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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (149544)	10/28/2004 12:45:16 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Respond to of 281500

You are twisting my comment. Let me straighten you out. Explain your "safe" definition While regular inspections and verification were on-going, the explosives were at least known to be there - and therefore "safe" relative to the current situation. It was Bush, not the UN nor the IAEA, which ordered inspectors out of Iraq. Therefore it is wholly accurate for me to portray Bush's decisions as contributing to an increase in danger specific to these explosives. to the Kurds who were chemically killed by the thousands. Explain your "safe" to the Iranians who died on the battlefield under clouds of poison. Sigh... I was not discussing all the nasty things that Saddam has done. I've never argued that he should be supported in any way. However, the US has supported Saddam in the past, so lets review what role Reagan's government had in supporting Saddam and all these evil things before we act too high and mighty, shall we? I will remind you that Donald Rumsfeld, special envoy to Iraq on behalf of President Ronald Reagan, knowingly gave Saddam Husayn, personally, the express support of the United States of America in late 1983, even though earlier that fall the US obtained conclusive proof that Saddam was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. During that meeting Rumsfeld suggested it would be a good thing for Iraq to build an oil pipeline through Jordan. He didn't tie US support to the discontinuation of CW use. He didn't even mention CW or banned weapons once in his meeting with Saddam. Read the transcript -- despite what was known about Saddam, Rumsfeld was there to communicate to Saddam that the US wanted to improve relations further. You might then suggest "well we would have pressured him sooner or later". That is partially true, at least in public. But not in private. Certain circles within Defence and State departments rationalized the use of chemical weapons, paraphrased "Saddam was at war; we supported him fighting the Iranias; what's the difference between a bullet and being gassed?". Having rationalized this, and preferring Saddam keep on fighting Iranians, the United States Department of State knowingly set about working on sneaking approval to ship materials related to Nuclear Weapons Production to Iraq's nuclear entities. State department folks simply said "lets wait until this chemical weapons issue isn't on the front page any more". So, when do we decide when to act high and mighty, and when do we decide to look the other way? All this information is on the public record; all of it is available for your own reading from the original US Government documents, now declassified and available for public viewing on the internet. Keep reading, you will be just amazed at the things you find. I am not targetting Reagan on purpose - Saddam and Reagan's heyday just happen to coincide with one another. All presidents have their dark side, but often we don't see the blunders and moral lapses until years later.