say, what the european companies did is good but that US
companies and government isn't any better.
Read the complete article. I had to cut it short as I was getting an error.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/USimperialism/UScovertactions/USknowledge
Iraqchemwarfare1988.htm
U.S. support for Iraq in the 1980s, knowledge of Iraq's use of chemical
weapons
The U.S. provided financial aid, military intelligence, and actual
military planning to Iraq at a time when the Reagan administration was
well aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran.
One anonymous inside source told the New York Times that the
Pentagon “wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas.
It was just another way of killing people — whether with a bullet or
phosgene, it didn't make
any difference.”
The facts surrounding U.S. covert support for Iraq and its awareness that
Iraq had been using chemical warfare against the Iranians, and perhaps the
Kurds, offers serious implications to the current Bush administration's
argument for 'regime change' in Iraq.
One of the main premises of the administration's argument is that Saddam
Hussein must be removed from power because he is 'evil' - referring of
course to the allegation that Saddam Hussein 'gassed his own people.'
Table of Contents
Chronology of U.S./Iraqi relations. 1979-1993
Categories.
1 US complicity in the development of Iraq's illegal weapons programs.
2 US companies that helped build Iraq's weapons arsenal .
3 U.S. interests.
4 Iraq’s use of chemical weapons.
5 Description of U.S. aide to Iraq during the the latter's war with Iran
6 Reagan administration’s knowledge that Iraq was using chemical warfare.
7 How the Reagan administration responded to the fact that Iraq was using
chemical weapons.
8 Responses by officials who were implicated in the allegations made by
sources cited by the NYT.
9 Testimonies
Categories.
1 US complicity in the development of Iraq's illegal weapons
programs.
(A) Summary.
(B) 1994 Senate Committee Reports. [May 25 report and October 7 report]
(1) According to the reports, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved
the export of the following agents to Iraq.
(a) Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002;
Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(b) Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin. It was sold to
Iraq right up until 1992. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(c) Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain,
spinal cord and heart. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002]
(d) Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
[Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(e) Clotsridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic
illness, gas gangrene. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002; Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(f) Clostridium tetani, highly toxigenic. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002;
Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(g) Also, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli); genetic materials; human and
bacterial DNA. [Yellow Times 8/20/2002]
(h) VX nerve gas. [Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(i) Pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas which can also be reverse
engineered to create actual nerve gas. This was sold to Iraq in March
1992, after the end of the Gulf war. [Sunday Herald 9/8/2002]
(2) Additional US exports to Iraq, according the reports.
(a) Examples.
(i) Chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical
drawings. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(ii) Chemical warfare filling equipment. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(iii) Missile fabrication equipment. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(iv) Missile system guidance equipment. [Newsday 12/13/02]
(b) Other.
(i) “Between 1985 and 1990 the US Commerce Department, for instance,
licensed $1.5bn (£960m) of sales of technology which had military potential
for Iraq.” [Scotsman 12/22/02]
(3) The Committee established a direct connection between what was
sold by the U.S. to Iraq and what was removed by UN inspectors.
2 US companies that helped build Iraq's weapons arsenal .
a Biological.
i American Type Culture Collection
(A) Several biological precursor agents for diseases like anthrax,
gangrene, and the West Nile virus. [Associated Press 12/21/02]
b Chemical.[Die Tageszeitung 10/18/02; Zmag 10/29/02; Memory Hole;
Democracy Now! 12/18/02]
i Alcolac International
(A) Thiodiglycol, the mustard gas precursor. [New York Times 12/21/02b]
ii Al Haddad
(A) 60 tons of a chemical that could be used to make sarin. [New York
Times 12/21/02b]
c Nuclear. [Die Tageszeitung 10/18/02; Zmag 10/29/02; Memory Hole]
i TI Coating
ii UNISYS
iii Tektronix
iv Leybold Vacuum Systems
v Finnigan-MAT-US
vi Hewlett Packard
vii Dupont
viii Consarc
ix Cerberus (LTD)
x Canberra Industries Inc.
xi Axel Electronics Inc.
d Rocket Program.[Die Tageszeitung 10/18/02; Zmag 10/29/02; Memory Hole]
i Honeywell
ii TI Coating
iii UNISYS
iv Honeywell
v Semetex
vi Sperry Corp.
vii Tektronix
viii Hewlett Packard
ix Eastman Kodak
x Electronic Assiciates
xi EZ Logic Data Systems,Inc.
e Conventional weapons.[Die Tageszeitung 10/18/02; Zmag 10/29/02;
Memory Hole]
i Honeywell
ii Spektra Physics
iii TI Coating
iv UNISYS
v Sperry Corp.
