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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (23224)	3/19/2003 11:05:29 PM
From: Rick McDougall	Respond to of 25898

Reagan's Iraqi Tilt Through the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, as first one side and then the other gained the upper hand, the Reagan administration was officially neutral but behind the scenes tilted from one side to the other. When Iran appeared to be winning in 1982, Reagan and his advisers made a fateful decision to secretly supply Saddam’s military, including permitting shipments of dual-use technology that Iraq then used to build chemical and biological weapons. Tactical military assistance also was provided, including satellite photos of the battlefield. While congressional inquiries and press accounts have sketched out some of these facts over the years, the current Bush administration continues to plead ignorance or question the reliability of the stories. Last September, for example, Newsweek reported that the Reagan administration in the 1980s had allowed sales to Iraq of computer databases that Saddam could use to track political opponents and shipments of “bacteria/fungi/protozoa” that could help produce anthrax and other biological weapons. [Newsweek issue dated Sept. 23, 2002] Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va,, asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the Newsweek story at a Senate hearing on Sept. 19. “Did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war?” Byrd inquired. “Are we, in fact, now facing the possibility of reaping what we have sown.” “Certainly not to my knowledge,” Rumsfeld responded. “I have no knowledge of United States companies or government being involved in assisting Iraq develop chemical, biological or nuclear weapons