Anyone interested in US politics?

[Lucy]

Bagpuss, clearly my answers serve as a piece of string to your cat-like tendencies.

[Bagpuss]

They were not supplied by the US, they were supplied by China, Egypt, Portugal, Spain, Luxembourg and Niger.

From http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html

The NYT article read as though Washington's casual disregard about the use of chemical weapons by Hussein's dictatorship throughout the 1980s had never been reported before.

"Bush secret effort helped Iraq build its war machine", the article reported that "classified documents obtained by the LA Times show ... a long-secret pattern of personal efforts by [George Bush senior]--both as president and vice president--to support and placate the Iraqi dictator."

Even William Safire, the right-wing, war-mongering NYT columnist, on December 7, 1992, felt compelled to write that, "Iraqgate is uniquely horrendous: a scandal about the systematic abuse of power by misguided leaders of three democratic nations [the US, Britain and Italy] to secretly finance the arms buildup of a dictator".

Using its allies in the Middle East, Washington funnelled huge supplies of arms to Iraq. Classified State Department cables uncovered by Frantz and Waas described covert transfers of howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons to Baghdad in 1982-83 from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.

Central to these "moves" was the cementing of a military and political alliance with Saddam Hussein's repressive regime, so as to build up Iraq as a military counterweight to Iran. In 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department's list of countries that allegedly supported terrorism. On December 19-20, 1983, Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy--none other than Donald Rumsfeld--to Baghdad with a hand-written offer of a resumption of diplomatic relations, which had been severed during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. On March 24, 1984, Rumsfeld was again in Baghdad.

On that same day, the UPI wire service reported from the UN: "Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers ... a team of UN experts has concluded ... Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, US presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz."

The day before, Iran had accused Iraq of poisoning 600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas.

There is no doubt that the US government knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. On March 5, 1984, the State Department had stated that "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons". The March 30, 1984, NYT reported that US intelligence officials has "what they believe to be incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass producing the lethal chemical warfare agent".

The March 29, 1984, NYT, reporting on the aftermath of Rumsfeld's talks in Baghdad, stated that US officials had pronounced "themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the US and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name". In November 1984, the US and Iraq officially restored diplomatic relations.

Another retired DIA officer, Walter Lang, told the NYT that "the use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern". What concerned the DIA, CIA and the Reagan administration was that Iran not break through the Fao Peninsula and spread the Islamic revolution to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Iraq's 1982 removal from Washington's official list of states that support terrorism meant that the Hussein regime was now eligible for US economic and military aid, and was able to purchase advanced US technology that could also be used for military purposes.

Then US Secretary of State George Schultz and commerce secretary George Baldridge also lobbied for the delivery of Bell helicopters equipped for "crop spraying". It is believed that US-supplied choppers were used in the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, which killed 5000 people.

With the Reagan administration's connivance, Baghdad immediately embarked on a massive militarisation drive. This US-endorsed military spending spree began even before Iraq was delisted as a terrorist state, when the US commerce department approved the sale of Italian gas turbine engines for Iraq's naval frigates.

By the end of 1983, US$402 million in agriculture department loan guarantees for Iraq were approved. In 1984, this increased to $503 million and reached $1.1 billion in 1988. Between 1983 and 1990, CCC loan guarantees freed up more than $5 billion. Some $2 billion in bad loans, plus interest, ended up having to be covered by US taxpayers.

A similar taxpayer-funded, though smaller scale, scam operated under the auspices of the federal Export-Import Bank. In 1984, vice-president George Bush senior personally intervened to ensure that the bank guaranteed loans to Iraq of $500 million to build an oil pipeline. Export-Import Bank loan guarantees grew from $35 million in 1985 to $267 million by 1990.

From 1985 until 1990 "the US government approved 771 licenses [only 39 were rejected] for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application ...

"The US spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted... US export control policy was directed by US foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was US foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."

A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.

The report also noted that US exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment.

Billions of dollars worth of raw materials, machinery and equipment, missile technology and other "dual-use" items were also supplied by West German, French, Italian, British, Swiss and Austrian corporations, with the approval of their governments (German firms even sold Iraq entire factories capable of mass-producing poison gas). Much of this was purchased with funds freed by the US CCC credits.

The destination of much of this equipment was Saad 16, near Mosul in northern Iraq. Western intelligence agencies had long known that the sprawling complex was Iraq's main ballistic missile development centre.

Blum reported that Washington was fully aware of the likely use of this material. In 1992, a US Senate committee learned that the commerce department had deleted references to military end-use from information it sent to Congress about 68 export licences, worth more than $1 billion.

US agencies were supposed to review US exports that may be detrimental to US "national security". However, the commerce department often did not submit exports to Hussein's Iraq for review or approved them despite objections from other government departments.

On March 16, 1988, Iraqi forces launched a poison gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja, killing 5000 people. While that attack is today being touted by senior US officials as one of the main reasons why Hussein must now be "taken out", at the time Washington's response to the atrocity was much more relaxed.

Just four months later, Washington stood by as the US giant Bechtel corporation won the contract to build a huge petrochemical plant that would give the Hussein regime the capacity to generate chemical weapons.

On September 8, 1988, the US Senate passed the Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions on the Hussein regime. Immediately, the Reagan administration announced its opposition to the bill, calling it "premature". The White House used its influence to stall the bill in the House of Representatives. When Congress did eventually pass the bill, the White House did not implement it.

Yet, even the public outrage generated by the Halabja massacre and the widening BNL scandal did not cool Washington's ardour towards Hussein's Iraq.

On October 2, 1989, US President George Bush senior signed the top-secret National Security Decision 26, which declared: "Normal relations between the US and Iraq would serve our long-term interests and promote stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East. The US should propose economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behaviour and increase our influence with Iraq... We should pursue, and seek to facilitate, opportunities for US firms to participate in the reconstruction of the Iraqi economy."

As public and congressional pressure mounted on the US Agriculture Department to end Iraq's access to CCC loan guarantees, Secretary of State James Baker--armed with NSD 26--personally insisted that agriculture secretary Clayton Yeutter drop his opposition to their continuation.

In November 1989, Bush senior approved $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq in 1990. In April 1990, more revelations about the BNL scandal had again pushed the department of agriculture to the verge of halting Iraq's CCC loan guarantees. On May 18, national security adviser Scowcroft personally intervened to ensure the delivery of the first $500 million tranche of the CCC subsidy for 1990.

From July 18 to August 1, 1990, Bush senior's administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales to Iraq. The end-users included Saad 16 and the Iraqi ministry of industry and military industrialisation.

[Lucy]

Even if much, certainly not all of that is true. Does that make it okay to sit back and do nothing, to not reverse any of that?

I'm sorry, I just can't go for lefty sites that begin sentences with 'It is believed...'

The Iraqi helicopters are not US made.

You criticise the US slack policy in the 1980's towards Iraq, for aiding a tyrant, you criticise the US for overthrowing that tyrant. You can't have it both ways. Either Saddam was a murdering meglamanic who needed to be overthrown, or he is a victim of the evil western imperialists double crossing him. Afterall, Japan was a western ally in WWI, does that mean it was wrong to resist Japan only a decade or so later?

A cursory survey of the Iraqi airforce in the 80s and 90s showed it was filled with soviet aircraft, do you point the finger at Moscow and Iran for that matter. The US also helped Iran during this period.

You might ask what should be done about Iran's nuclear weapons programme...

[snaw]

What he said. (I think). Apart from the bits I didn't read. (Most of it).

[oracleslave]

What he said. (I think). Apart from the bits I didn't read. (Most of it).

[snaw]

You criticise the US slack policy in the 1980's towards Iraq, for aiding a tyrant, you criticise the US for overthrowing that tyrant. You can't have it both ways.

So why didn't Bush one go in and finish the job in the first Iraq war, instead of leaving the Kurds and Shia hanging out to dry?

I mean, quite a few of those guys were still around and involved for the 2nd one. You're full of so much tulipe it's hard to know where to begin.

[Lucy]

So why didn't Bush one go in and finish the job in the first Iraq war, instead of leaving the Kurds and Shia hanging out to dry?

Indeed. Why not? I completely agree.

[snaw]

Indeed. Why not? I completely agree.

Because it suited their purpose to have a strong leader, in what was known to be a very volatile region, sitting on a large amount of oil. They were a wee bit scared to kick off the sort of events we're seeing now.

Then he got a wee bit out of control. Shame they didn't take the advice they gave themselves quite a few years earlier. Even a post invasion plan would have been a smart idea. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld epitomise hubris in it's worst form.

[Lucy]

Because it suited their purpose to have a strong leader, in what was known to be a very volatile region, sitting on a large amount of oil. They were a wee bit scared to kick off the sort of events we're seeing now.

Nothing to do with a 'strong leader' whatsoever, it was because the cold war had finished and the US administration had cobbled together a coalition including Arab countries to oust Iraq from Kuwait 'finishing the job' would have dramatically weakened this coalition. That coalition, and the decision at the time was to retain strong arab support, for the US action in the gulf. Israel had done the dirty work in destroying Saddams nuclear arsenal in 1983.

The question remains, what would you have done? What would you do now? It's easy to be an armchair general. If you think Saddam should have remained in power, then defend that.

[Bagpuss]

Even if much, certainly not all of that is true. Does that make it okay to sit back and do nothing, to not reverse any of that?

I'm sorry, I just can't go for lefty sites that begin sentences with 'It is believed...'

The Iraqi helicopters are not US made.

...

The article mainly references the NYT and other validated references, most of it well documented if somewhat whitewashed in retrospective morality.

Hughes helicopters, who makes them?

Lefty sentences! are you derranged? RAPTURE, RAPTURE!

I'm starting to think Hitler, Pol Pot and Ghenghis Khan are liberal compared to you. Is it possible to be more right wing?