U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite
Their Use on Iranians, Kurds
"Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld
traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using
chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in
defiance of international conventions. "
washingtonpost.com
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 30, 2002;
Page A01
High on the Bush
administration's list of
justifications for war
against Iraq are President
Saddam Hussein's use of
chemical weapons, nuclear
and biological programs,
and his contacts with
international terrorists.
What U.S. officials rarely
acknowledge is that these
offenses date back to a
period when Hussein was
seen in Washington as a
valued ally.
Among the people
instrumental in tilting U.S.
policy toward Baghdad
during the 1980-88
Iran-Iraq war was Donald
H. Rumsfeld, now defense
secretary, whose December
1983 meeting with
Hussein as a special
presidential envoy paved
the way for normalization
of U.S.-Iraqi relations.
Declassified documents
show that Rumsfeld
traveled to Baghdad at a
time when Iraq was using
chemical weapons on an
"almost daily" basis in
defiance of international
conventions.
The story of U.S.
involvement with Saddam
Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait --
which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of
cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and
facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological
precursors -- is a topical example of the underside of U.S.
foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck
with dictators, human rights violations sometimes
overlooked, and accommodations made with arms
proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of my
enemy is my friend."
Throughout the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq was the sworn
enemy of Iran, then still in the throes of an Islamic
revolution. U.S. officials saw Baghdad as a bulwark against
militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American
states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan -- a
Middle East version of the "domino theory" in Southeast
Asia. That was enough to turn Hussein into a strategic
partner and for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad to routinely
refer to Iraqi forces as "the good guys," in contrast to the
Iranians, who were depicted as "the bad guys."
A review of thousands of declassified government
documents and interviews with former policymakers shows
that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a
crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the
"human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The
administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had
both military and civilian applications, including poisonous
chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax
and bubonic plague.
Opinions differ among Middle East experts and former
government officials about the pre-Iraqi tilt, and whether
Washington could have done more to stop the flow to
Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass
destruction.
"It was a horrible mistake then, but we have got it right
now," says Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA military
analyst and author of "The Threatening Storm," which
makes the case for war with Iraq. "My fellow [CIA] analysts
and I were warning at the time that Hussein was a very
nasty character. We were constantly fighting the State
Department."
"Fundamentally, the policy was justified," argues David
Newton, a former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who runs
an anti-Hussein radio station in Prague. "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."
What makes present-day Hussein different from the
Hussein of the 1980s, say Middle East experts, is the
mellowing of the Iranian revolution and the August 1990
invasion of Kuwait that transformed the Iraqi dictator,
almost overnight, from awkward ally into mortal enemy. In
addition, the United States itself has changed. As a result
of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington, U.S. policymakers take a much more alarmist
view of the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction.
U.S. Shifts in Iran-Iraq War
When the Iran-Iraq war began in September 1980, with an
Iraqi attack across the Shatt al Arab waterway that leads to
the Persian Gulf, the United States was a bystander. The
United States did not have diplomatic relations with either
Baghdad or Tehran. U.S. officials had almost as little
sympathy for Hussein's dictatorial brand of Arab
nationalism as for the Islamic fundamentalism espoused
by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As long as the two
countries fought their way to a stalemate, nobody in
Washington was disposed to intervene.
By the summer of 1982, however, the strategic picture had
changed dramatically. After its initial gains, Iraq was on
the defensive, and Iranian troops had advanced to within a
few miles of Basra, Iraq's second largest city. U.S.
intelligence information suggested the Iranians might
achieve a breakthrough on the Basra front, destabilizing
Kuwait, the Gulf states, and even Saudi Arabia, thereby
threatening U.S. oil supplies.
"You have to understand the geostrategic context, which
was very different from where we are now," said Howard
Teicher, a former National Security Council official, who
worked on Iraqi policy during the Reagan administration.
"Realpolitik dictated that we act to prevent the situation
from getting worse."
To prevent an Iraqi collapse, the Reagan administration
supplied battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop buildups
to the Iraqis, sometimes through third parties such as
Saudi Arabia. The U.S. tilt toward Iraq was enshrined in
National Security Decision Directive 114 of Nov. 26, 1983,
one of the few important Reagan era foreign policy
decisions that still remains classified. According to former
U.S. officials, the directive stated that the United States
would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent
Iraq from losing the war with Iran.
