To:Skeeter Bug who wrote (92152)
From: Thomas M. Friday, Sep 14, 2001 1:38 PM
Respond to of 92183
Not only did we support Saddam throughout the 1980s, we actually supported his bio/chem weapons efforts!
There were no passionate calls for a military strike after Saddam’s gassing of Kurds at Halabja in March 1988; on the contrary, the U.S. and UK extended their strong support for the mass murderer, then also "our kind of guy." When ABC TV correspondent Charles Glass revealed the site of one of Saddam’s biological warfare programs ten months after Halabja, the State Department denied the facts, and the story died; the Department "now issues briefings on the same site," Glass observes.
The two guardians of global order also expedited Saddam’s other atrocities—including his use of cyanide, nerve gas, and other barbarous weapons—with intelligence, technology, and supplies, joining with many others. The Senate Banking Committee reported in 1994 that the U.S. Commerce Department had traced shipments of "biological materials" identical to those later found and destroyed by UN inspectors, Bill Blum recalls. These shipments continued at least until November 1989. A month later, Bush authorized new loans for his friend Saddam, to achieve the "goal of increasing U.S. exports and put us in a better position to deal with Iraq regarding its human rights record...," the State Department announced with a straight face, facing no criticism in the mainstream (or even report).
An eye for an eye:
It is difficult to avoid the thought that the destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie a few months later was Iranian retaliation, as stated explicitly by Iranian intelligence defector Abolhassem Mesbahi, also an aide to President Rafsanjani, "regarded as a credible and senior Iranian source in Germany and elsewhere," the Guardian reports. A 1991 U.S. intelligence document (National Security Agency), declassified in 1997, draws the same conclusion, alleging that Akbar Mohtashemi, a former Iranian interior minister, transferred $10 million "to bomb Pan Am 103 in retaliation for the U.S. shoot-down of the Iranian Airbus," referring to his connections with "the Al Abas and Abu Nidal terrorist groups." It is striking that despite the evidence and the clear motive, this is virtually the only act of terrorism not blamed on Iran. Rather, the U.S. and UK have charged two Libyan nationals with the crime.
zmag.org |