vi Rockwell
vii Hewlett Packard [San Francisco Chronicle 1/28/03]
viii Carl Zeis -U.Ss
ix Union Carbide [Washington Post 12/30/02]
f Other:
i “In addition to these 24 companies home-based in the USA are 50
subsidiaries of foreign enterprises which conducted their arms business
with Iraq from within the US. Also designated as suppliers for Iraq's arms
programs are the US Ministries of Defense, Energy, Trade and Agriculture as
well as the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National
Laboratories.” [Die Tageszeitung 10/17/02; Zmag 10/29/02; Memory Hole;
Democracy Now! 12/18/02]
b U.S. officials and their positions at the time Iraq was using
chemical weapons
i Ronald Reagan, president.
ii George Bush Sr, vice-president.
iii George P. Shultz, secretary of state.
iv Frank C. Carlucci, defense secretary.
v Colin Powell, national security advisor.
vi Richard Armitage, senior defense official.
vii Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
viii Col. Walter P. Lang, senior defense intelligence officer.
ix Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Envoy to the Middle East.
5 Description of U.S. aide to Iraq during the latter's war with Iran
a Aid from U.S. Government
i Military.
(A) Description
(1) It was covert. [New York Times 8/18/2002]
(2) U.S. Air Force officers were secretly deployed to Iraq to assist
their counterparts in the Iraqi military. [The Nation 8/26/2002].
(3) The U.S. provided satellite photography to Iraq revealing the
movements of the Iranian forces. [New York Times 8/18/2002]
(4) The U.S. provided Iraq with intelligence gathered by Saudi-owned
AWACS, which were being operated by the Pentagon. The Nation 8/26/2002
(5) According to The Washington Post, “Iraq reportedly used the
intelligence to calibrate attacks with mustard gas on Iranian ground
troops . . .” [Washington Post 12/15/1986]
(6) The U.S. helped plan Iraq’s war plan, the New York Times revealed
on August 18. It reported that according to “senior military officers with
direct knowledge of the program”, “more than 60 officers of the Defense
Intelligence Agency were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian
deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-
damage assessments for Iraq.” [emphasis added] [New York Times 8/18/2002]
7 How the Reagan administration responded to the fact that Iraq was
using chemical weapons.
a The August 18 edition of the New York Times reported that,
according to “senior military officers with direct knowledge of the
program”, “Though senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly
condemned Iraq's employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other poisonous
agents, the American military officers said President Reagan, Vice
President George Bush and senior national security aides never withdrew
their support for the highly classified program.” [New York Times
8/18/2002]
b The August 18 edition of the New York Times interviewed “one
veteran of the program,” who told the Times, that the Pentagon “wasn't so
horrified by Iraq's use of gas. It was just another way of killing people —
whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference.” [cited
in New York Times 8/18/2002]
c The August 18 edition of the New York Times reported that,
according to “a former participant in the program”, “Senior Reagan
administration officials did nothing to interfere with the continuation of
the program.” [New York Times 8/18/2002]
d A secret State Department assessment acknowledged, “Human rights
and chemical weapons use aside, in many respects our political and economic
interests run parallel with those of Iraq.” [Wall Street Journal 7/10/2002]
e In August of 1988, the UN Security Council finally dispatched a
team to Iraq to investigate its use of chemical weapons. Baghdad refused
to cooperate however, and the U.S. made no serious attempt to press Baghdad
to comply with the UN’s Security Council’s decision. US Secretary of State
George Shultz downplayed the charges against Iraq, saying that the
interviews with the Kurdish refugees in Turkey, and “other sources,” only
pointed toward Baghdad’s using chemical weapons, and were not conclusive in
and of themselves. [The Nation 8/26/2002] Not until the present has the
U.S. taken such a critical stance against Saddam Hussein’s use of U.S.-
supplied chemical weapons more than a decade ago.
f In a September 1988 memo concerning the issue of Iraq's use of
chemical weapons, Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy
wrote, "The U.S.-Iraqi relationship is . . . important to our long-term
political and economic objectives. We believe that economic sanctions will
be useless or counterproductive to influence the Iraqis." [Washington Post
12/30/02]
8 Responses by officials who were implicated in the allegations made
by the NYT's sources.
a Responses by U.S. officials who were implicated in a New York Times
article that suggested U.S. tacit approval of Iraqi use of chemical weapons.
i Colin Powell, current secretary of state.
(A) A spokesman told the NYT that its sources were “dead wrong” but
declined to discuss it. [cited in New York Times 8/18/2002]
ii Richard L. Armitage, current deputy secretary of state.
(A) The New York Times reported that Armitage “used an expletive relayed
through a spokesman” to deny that the U.S. has tacitly approved Iraq’s use
of chemical weapons. [cited in New York Times 8/18/2002]
iii Defense Intelligence Agency.
(A) It offered no comments. [New York Times 8/18/2002]
iv Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, currently retired.
(A) He offered no comments. [New York Times 8/18/2002]
v Frank Carlucci, currently chairman of the board at The Carlyle
Group, a huge private investment fund heavily invested in defense.