The presidential directive was issued amid a flurry of
reports that Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons in
their attempts to hold back the Iranians. In principle,
Washington was strongly opposed to chemical warfare, a
practice outlawed by the 1925 Geneva Protocol. In practice,
U.S. condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons
ranked relatively low on the scale of administration
priorities, particularly compared with the all-important
goal of preventing an Iranian victory.
Thus, on Nov. 1, 1983, a senior State Department official,
Jonathan T. Howe, told Secretary of State George P. Shultz
that intelligence reports showed that Iraqi troops were
resorting to "almost daily use of CW" against the Iranians.
But the Reagan administration had already committed
itself to a large-scale diplomatic and political overture to
Baghdad, culminating in several visits by the president's
recently appointed special envoy to the Middle East,
Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Secret talking points prepared for the first Rumsfeld visit
to Baghdad enshrined some of the language from NSDD
114, including the statement that the United States would
regard "any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as a strategic
defeat for the West." When Rumsfeld finally met with
Hussein on Dec. 20, he told the Iraqi leader that
Washington was ready for a resumption of full diplomatic
relations, according to a State Department report of the
conversation. Iraqi leaders later described themselves as
"extremely pleased" with the Rumsfeld visit, which had
"elevated U.S.-Iraqi relations to a new level."
In a September interview with CNN, Rumsfeld said he
"cautioned" Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, a
claim at odds with declassified State Department notes of
his 90-minute meeting with the Iraqi leader. A Pentagon
spokesman, Brian Whitman, now says that Rumsfeld
raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Iraqi foreign
minister Tariq Aziz. The State Department notes show that
he mentioned it largely in passing as one of several
matters that "inhibited" U.S. efforts to assist Iraq.
Rumsfeld has also said he had "nothing to do" with helping
Iraq in its war against Iran. Although former U.S. officials
agree that Rumsfeld was not one of the architects of the
Reagan administration's tilt toward Iraq -- he was a private
citizen when he was appointed Middle East envoy -- the
documents show that his visits to Baghdad led to closer
U.S.-Iraqi cooperation on a wide variety of fronts.
Washington was willing to resume diplomatic relations
immediately, but Hussein insisted on delaying such a step
until the following year.
As part of its opening to Baghdad, the Reagan
administration removed Iraq from the State Department
terrorism list in February 1982, despite heated objections
from Congress. Without such a move, Teicher says, it
would have been "impossible to take even the modest steps
we were contemplating" to channel assistance to Baghdad.
Iraq -- along with Syria, Libya and South Yemen -- was one
of four original countries on the list, which was first drawn
up in 1979.
Some former U.S. officials say that removing Iraq from the
terrorism list provided an incentive to Hussein to expel the
Palestinian guerrilla leader Abu Nidal from Baghdad in
1983. On the other hand, Iraq continued to play host to
alleged terrorists throughout the '80s. The most notable
was Abu Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front,
who found refuge in Baghdad after being expelled from
Tunis for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the cruise
ship Achille Lauro, which resulted in the killing of an
elderly American tourist.
Iraq Lobbies for Arms
While Rumsfeld was talking to Hussein and Aziz in
Baghdad, Iraqi diplomats and weapons merchants were
fanning out across Western capitals for a diplomatic charm
offensive-cum-arms buying spree. In Washington, the key
figure was the Iraqi chargé d'affaires, Nizar Hamdoon, a
fluent English speaker who impressed Reagan
administration officials as one of the most skillful lobbyists
in town.
"He arrived with a blue shirt and a white tie, straight out of
the mafia," recalled Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East
specialist in the Reagan White House. "Within six months,
he was hosting suave dinner parties at his residence,
which he parlayed into a formidable lobbying effort. He
was particularly effective with the American Jewish
community."
One of Hamdoon's favorite props, says Kemp, was a green
Islamic scarf allegedly found on the body of an Iranian
soldier. The scarf was decorated with a map of the Middle
East showing a series of arrows pointing toward Jerusalem.
Hamdoon used to "parade the scarf" to conferences and
congressional hearings as proof that an Iranian victory over
Iraq would result in "Israel becoming a victim along with
the Arabs."
According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by Teicher in
1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war
effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of
credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the
Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales
to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry
required." Teicher said in the affidavit that former CIA
director William Casey used a Chilean company, Cardoen,
to supply Iraq with cluster bombs that could be used to
disrupt the Iranian human wave attacks. Teicher refuses to
discuss the affidavit.
