On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 10:39:15 -0500, Brice Yokem <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Brice (and Denys),
>
>did you just read this article?
>It was unlikely Iraq could have destroyed, hidden, or moved out of the
>country hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons, dozens of SCUD
>missiles, and facilities producing chemical and biological weapons without
>the United States detecting some sign of that activity, the report said.
>
>--------------------
>
>Michael -
>
>So are you suggesting these weapons magically dissappeared?
>

Brice,

I do not suggest anything.
I did not go before the UN and travel to Europe to show documents to prove
the imminent threat of Iraq.
This current adminstration did and so did the British PM Tony Blair.

This articel/opinion is also very interesting.
Hopefully the truth will show one day.
After an election is always before an election (changing the famous words
from Germans famous soccer-coach Sepp Herberger (nach dem Spiel ist vor dem
Spiel))

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?
qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk0MDYmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY0NzE5MzUmeXJpcnk
3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNA==


Saddam trial could embarrass U.S. officials
Wednesday, January 7, 2004 By MARK WEISBROT

SO NOW IT LOOKS as if our Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was rather
friendly with Saddam Hussein - a.k.a. The Monster - back in the 1980s, when
Rumsfeld was working for the Reagan administration. This according to newly
declassified documents that were never intended to see the light of day.

Of course, Saddam was "Our Monster" back then. But still it is rather
striking that Rumsfeld's mission when he met with Saddam Hussein's foreign
minister was to reassure The Monster that his actual use of weapons of mass
destruction - not mere possession, but using them to kill tens of thousands
of people - would not get in the way of warmer U.S.-Iraqi relations. It was
1984 and Saddam was using chemical weapons, according to the Reagan
administration's documents, "almost daily" against Iranians and Kurds.

Rumsfeld had already met with The Monster himself back in 1983. He was sent
back to Iraq in 1984 to make it clear that Washington's interests
in "continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq, at a pace of
Iraq's choosing, remain undiminished" in spite of these daily atrocities.
These were the written instructions that Rumsfeld received as special envoy
of the Reagan administration.

Some may still remember that the main reason given for our armed forces
invading Iraq, in defiance of international law and most of the world, was
that Saddam supposedly had weapons of mass destruction.

These alleged weapons are still missing in action. But even if they did
exist, it is hard to believe - in light of these documents - that our
leaders took us to war for this reason.

The new documents were discovered by the non-profit National Security
Archives (www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/) and reported last week in The New York
Times and Washington Post. They corroborate previous reports in The Times
that the United States provided Iraq with battle planning assistance and
other military and intelligence support, at the time that Iraq was using
chemical weapons in its war with Iran.

Of course, Rumsfeld and his superiors had their reasons. But who doesn't?
It is rare that any political leader commits atrocities just for the sheer
pleasure of it. In this case Washington and The Monster were strategically
allied against Iran.

Washington's relationship with Saddam - including its granting of hundreds
of millions of dollars in agricultural credits - continued right up to the
time that he invaded Kuwait in 1990.

But all of this is history, which in America is synonymous with forgotten.
That's why the Bush administration will do everything possible to make sure
that Saddam is not brought before an international tribunal, where there is
a greater chance that he could implicate some of his former friends and
allies in Washington.

This is not just a matter of suffering embarrassment for being friends with
monsters. Among the crimes that Saddam could be tried for is using chemical
weapons to kill people. In an honest judicial proceeding, Rumsfeld and his
superiors could be named and indicted as co-conspirators.

Since Saddam's capture we have been told that the purpose of the ongoing
war is to bring democracy to Iraq, in fact to the whole Middle East. Of
course, the majority of Americans still believe that Saddam was involved in
the massacre of Sept. 11, according to the latest polls. It seems that no
justification is too ridiculous or far-fetched to serve as an excuse for
this war.

On the same page that The Times reported the story about Rumsfeld's past
mission to Iraq, there was a little box that appears on most days with the
title "Names of the Dead."

It began with the same sentence that appears each time: "The Department of
Defense has identified 463 American armed service members who have died
since the start of the war." Only the number changes, and beneath are
listed the soldiers who were killed the day before.

Can anyone tell us why we have soldiers dying in Iraq?

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *