Why assume? You can read about it:
At the same time that the U.S. was giving Teheran weapons that one CIA analyst believed could affect the military balance<88> and passing on intelligence that the Tower Commission deemed of "potentially major significance,"<89> it was also providing Iraq with intelligence information, some misleading or incomplete.<90> In 1986, the CIA established a direct Washington-to-Baghdad link to provide the Iraqis with faster intelligence from U.S. satellites.<91> Simultaneously, Casey was urging Iraqi officials to carry out more attacks on Iran, especially on economic targets.<92> Asked what the logic was of aiding both sides in a bloody war, a former official replied, "You had to have been there."<93>
Washington's effort to enhance its position with both sides came apart at the end of 1986 when one faction in the Iranian government leaked the story of the U.S. arms dealing. Now the Reagan administration was in the unenviable position of having alienated the Iranians and panicked all the Arabs who concluded that the U.S. valued Iran's friendship over theirs. To salvage the U.S. position with at least one side, Washington now had to tilt -- and tilt heavily -- toward Iraq.
THE AMERICAN ARMADA
The opportunity to demonstrate the tilt came soon. Kuwait had watched with growing nervousness Iran's battlefield successes, perhaps made possible by U.S. arms sales and intelligence information. Iran was now also attacking ships calling at Kuwaiti ports, and to protect itself Kuwait decided to try to draw in the United States. In September 1986 (before the scandal broke), it approached both Washington and Moscow and asked if they would be interested in reflagging some Kuwaiti vessels, that is, flying their own flags on Kuwaiti ships and then protecting these new additions to their merchant marine. The initial U.S. reaction was lackadaisical. But when the U.S. learned in March 1987 that the Soviet Union offered to reflag eleven tankers, it promptly offered to reflag the same eleven ships -- which would both keep Soviet influence out of the Gulf and give the United States the opportunity to demonstrate its support for Iraq.<94>
The Kuwaitis accepted the U.S. offer, declining Moscow's, though chartering three Soviet vessels as a way to provide some balance between the U.S. and the USSR,<95> the Kuwaitis being less afraid of Soviet contamination than their American saviors were. Undersecretary of Political Affairs Michael H. Armacost explained in June 1987 that if the USSR were permitted a larger role in protecting Gulf oil, the Gulf states would be under great pressure to make additional facilities available to Moscow.<96> The U.S. view was that only one superpower was allowed to have facilities in the region, and that was the United States. Thus, when in December 1980 the Soviet Union proposed the neutralization of the Gulf, with no alliances, no bases, no intervention in the region, and no obstacles to free trade and the sea lanes,<97> Washington showed no interest. By August 1987, the U.S. had an aircraft carrier, a battleship, six cruisers, three destroyers, seven frigates, and numerous supporting naval vessels in or near the Gulf,<98> in what a Congressional study termed "the largest single naval armada deployed since the height of the Vietnam war."<99>
The Reagan administration claimed that the reflagging was merely intended to protect the flow of oil. It warned that "any significant disruption in gulf oil supply would cause world oil prices for all to skyrocket," grimly recalling how events in 1973-74 and 1978-79 demonstrated that "a small disruption -- of less than 5% -- can trigger a sharp escalation in oil prices."<100>
In fact, however, oil -- and oil prices for that matter -- were never threatened. There has been a worldwide oil glut since the early 1980s, with much underused production capacity in non-Gulf nations. Despite the horrendous human costs of the Iran-Iraq war, oil prices had actually fallen by 50 percent during the course of the conflict.<101> By the end of 1987, two thirds of all the oil produced in the Gulf was carried by pipeline. The Congressional study noted that even in the unlikely event of an actual shutdown of the Gulf, the impact on oil supplies and prices would be minimal.<102> In no sense then could the Strait of Hormuz be viewed as the "jugular" of the Western economies.<103>
zmag.org
projects.sipri.se
zmag.org
deoxy.org
foreignwire.com
nti.org
According to a Senate Committee Report of 1994 [1]: From 1985, if not earlier, through 1989, a veritable witch's brew of biological materials were exported to Iraq by private American suppliers pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Amongst these materials, which often produce slow, agonizing deaths, were:
* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord and heart.
* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
* Clotsridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.
* Clostridium tetani, highly toxigenic.
Also, Escherichia Coli (E.Coli); genetic materials; human and bacterial DNA. Dozens of other pathogenic biological agents were shipped to Iraq during the 1980s. The Senate Report pointed out: "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."
"It was later learned," the committee 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."
These exports continued to at least November 28, 1989 despite the fact that Iraq had been reported to be engaging in chemical warfare and possibly biological warfare against Iranians, Kurds, and Shiites since the early 80s.
During the Iraq-Iran war of 1980-88, the United States gave military aid and intelligence information to both sides, hoping that each would inflict severe damage on the other, in line perhaps with what Noam Chomsky has postulated:
It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the 1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and, crucially, that no independent, indigenous force will be permitted to have a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and price.
Indeed, there is evidence that Washington encouraged Iraq to attack Iran and ignite the war in the first place. This policy, as well as financial considerations, were likely the motivating forces behind providing Iraq with the biological materials. (Iran was at that time regarded as the greater threat to the seemingly always threatened U.S. national security.)
pir.org
Iran-Iraq War: The Lineup, May 17, `982
... 4. With the Iraq-Iran war now approaching what may be a climax, it's a good time for a brief recapitulation of who is on who's side, and how each is helping.
www.washington-report.org/backissues/ 051782/820517004.htm
... A major American motivation for aid to Iraq during this period was the Iran-Iraq War stared by Saddam in 1980. Though the border ...
www.cbc.ca/news/indepth/iraq/ |
