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| 5/26 |
| 2003/12/16-17 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:11486 Activity:high |
12/16 Why do some people still try to claim that the US did not sell
Iraq chemical weapons? The evidence is overwhelming:
http://www.counterpunch.org/boles1010.html
\_ The author's evidence is tautological. He says, "There were
\_ The only evidence the author provides is "There were
chemical weapons sold..." so it must be so, no citations
no references, nothing.
As for cyanide it is ubiquitous in industrial manufacturing.
For example, there are liters of cyanide compounds in Cory
Hall.
Here is what was provided:
The Corporations That Supplied Iraq's Weapons Program
http://www.thememoryhole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm
\_ No references? How about the reference to this PBS program:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/arming.html
http://www.thememoryhole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm
\_ It is good you mention Alcatal, as that is the one compnay
listed on the other link. What is described is illicit
clandestine purchase of a chemical weapon precurssor,
which was shut down when discovered by Customs. This
completely different from the assertion that the US govt
(Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.) armed Iraq. As for visiting in
1967, well the US military hosts delegates from virtually
every other military in the world, including enemies (eg.
Soviets during the Cold War).
\_ What do you think are the chances that Saddam will be able to call
Rumsfeld and Cheney as defense witnesses? And if he's denied, how
much will that help him?
\_ You people are bizarre. Here you have one of the crulest most
sadistic tyrants in the 20th century and all you can think
about is indicting Rumseld, who was a civilian throughout
the period in question, and Cheney who was House Minority
Whip and Secretary of Defense, for concocted conspiracies
they were not involved in.
\_ Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense when Saddam attacked Iran.
We sent him weapons to help kill the 'evil' Iranians. When
Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, he lobbied to be allowed to
do contracting in Iraq and said the sanctions hurt
Halliburton more than Iraq and should be lifted.
\_ Rumsfeld was Fords Sec of Defense. So did every
CEO of every international corporation. Cheney has
been on the record opposed to sanctions for most of
his career.
\_ Lobbying is now a criminal offense? Golly.... |
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| www.counterpunch.org/boles1010.html Boles: Iraq and Chemical Weapons, the US Connection ahome / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback Counter Punch October 10, 2002 Helping Iraq Kill with Chemical Weapons: The Relevance of Yesterdays US Hypocrisy Today by ELSON E. BOLES Y ou may feel disgusted by the hypocrisy of US plans to make war on Iraq and sickened at the inevitable slaughter of thousands of people. But if you could only vaguely recall the details of how deep the hypocrisy goes, then read on. The US not only helped arm Iraq with military equipment right up to the time of the Kuwait invasion in 1989, as did Germany, Britain, France, Russia and others, but also sold and helped Iraq to integrate chemical weapons into their US-provided battle plans while fighting Iran between 1985-1988. Lang, a senior defense intelligence officer at the time, explained that DIA and CIA officials were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose to Iran. The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern, he said. One veteran said, that the Pentagon wasnt so horrified by Iraqs use of gas. It was just another way of killing people _ whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didnt make any difference. Now consider just how deceptive the recent comments from the White House are. In late September spokesman Ari Fleischer said that British Prime Minister Blairs dossier of evidence is frightening in terms of Iraqs intentions and abilities to acquire weapons. A few days later, while making his case against Saddam, President Bush said Hes used poison gas on his own people. Bush deceives because he hides the fact that US officials, including his father, had no qualms about helping Saddam gas Iranians. What is truly frightening are the US policies toward Iraq, the cover ups of those policies, and the US officials who personally profit in the millions of dollars from those policies. To whatever degree Saddam is a tyrant, he would not be that without the US government. The question is not whether Saddam is willing to use chemical or other weapons of mass destruction again. The question is whether the US is currently selling and helping countries use weapons of mass destruction. Details about Iraq killing Iranians with US-supplied chemical and biological weapons significantly deepens our understanding of the current