Well, you won't convince me that the U.S. and Iraq were not in a mutual alliance to oppose the common enemy of Iran! The articles and the facts all say otherwise, so it you are unable to accept this as an alliance involving a strong commitment to victory and to whatever military assistance was required to achieve the protection of American interests...then feel free to continue to deny what to me and many authors is not even a debatable question.
Certainly, I don't want to "discuss" it in that vein any longer. Your terse denials are not arguments and serve to advance no meaningful dialogue on this particular issue.
U.S.-Iraqi arms transfers in the war
Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam on 19 December – 20 December 1983. Rumsfeld visited again on 24 March 1984; the same day the UN released a report that Iraq had used mustard and Tabun nerve gas against Iranian troops. The NY Times reported from Baghdad on 29 March 1984, that "American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with Iraq and the U.S., and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been established in all but name." NSA Archive SourceWestern support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war has clearly been established. It is no secret that the United States, the Soviet Union, West Germany, France, many western companies, and Britain provided military support and even components of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. The role the United States played in the war against Iran however, although present to some degree, is not as well known.
After the revolution, with the Ayatollahs in power and levels of enmity between Iran and the U.S. running high, early on during the Iran-Iraq war, realpolitikers in Washington came to the conclusion that Saddam was the lesser of the two evils, and hence efforts to support Iraq became the order of the day, both during the long war with Iran and afterward. This led to what later became known as the Iraq-gate scandals.
Much of what Iraq received from the West, however, were not arms per se, but so-called dual-use technology— mainframe computers, armored ambulances, helicopters, chemicals, and the like, with potential civilian uses as well as military applications. It is now known that a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and elsewhere, fed Iraq's warring capabilities right up until August 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait [6].
The Iraq-gate scandal revealed that an Atlanta branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, relying partially on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. In August 1989, when FBI agents finally raided the Atlanta branch of BNL, the branch manager, Christopher Drogoul, was charged with making unauthorized, clandestine, and illegal loans to Iraq—some of which, according to his indictment, were used to purchase arms and weapons technology.
Beginning in September, 1989, the Financial Times laid out the first charges that BNL, relying heavily on U.S. government-guaranteed loans, was funding Iraqi chemical and nuclear weapons work. For the next two and a half years, the Financial Times provided the only continuous newspaper reportage (over 300 articles) on the subject. Among the companies shipping militarily useful technology to Iraq under the eye of the U.S. government, according to the Financial Times, were Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, and Matrix Churchill, through its Ohio branch [7].
Even before the Persian Gulf War started in 1990, the Intelligencer Journal of Pennsylvania in a string of articles reported: "If U.S. and Iraqi troops engage in combat in the Persian Gulf, weapons technology developed in Lancaster and indirectly sold to Iraq will probably be used against U.S. forces ... And aiding in this ... technology transfer was the Iraqi-owned, British-based precision tooling firm Matrix Churchill, whose U.S. operations in Ohio were recently linked to a sophisticated Iraqi weapons procurement network." [8]
Aside from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and ABC's Ted Koppel, the Iraq-gate story never picked up much steam, even though The U.S. Congress became involved with the scandal. FAS report
In December 2002, Iraq's 1,200 page Weapons Declaration revealed a list of Western corporations and countries—as well as individuals—that exported chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades. Many American names were on the list. Alcolac International, for example, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq. A Tennessee manufacturer contributed large amounts of a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in so-called (Persian) Gulf War Syndrome. A full list of those companies and their involvements in Iraq [9] [10].
On 25 May 1994, The U.S. Senate Banking Committee released a report in which it was stated that pathogenic (meaning disease producing), toxigenic (meaning poisonous) and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq, pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. It added: These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. [11]
The report then detailed 70 shipments (including anthrax bacillus) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program. See another list here, and another here.
843 companies has been listed as being involved in the arming of Iraq. [12] Twenty-four U.S. firms exported arms and materials to Baghdad [13].
Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that made the report, said, "UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses 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 programs." He added, "the executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 agents "with biological warfare significance," including West Nile virus, according to Riegle's investigators [14] [15].
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish organization dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, released a list of U.S. companies and their exports to Iraq. See page 11 of this report: p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p11
A timeline of U.S. support for Saddam against Iran. Another timeline. For the Statement of Henry B. Gonzalez, Chairman, House Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs on Iraq-gate, see links given on this page.
More sources:
University of Missouri School of Journalism database
University of Sussex report
A Global Policy Forum Report
Text of the U.S. Senate Riegle Report
NSA Archives
Sydney Morning Herald report
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Weapons of Mass Destruction
Iran suffered heavy casualties from Saddam's chemical weapons.With more than 100,000 Iranian victims[16] of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons during the eight-year war, Iran is, after Japan, one of the world's top afflicted countries by Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The official estimate does not include the civilian population contaminated in bordering towns or the children and relatives of veterans, many of whom have developed blood, lung and skin complications, according to the Organization for Veterans of Iran.
Nerve gas agents killed about 20,000 Iranian soldiers immediately, according to official reports. Of the 90,000 survivors, some 5,000 seek medical treatment regularly and about 1,000 are still hospitalized with severe, chronic conditions. Many others were hit by mustard gas.
Furthermore, 308 Iraqi missiles were launched at population centers inside Iranian cities between 1980 and 1988 resulting in 12,931 casualties.[17]
There is great resentment in Iran that the international community helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal and armed forces, and also that the world did nothing to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against Iran throughout the war — particularly since the US and other western powers later felt obliged to oppose the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and eventually invade Iraq itself to remove Hussein.