At the same time the Reagan administration was
facilitating the supply of weapons and military components
to Baghdad, it was attempting to cut off supplies to Iran
under "Operation Staunch." Those efforts were largely
successful, despite the glaring anomaly of the 1986
Iran-contra scandal when the White House publicly
admitted trading arms for hostages, in violation of the
policy that the United States was trying to impose on the
rest of the world.
Although U.S. arms manufacturers were not as deeply
involved as German or British companies in selling
weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively
turned a blind eye to the export of "dual use" items such
as chemical precursors and steel tubes that can have
military and civilian applications. According to several
former officials, the State and Commerce departments
promoted trade in such items as a way to boost U.S.
exports and acquire political leverage over Hussein.
When United Nations weapons inspectors were allowed
into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, they compiled long lists
of chemicals, missile components, and computers from
American suppliers, including such household names as
Union Carbide and Honeywell, which were being used for
military purposes.
A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee
turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq
during the mid-'80s under license from the Commerce
Department, including various strains of anthrax,
subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key
component of the Iraqi biological warfare program. The
Commerce Department also approved the export of
insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that
they were being used for chemical warfare.
The fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons was hardly
a secret. In February 1984, an Iraqi military spokesman
effectively acknowledged their use by issuing a chilling
warning to Iran. "The invaders should know that for every
harmful insect, there is an insecticide capable of
annihilating it . . . and Iraq possesses this annihilation
insecticide."
Chemicals Kill Kurds
In late 1987, the Iraqi air force began using chemical
agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq
that had formed a loose alliance with Iran, according to
State Department reports. The attacks, which were part of
a "scorched earth" strategy to eliminate rebel-controlled
villages, provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and renewed
demands for sanctions against Iraq. The State Department
and White House were also outraged -- but not to the point
of doing anything that might seriously damage relations
with Baghdad.
"The U.S.-Iraqi relationship is . . . important to our
long-term political and economic objectives," Assistant
Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy wrote in a
September 1988 memorandum that addressed the
chemical weapons question. "We believe that economic
sanctions will be useless or counterproductive to influence
the Iraqis."
Bush administration spokesmen have cited Hussein's use
of chemical weapons "against his own people" -- and
particularly the March 1988 attack on the Kurdish village
of Halabjah -- to bolster their argument that his regime
presents a "grave and gathering danger" to the United
States.
The Iraqis continued to use chemical weapons against the
Iranians until the end of the Iran-Iraq war. A U.S. air force
intelligence officer, Rick Francona, reported finding
widespread use of Iraqi nerve gas when he toured the Al
Faw peninsula in southern Iraq in the summer of 1988,
after its recapture by the Iraqi army. The battlefield was
littered with atropine injectors used by panicky Iranian
troops as an antidote against Iraqi nerve gas attacks.
Far from declining, the supply of U.S. military intelligence
to Iraq actually expanded in 1988, according to a 1999
book by Francona, "Ally to Adversary: an Eyewitness
Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace." Informed sources said
much of the battlefield intelligence was channeled to the
Iraqis by the CIA office in Baghdad.
Although U.S. export controls to Iraq were tightened up in
the late 1980s, there were still many loopholes. In
December 1988, Dow Chemical sold $1.5 million of
pesticides to Iraq, despite U.S. government concerns that
they could be used as chemical warfare agents. An
Export-Import Bank official reported in a memorandum
that he could find "no reason" to stop the sale, despite
evidence that the pesticides were "highly toxic" to humans
and would cause death "from asphyxiation."
The U.S. policy of cultivating Hussein as a moderate and
reasonable Arab leader continued right up until he
invaded Kuwait in August 1990, documents show. When
the then-U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, April Glaspie, met
with Hussein on July 25, 1990, a week before the Iraqi
attack on Kuwait, she assured him that Bush "wanted
better and deeper relations," according to an Iraqi
transcript of the conversation. "President Bush is an
intelligent man," the ambassador told Hussein, referring to
the father of the current president. "He is not going to
declare an economic war against Iraq."
"Everybody was wrong in their assessment of Saddam,"
said Joe Wilson, Glaspie's former deputy at the U.S.
embassy in Baghdad, and the last U.S. official to meet with
Hussein. "Everybody in the Arab world told us that the
best way to deal with Saddam was to develop a set of
economic and commercial relationships that would have
the effect of moderating his behavior. History will
demonstrate that this was a miscalculation."
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