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

To: jttmab who wrote (188640)	6/8/2006 1:50:46 AM
From: DavesM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

re: "But the US thought that was a good thing at the time. Carter had Iraq on the terrorist list and Reagan took him off so we could support Saddam [and get his oil]. If you want to blame Saddam for killing Iranians, then you should add Reagan and Bush Sr. as helpers." Did the United States aid Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War? Yes. Did the United States sell civilian items that could be converted by Iraq for military purposes? Yes. Did the United States sell weapons to Iraq? No. First of all, Iraq invaded Iran during the Carter Administration. Second, the Reagan Administration sent more weapons to Iran than Iraq (during the Iran-Iraq War). In fact, the top five military suppliers to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war were the Soviet Union, France, China, Brazil and Egypt representing 94% of the arms sent to Iraq. The United States actually supplied arms to Stalin, does Truman and FDR share in the blame for the millions killed by Stalin? re: "Further, the UN take on bribes and kickbacks was insignificant; it didn't add up to more than a 6-figure number and only involved a couple of people. " That is just not true. "Saddam Hussein's government could use oil revenue only to buy humanitarian supplies. From 1996, when the program went into effect, until Nov. 2003, when it ended, Iraqis exported 3.4 billion barrels of oil worth about $65 billion. But now, seven separate investigations are underway into allegations that Hussein smuggled oil, paid kickbacks and skimmed more than $10 billion from the oil-for-food program." - Newshour with Jim Lehrer Now the problem may not have been as bad as the Newshour report, but it certainly wasn't 2 people nor less than 6-figures. re: "Gassing the Kurds is a war crime. If a country provides the material for chemical weapons to Iraq, which the US did, we could debate whether that's a war crime in itself." During 1980-1994 Commerce requested review of only 16 dual-use export cases by the DoD. Of these, only two were forwarded to the DIA for technical review. They involved computers and signal processing equipment. DIA recommended denial in both cases. DIA was aware of the illegal export of thiodiglycol to Iraq by the Baltimore company Alcolac. DIA assisted customs and the FBI in their investigation and successful prosecution of that company." - testimony to Senator Reigle It should be noted that the company Alcolac also attempted to smuggle the same chemical to Iran (during the Iran-Iraq War).