hypocrisy. It began with Iraq-gate - when US policy makers, financiers, arms-suppliers and makers, made massive profits from sales to Iraq of myriad chemical, biological, conventional weapons, and the equipment to make nuclear weapons. Reporter Russ Baker noted, for example, that, on July 3, 1991, the Financial Times reported that a Florida company run by an Iraqi national had produced cyanide - some of which went to Iraq for use in chemical weapons - and had shipped it via a CIA contractor. A PBS Frontline episode, The Arming of Iraq 1990 detailed much of the conventional and so-called dual-use weapons sold to Iraq. The public learned from other sources that at least since mid-1980s the US was selling chemical and biological material for weapons to Iraq and orchestrating private sales. These sales began soon after current Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad in 1985 and met with Saddam Hussein as a private businessman on behalf of the Reagan administration. In the last major battle of the Iran-Iraq war, some 65,000 Iranians were killed, many by gas. Investigators turned up new scandals, including the involvement of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro BNL, the giant Italian bank, and many of the very same circles of arms suppliers, covert operators, and policy makers in and out of the US government and active in those roles for years. The National Security Council, CIA and other US agencies tacitly approved about $4 billion in unreported loans to Iraq through the giant Italian banks Atlanta branch. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraqs missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. However, the early reports on BNLs activities and the startling revelations that the US government astonishingly knew that BNL was financing billions of dollars of purchases illegally, were rather comical in view of later revelations regarding who was involved. US government officials didnt just know and approve, but some were employees at BNL directly or indirectly. It was Representative Henry Gonzalez D-Texas who relentlessly brought key information into the Congressional Record despite stern warnings by the State Department to stop his personal investigation for the sake of national security. Gonzalas revealed, for example, that Brent Scowcroft served as Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates until being appointed as National Security Advisor to President Bush in January 1989. Scowcroft owned stock in approximately 40 United States corporations, many of which were doing busies in Iraq. Scowcrofts stock included that in Halliburton Oil, also doing business in Iraq at the time, which had also been run by current Vice President Dick Cheney for a time. The companies that Scowcroft owned stock in, according to Gonzalez, received more than one out of every eight United States export licenses for exports to Iraq. Several of the companies were also clients of Kissinger Associates while Mr. Thus, Kissinger Associates helped US companies obtain US export licenses with BNL-finance so Iraq could purchase US weapons and materials for its weapons programs. This included Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, who was an employee of BNL while BNL was simultaneously a paying client of Kissinger Associates. Alan Stoga, a Kissinger Associates executive, met in June 1989 Mr. Many Kissinger Associates clients received US export licenses for exports to Iraq. Several were also the beneficiaries of BNL loans to Iraq, said Mr. Kissinger admitted that it is possible that somebody may have advised a client on how to get a license. Perhaps the most bizarre revelations about the involvement of former US officials concerned a Washington-based enterprise called Global Research which played a middleman role in selling uniforms to Iraq. It was run by, none other than Spiro Agnew Nixons former VP who resigned to avoid bribery and tax evasion charges, John Mitchell Nixons chief of staff and Watergate organizer, and Richard Nixon himself. In the mid-1980s, more than a decade after Watergate, Nixon wrote a cozy letter to former dictator and friend Nicolae Ceausescu to close the deal. Global Research, incidentally, swindled the Iraqis, who thought they were getting US-made uniforms for desert conditions. Instead they received, and discarded, the winter uniforms from Romania. By late 1992, the sales of chemical and biological weapons were revealed. Congressional Records of Senator Riegles investigation of the Gulf War Syndrome show that that the US government approved sales of large varieties of chemical and biological materials to Iraq. To top it all off, there is the question as to whether Iraqs invasion of Kuwait was a set up. Evidence indicates that the US knew of Iraqs plans - after all, the military and intelligence agencies of the two countries were working very closely. Newspaper reports about the infamous meeting between then-Ambassador Glaspie and Iraq officials, and a special ABC report in the series A Line in the Sand, indicated that, although the US officials told Iraq that it disapproved, they indicated that the US would not interfere. Bear in mind the attitude of the US policy makers not only regarding Iraqs use of gas against Iranians, but in general. With a heeled Saddam, the interests of arms suppliers, defense contractors, and the many US oil corporations could be renewed. Iraqi would have to re-arm itself and invest in oil drilling and processing facilities that were destroyed by US forces. And to pay for all that, Iraq would have to sell oil cheap, which served the interests both of the giant oil corporations and the A... |