Iranian soldiers with chemical masks posing in front of sign reading: "Hey brother, smile".Also see The Chemical Attack on Halabja.
Further reading on surviving veterans of these weapons:
A report on Iranian victims of Iraqi blister agents, Medical Management of Chemical Casualties
The New Jersey Star Ledger, report
The South Africa Star, report
The NY Times report
MSNBC report
Report: Iranian WMD Veterans sue Germany
Vets suing the U.S.
NPR report on Iranian WMD veterans (audio)
Medical reports
? Center for Documents of The Imposed War, Tehran.
en.wikipedia.org
______________________________________________________
THE U.S./IRAQ ALLIANCE
A Convenient Alliance
As hundreds of thousands of American soldiers bear down upon the regime of Saddam Hussein, it is hard to imagine another era, not so long ago, when the Americans and Iraqis were allies.
In December 1983 Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad to send a message of friendship to Saddam Hussein.
In those days, they had a mutual enemy: Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. The Iraqis had long-standing disputes with Iran and the Americans were still smarting over the seizure of American hostages in 1979. Ronald Reagan sent a special envoy to forge an alliance. His name was Donald Rumsfeld.
Twenty years ago, each side had something the other needed. The Americans wanted an ally in the Middle East and Iraq needed food, money and military supplies.
Chemical Warfare
There was just one problem. According to Dr. Stephen Bryen, a Pentagon official in charge of monitoring technology exports, the Reagan administration was aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war against Iran. This was against the Geneva Convention which outlawed the use of chemical and biological weapons in 1925.
"As early as 1983 the Reagan Administration was already well aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war against Iran. According to U.S. intelligence on an ‘almost daily basis’. But that wasn’t all. There were also intelligence reports the Iraqis were using chemical weapons in the north of their own country, in the battle against the Kurds. But the White House did nothing."
Dr. Stephen Bryen worked to stop the sale of U.S. technology to Iraq.
Dr. Bryen was responsible for ensuring that American technology didn't end up in the wrong hands. He says that by the 1980s, it was obvious that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction using equipment from the West.
"The Iraqis were looking to use the U.S. as they were using Western Europe to acquire equipment and technology for their military forces, and if we’re dumb enough to sell it to them, they were happy enough to take it."
The Sale of Technology to Iraq
Although official U.S. policy prohibited military sales to Iraq, the Commerce and State departments pushed to sell the Iraqis 'dual-use' items which could have both civilian and military purposes like trucks, computers or helicopters.
Richard Murphy, a top State Department official (Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East Bureau) remembers that the pressure to sell was enormous.
"Certainly there was pressure to sell and there was the argument, if the contract doesn’t go to an American you can be darn sure it’s gonna go to a German, British, French manufacturer and trucks were one example. Civilian helicopters were a dicier decision. Could they be turned into the equivalent of an attack helicopter?"
The U.S. approved the sale of helicopters to Iraq which may have been used by the military.
Despite opposition from the Pentagon, the U.S. approved the sale of 100 helicopters to the Iraqis who claimed they would be used as agricultural sprayers. Dr. Bryen says many were transferred to the military, perhaps to be used in chemical attacks.
"You know, we don’t like that, that’s a very dangerous thing, and of course Halabja is a perfect example of what you do with helicopters filled with chemicals."
Then Iraq requested 1.5 million vials of atropine - the antidote for nerve gas - to protect Iraqi soldiers from chemical weapons. The State Department supported the sale even through nobody had nerve gas except the Iraqi army.
Dr. Bryen raised the red flag and Iraq was not allowed to purchase the drugs. But according to documents recently released by the Iraqis themselves, several U.S. companies provided chemical and biological components to Iraq during the 1980s which were used to develop weapons.
Iraq also received billion in loans and credits to purchase American food and goods - more than almost any other country. It left Saddam free to spend his hard currency on more weapons.
The Kurdish city of Halabja was attacked with chemical weapons on March 16, 1988.
Washington's Reaction to the Attack on Halabja
But after the chemical attack on Halabja in 1988 (read more) the truth seemed too sinister to ignore.
Senate staffer Peter Galbraith drafted legislation - the Prevention of Genocide Act - that imposed harsh economic sanctions on the regime. (read more)
Billions in loans and agricultural credits would be cut off. America would no longer purchase Iraqi oil which accounted for one quarter of Iraq's production. And all U.S. exports to Iraq would be suspended.
Although the bill passed through the Senate in only one day the powerful farm and business lobbies warned that the legislation would only punish the Americans trading with Iraq.
When the Bill reached the House of Representatives, the provisions to remove agricultural credits and end bank loans were removed. Eventually the Act was caught up in Congressional bureacracy and died before it was passed. (read more)
Turning a Blind Eye Towards Saddam
Although the U.S. government officially denounced the gassing of the Kurds, it was business like never before with Iraq. After 1988 business with Iraq actually increased. By 1989, Iraq was given American agricultural guarantees worth $1 billion. Iraq was the largest importer of U.S. rice and the 2nd largest participant in the agricultural credit program.
For a decade, the American government turned a blind eye towards the Iraqi government.
Not long afterwards, believing that the U.S. would let him get away with murder again, Saddam Hussein sent his troops into Kuwait to claim the oil rich emirate as an Iraqi province.
Peter Galbraith says that the U.S. seriously under-estimated Saddam Hussein.
"We would not be here today in a 2nd Gulf War against Saddam Hussein if he had understood and if he had been made to understand that his behaviour would have consequences."
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