ST, that one gave me what I needed, i.e., the name Rick Francona, which led me to his web site and an interview which spells things out.
When then-Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci ordered the
Defense Intelligence Agency to assist Iraq with tactical
planning and airstrike assessments in its war with Iran,
Francona said Friday, “We provided the assistance in
earnest.” Francona was doing his part in Baghdad in the
spring of 1988 when he discovered Iraq had unleashed nerve
gas while recapturing the Al-Faw Peninsula.
“The Iraqi use of chemicals at Al-Faw was unmistakable,”
said Francona, who toured the overrun Iranian positions
with Iraqi officers. “What I saw were used atropine
injectors all over the place. And atropine is used as an
antidote for only one thing: nerve gas.”
The United States knew Iraq was using mustard, a
blistering agent, in defensive operations, Francona said,
but “this was the first documented use of nerve gas on a
battlefield.” Iraqi officials denied using chemical
weapons, but on a subsequent trip to Baghdad, Francona was
allowed to inspect a 170 mm artillery piece that Iraq
captured at Al-Faw. The weapon, he writes in his book,
was oozing decontamination fluid.
Iraq recaptured the Al-Faw peninsula in April. A month
earlier, the Reagan administration soon learned, Iraq had
also employed nerve gas against Kurdish insurgents in the
village of Halabja.
“We were appalled and upset,” Francona said. “There was a
very strenuous debate about whether or not to continue the
program. Our program almost stopped that day. All those
names who refused to be quoted (in the Times story) were
in those meetings.”
And a majority agreed that the United States could not
quit the covert operation. “We were more concerned
with the Iraqis’ not being defeated than we were about
their abhorrent use of chemical weapons,” Francona
said. “No one was happy about it. We all thought it was
terrible. But we were dealing with two very bad choices
and we took the less bad. That was to support the
Iraqis.”
Okay, now then, here are my comments on the issue(s):
[1] I'm glad I don't have to make decisions like that one as part of my job.
[2] I think the administration was wrong to go on supporting the Iraqis and I wish they had decided otherwise.
[3] I would like to think that were I the one to make that decision I would have decided differently, but that is just TOO easy for me to say given the vast time and distance between myself and the situation faced at that time.
[4] The fact that we made the wrong decision back then simply strengthens my belief that we not only should take Saddam out of power now, but that we are morally obligated to do so. |