| www.thememoryhole.org/corp/iraq-suppliers.htm Soon after the report was released, those suspicions were confirmed. Sources who had seen the report said that it identified suppliers from the US, UK, Germany, France, China, and elsewhere. The leftist German daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung received portions of the original, uncensored 12,000-page dossier. The names of the corporations have been blacked out of the version of the report given to the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council. Key A nuclear weapon program B biological weapon program C chemical weapon program R rocket program K conventional weapons, military logistics, supplies at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, and building of military plants USA 1. A 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 Iraqs arms programs A, B, C & R are the US Ministries of Defense, Energy, Trade and Agriculture as well as the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. |
| www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/longroad/etc/arming.html ANNOUNCER: Today, the world may be united against Saddam Hussein, but for the past decade he has been building a war machine with help from Moscow to Washington. Senator ALFONSE D'AMATO, New York: It was a totally uneven policy. There was not a tilt towards Iraq, there was a wholesale rush to Iraq. HODDING CARTER, FRONTLINE: Officially, most Western nations -- ANNOUNCER: Correspondent Hodding Carter investigates how the West provided the key technology, and the most dangerous weapons that we now face. But the very scale of this military response is powerful testimony that the world has already made a big mistake in failing to control the arsenal and contain the ambitions of Saddam Hussein. Since he seized the presidency of Iraq in 1979, Saddam Hussein has made no secret of his ambitions to become the preeminent power in the Persian Gulf and the sword of the Arabs against the West. And his strategy to achieve that power was equally clear: military strength and the will to use it. In 1980, Hussein attacked neighboring Iran, initiating a bloody conflict that would last eight years. When the ceasefire ended that fighting in 1988, Iraq had built a million-man army and spent over $50 billion on military hardware. Last winter, in Baghdad's annual Army Day parade, Hussein displayed some of Iraq's extraordinary arsenal, bought with billions of its oil revenues and with loans from its Arab neighbors. At least half of Iraq's conventional weapons were purchased from its ally, the Soviet Union, but France was also a major source, providing its sophisticated Mirage fighters and deadly Exocet missiles. And there were many others -- China, South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Egypt and Brazil. At one point, in the 1980s, Iraq was the biggest importer of arms in the world. What Hussein did not put on show this day were his most frightening weapons. According to intelligence sources, he has been developing his own sophisticated chemical, missile, and nuclear capacity. Three plants are now producing deadly chemical and biological weapons. Four complexes are involved in the research, development and testing of missiles. And at least four sites are involved in a uranium enrichment program to build nuclear weapons. To develop this sophisticated arsenal of non-conventional weapons, Saddam Hussein turned to the West. Officially, most Western nations participated in a total arms embargo against Iraq during the 1980s, but as we shall see in this broadcast, Western companies, primarily in Germany and Great Britain, but also in the United States, sold Iraq the key technology for its chemical, missile, and nuclear programs. As we shall also see, many Western governments seemed remarkably indifferent, if not enthusiastic, about those deals. And here in Washington, the government consistently followed a policy which allowed and perhaps encouraged the extraordinary growth of Saddam Hussein's arsenal and his power. This is a complicated story of miscalculation, deceit and greed, and it leads inevitably to the conclusion that the most dangerous weapons Western forces face today in the desert are in many ways our own creation. The Chemicals In 1988, in an Iraqi town called