Also you may wish to go to this site the next time you want to research such matters cooperativeresearch.org
Here is some highlights:
The U.S. provided financial aid, military intelligence, and actual military planning to Iraq at a time when the Reagan administration was well aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran. One anonymous inside source told the New York Times that the Pentagon “wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas. It was just another way of killing people — whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference.”
The facts surrounding U.S. covert support for Iraq and its awareness that Iraq had been using chemical warfare against the Iranians, and perhaps the Kurds, offers serious implications to the current Bush administration's argument for 'regime change' in Iraq. One of the main premises of the administration's argument is that Saddam Hussein must be removed from power because he is 'evil' - referring of course to the allegation that Saddam Hussein 'gassed his own people.'
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December 20, 1983. U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld personally met with Saddam Hussein. According to a declassified State Department cable, Rumsfeld “conveyed the President’s greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad.” [Newsweek 9/23/2002; NBC News 8/18/02; Washington Post 12/30/02; The Times 12/31/02] Howard Teicher, a National Security Council aide, accompanied Rumsfeld on the trip. In a sworn testimony on Jan. 31, 1995, the former aide stated that Rumsfeld had relayed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's offer to assist Iraq in its war against Iran.. ''Aziz refused even to accept the Israeli's letter to [Saddam] Hussein offering assistance,'' testified Teicher, ''because Aziz told us that he would be executed on the spot.'' [NBC News 8/18/02; Newsweek 9/30/2001 cited in Baltimore Sun 9/26/2001] Relations were not officially reestablished until November 1984. [Gwertzman 11/27/1984] Commenting on the meeting, Newsweek noted, "Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak.) But at the time, America’s big worry was Iran, not Iraq" [Newsweek 9/23/2002] And even more significantly, declassified documents revealed that Rumsfeld's trip happened at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran "almost daily" in defiance of international conventions. [Washington Post 12/30/02] On September 19, 2002, almost two decades later, Rumsfeld was questioned in Congress about this visit. He stated, "I was, for a period in late '83 and early '84, asked by President Reagan to serve as Middle East envoy after the Marines--241 Marines were killed in Beirut. As part of my responsibilities I did visit Baghdad. I did meet with Mr. Tariq Aziz. And I did meet with Saddam Hussein and spent some time visiting with them about the war they were engaged in with Iran. At the time our concern, of course, was Syria and Syria's role in Lebanon and Lebanon's role in the Middle East and the terrorist acts that were taking place. As a private citizen I was assisting only for a period of months." In his testimony he also denied any knowledge of the role the U.S. would play in helping Iraq develop its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons capabilities. [U.S. Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998]
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all the best,
Sun Tzu |
