When did the US give Saddam chemical weapons?
So glad you asked:
According to congressional records from the early 1990s, the Reagan administration’s commerce department allowed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. companies exported chemical and biological agents to Iraq despite suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare. It was later discovered that these agents did indeed significantly contributed to the country’s weapons arsenal.
sundayherald.com
timesonline.co.uk
William Blum, a former employee of the State Department and author of the book, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II and Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, revealed in an article first published in 1998 that “the furnishing of chemical and biological materials by the United States to Iraq . . . markedly enhanced Iraq's CBW capability.”
yellowtimes.org
"U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War," Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with Respect to Export Administration, reports of May 25, 1994 and October 7, 1994.
Full copy of the May 25th report:
gulflink.osd.mil
Full copy of the Oct 7 report:
gulflink.osd.mil
According to this report, the US 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]
sundayherald.com
yellowtimes.org
Additional US exports to Iraq, according the reports.
Examples.
(i) Chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings.
(ii) Chemical warfare filling equipment.
(iii) Missile fabrication equipment.
(iv) Missile system guidance equipment.
The Committee established a direct connection between what was sold by the U.S. to Iraq and what was removed by UN inspectors.
(a) Statements.
(i) In May 1994 the committee reported that the agents “were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction” and then four months later, in another report, it revealed “that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program.”
(ii) Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said, “UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licences issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programmes.” He also explained that between January 1985 and August 1990, the “executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licences for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.”
sundayherald.com
etc etc etc....
Another day, another mystery solved.. |