Halabja, Hussein's forces unleashed a devastating gas attack, killing an estimated 5,000 Kurdish men, women, and children. It was chilling evidence that Saddam Hussein had not only developed chemical warfare technology, but that he was willing to use it, even against his own people. His involvement with chemical weapons may well go back over 20 years. In Washington, Neil Livingstone, who has written extensively on chemical weapons, claims to have traced Hussein's interest in the deadly gases to a visit to the United States. NEIL LIVINGSTONE: Well, Saddam came here, of course, in 1967 with a group of other young Iraqi military officers, and was taken to all of our principal chemical weapons facilities -- Aberdeen, Edgewood, Dougway and Annistown. And he went through the process of seeing the design of weapons -- at least, seeing something about the design -- the manufacture of weapons, and their actual use and deployment on a battlefield. I'm sure that no national secrets were given to Saddam Hussein and his colleagues, but at the same time, it was a course in the effectiveness of chemical weapons, how they can be deployed in a battlefield situation. SETH CARUS: The Iraqis have worked since the early 1970s to develop a capability to make chemical weapons. In the first, say, three to four years of use-- NARRATOR: Dr. Seth Carus is an arms specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. CARUS: By the late '70s, however, they discovered that there were West German companies that would gladly provide this kind of equipment. So, basically, they went into Germany, they found companies and individuals who would help them, and over the course of four or five years they built a small but capable production infrastructure. NARRATOR: Just three weeks ago, seven West German men were arrested for helping Iraq develop chemical weapons and violating German export laws. But over the years, hundreds of German companies may have been involved in the export of arms and technology, and opposition leaders accuse the government of dragging its feet. NORBERT GANSEL, German Parliament: German authorities know, since 1984, that there are serious indications for the involvement of Germans and German companies for the development and production of poison gas in Iraq. It took them three years to start investigations by a state prosecutor, it took another three years to make the first arrest. NARRATOR: Iraq's chemical weapons have been developed with the help of German engineers at the Samarra plant. These satellite pictures of the heavily guarded secret plant north of Baghdad reveal some details of the sophisticated installation. Samarra is surrounded by anti-aircraft and anti-missile defenses, and some of its buildings are merely shells, dummies to help thwart any military attack. This West German technician says he and other Germans worked at the Samarra plant. Although Berndt Mayer says he only installed plumbing and air conditioning, he told BBC reporter Jane Corbin about his exposure at Samarra to hydrogen cyanide, the deadly gas used in World War I. BERNDT MAYER: through interpreter I worked here, between P11 and P12, next to a neutralization building built by us, and from P7 came these fumes, these almond smells. One afternoon, my work colleague felt sick because he had been breathing in the fumes of hydrogen cyanide -- prussic acid -- all morning. JANE CORBIN: What conclusion did you come to from what you found in that area? MAYER: through interpreter On the basis of the two names I jotted down, I can remember one of the chemicals very well, but the other one I don't recall right now. I read in the report that you could produce mustard gas from these two chemicals. CORBIN: Do you think they were making mustard gas there? MAYER: through interpreter Well, I can't be 100 percent sure. MAYER: through interpreter Yes, I think they were, because if you're talking about making fly spray, you wouldn't need the kind of protection they had there. CARUS: It's quite clear that they've been busily making chemical agents for the last two years, since the end of the war, so one should assume that they have at least 1,000 and perhaps several thousand tons of chemical agent in stockpile right now. NARRATOR: But Germany was not alone in supplying chemicals to Iraq. Customs sting in Baltimore uncovered an Iraqi chemical-buying network shipping hundreds of tons of thiodyglycol to Iraq. The chemical has several commercial uses, but officials believe the Iraqis were interested in just one. MARTIN HIMLESS: The Export Administration regulations specifically provide that Iran, Iraq and Syria are three destinations to which thiodyglycol may not be exported. And the reason, which is very clearly stated in the regulations, is that the chemical may not be used in chemical weapons. NARRATOR: The chemical was exported by Alcolac, a Baltimore company. The government says 538 tons eventually ended up in Iraq. Undercover Customs agent Dennis Bass ... |