(A) He told the Times, “My understanding is that what was provided was
general order of battle information, not operational intelligence. . . .
I certainly have no knowledge of U.S. participation in preparing battle and
strike packages and doubt strongly that that occurred. . . . I did
agree that Iraq should not lose the war, but I certainly had no
foreknowledge of their use of chemical weapons.” [New York Times 8/18/2002]
vi Colonel Lang, currently retired.
(A) He told the New York Times that the Defense Intelligence
Agency “would have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against
civilians, but the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable
in the Iraqi struggle for survival.” [New York Times 8/18/2002]
vii Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official, who
worked on Iraqi policy during the Reagan administration
(A) “You have to understand the geostrategic context, which was very
different from where we are now. Realpolitik dictated that we act to
prevent the situation from getting worse.” [Washington Post 12/30/02]
viii David Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad
(A) “Fundamentally, the policy was justified. We were concerned that Iraq
should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf. Our long-term hope was that Hussein's government would
become less repressive and more responsible.” [Washington Post 12/30/02]
b Donald Rumsfeld’s response to questions from Senator Robert Byrd.
i Summary.
(A) On Sept. 19, 2002, Senator Robert Byrd questioned Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld about a Sept. 23, 2002 Newsweek article which had
recalled Rumsfeld’s 1983 visit to Baghdad. The article had noted, “Like
most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a
murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear
weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak.)
But at the time, America’s big worry was Iran, not Iraq.” [U.S.
Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998]
ii Q&A.
(A) First question.
(1) Before reading the article to Mr. Rumsfeld, Byrd asked, “Mr.
Secretary, to your knowledge, did the United States help Iraq to acquire
the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we,
in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown?” [U.S.
Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998]
(B) Response.
(1) “Certainly not to my knowledge. I have no knowledge of United
States companies or government being involved in assisting Iraq develop
chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.” [U.S. Congressional Record:
September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998]
(C) Second question.
(1) After reading the article to Mr. Rumsfeld, Byrd asked again, “Did
the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological
weapons during the Iran-Iraq War? Are we, in fact, now facing the
possibility of reaping what we have sown?” [U.S. Congressional Record:
September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998]
(D) Response.
(1) “I have not read the article.. . . . I have never heard anything
like what you've read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt
it.” [U.S. Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-
S8998]
iii Complete transcripts. [U.S. Congressional Record: September 20,
2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998]
c Reponses to an International Herald Tribune article reporting how
the Reagan administration attempted to deflect the blame for gassing the
Kurds away from the Iraqis.
i Excerpt from the International Herald Tribune Article.
(A) “In calling for regime change in Iraq, George W. Bush has accused
Saddam Hussein of being a man who gassed his own people. Bush is right, of
course. The public record shows that Saddam's regime repeatedly spread
poisonous gases on Kurdish villages in 1987 and 1988 in an attempt to put
down a persistent rebellion.” [International Herald Tribune 1/17/03]
“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, show (1) that Iraq carried out the attack on Halabja, and (2)
that the United States, fully aware it was Iraq, accused Iran, Iraq's enemy
in a fierce war, of being partly responsible for the attack. The State
Department instructed its diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame.
The result of this stunning act of sophistry was that the international
community failed to muster the will to condemn Iraq strongly for an act as
heinous as the terrorist strike on the World Trade Center.” [International
Herald Tribune 1/17/03]
“Some of those who engineered the tilt today are back in power in the Bush
administration.” [International Herald Tribune 1/17/03]
“They have yet to account for their judgment that it was Iran, not Iraq,
that posed the primary threat to the Gulf; for building up Iraq so that it
thought it could invade Kuwait and get away with it; for encouraging Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction programs by giving the regime a de facto green
light on chemical weapons use; and for turning a blind eye to Iraq's worst
atrocities, and then lying about it.” [International Herald Tribune 1/17/03]
9 Testimonies
a Dr. Hamid Sohrabpour, a pulmonary specialist and the director of
Iran's chemical treatment program, who studied at New York's Mount Sinai
hospital, treated the casualties of Iraq’s chemical weapons
i He told the New York Times:
“Iraq developed these weapons with the help of the United States and the
West. No matter how many times Iranians shouted that Iraq was using
chemical weapons, they were ignored. I don't know why the United States has
suddenly become kinder than a mother for the suffering of us chemical
weapons patients.”
“We took patients to Germany, to Britain, to France, but no one stopped
Saddam's regime from using these terrible weapons. The United States let
him develop, stockpile and use these weapons. Now suddenly it's changed.
The fact is that the United States is only after its own interests. It
doesn't care about what has happened to people.” [New York Times, 2/13/03]
On Mon, 17 Feb 2003 11:34:31 -0600, Denys Beauchemin <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
Saddam got most of his weapons and training from the USSR. What weapons he
did not get from the USSR came from France.
>
>Denys
>
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