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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: February 28, 2007 2:23:05 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Subject: Fwd: The Lost Mystery of 'Iraq-gate'
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From: "Jim S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: February 28, 2007 1:09:55 PM PST
Subject: The Lost Mystery of 'Iraq-gate'
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/022707b.html
The Lost Mystery of 'Iraq-gate'
By Peter Dyer
February 28, 2007
[Editor's Note: On Dec. 30, 2006, George W. Bush and the Shi'ite-
dominated government of Iraq took their revenge on Saddam Hussein,
dropping him through a gallow's trap door to his death dangling at
the end of noose. The Bush family also was happy to know that a
potentially troublesome witness was silenced.
In this guest article, Peter Dyer looks at the evidence and the
unanswered questions of the Iraq-gate scandal.]
:
Now that Saddam Hussein has been executed for the 1982 massacre at
Dujail, the trial for a larger-scale slaughter involving poison gas
in 1988 has all but disappeared from public view.
With Saddam's death, the opportunity for a full account of the tens
of thousands of deaths in the so-called Anfal case appears to be
lost, along with the opportunity for a frank public discussion of
its historical context.
Such a discussion inevitably would have led to how Saddam Hussein's
development of dangerous weapons was enabled by Western powers,
including the United States. Between 1985 and 1990, the Reagan and
Bush I administrations facilitated Saddam Hussein's massive and
ambitious military industrialization effort.
Billions of dollars of financial assistance and sophisticated
technology flowed from the United States to Iraq. The Reagan and
Bush I administrations were aware that Saddam Hussein was using
this aid to research, develop, and/or manufacture chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons.
These were the conclusions of U.S. Rep. Henry Gonzalez, chairman of
the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, in a
statement published July 27, 1992: "Bush Administration Had Acute
Knowledge of Iraq’s Military Industrialization Plans."
This statement was reprinted in an Oct. 27, 1992, U.S. Senate
Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Report. The committee
chair was Sen. Donald W. Riegle, D-Michigan. Riegle later revisited
this subject in another report published on May 25, 1994.
Gonzalez's conclusion was supported in Riegle's 1992 report by a
series of expert witnesses and government officials. They provided
long lists of American technology and material licensed by the U.S.
Commerce Department for export to Iraq and used by Iraq in the
development of long-range missiles as well as weapons of mass
destruction.
The expert witnesses -- David Kay, Kenneth R. Timmerman and Gary
Milhollin -- agreed that while the United States was not Iraq’s
principal supplier of arms or advanced production technology, the
U.S. made a significant contribution to Iraq’s military buildup.
Also provided were the names of front companies that Saddam Hussein
used to obtain nuclear technology as well as accounts of massive
bank and other financial fraud which funded the Iraqi military
buildup. Much of this activity continued until a week before Saddam
invaded Kuwait in August of 1990.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said even though the evidence was
clear that Saddam Hussein was spending so much on weapons he could
not repay his debts, President George H.W. Bush and his
administration continued U.S. economic aid to Iraq. When Saddam
invaded Kuwait, Iraq defaulted on $1.9 billion in U.S. guaranteed
loans.
Back Story
The story of U.S. aid to Iraq goes back at least to February 1982
when, 17 months after Iraq invaded Iran, the Reagan administration
removed Iraq from its list of terrorist states.
According to Howard Teicher, an official on Ronald Reagan's
National Security Council staff, the reclassification had mostly to
do with the goal of preventing Iraq’s defeat in the war with Iran.
While this policy change opened the way for American corporations
to sell Iraq "dual-use" (military/civilian) material and
technology, the United States formally maintained an official
policy of neutrality by avoiding direct sales of weapons.
"One of the reasons that the United States refused to license or
sell U.S. origin weapons to Iraq was that the supply of non-U.S.
origin weapons to Iraq was sufficient to meet Iraq's needs,"
Teicher explained in a January 1995 sworn federal court declaration.
"Under C.I.A. Director [William J.] Casey and Deputy Director
[Robert M.] Gates, the C.I.A. made sure that non-U.S. manufacturers
manufactured and sold to Iraq the weapons needed by Iraq. In
certain instances where a key component in a weapon was not readily
available, the highest levels of the United States government
decided to make the component available, directly or indirectly, to
Iraq."
This history is relevant to the Anfal trial, the second of several
trials originally planned for Saddam and other former Iraqi leaders.
However, just days before the Anfal trial was to resume with tape
recordings of Saddam discussing chemical weapons, Saddam was rushed
to the gallows and hanged for his conviction in the killing of 148
men and boys in Dujail after an assassination attempt on Saddam in
1982.
Saddam’s execution on Dec. 30, 2006, meant that the former Iraqi
dictator would not have the chance in court to explain how his
regime obtained the poison gases that were deployed against the
victims of Anfal, which means "spoils" or "spoils of war" in
Arabic. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Saddam's Well-Timed Execution."]
Six of Saddam's lieutenants remain to be tried for genocide, crimes
against humanity, and war crimes committed in the Anfal campaign, a
series of massacres estimated to have killed 50,000 to 150,000
Kurds, involving widespread use of mustard gas and peaking in 1988.
In one of the most notorious attacks, mustard gas and nerve agents
allegedly were used to massacre 5,000 people on March 16~17, 1988,
in the Kurdish town of Halabja.
As horrendous and unprecedented in modern times as Anfal was, there
has been very little media interest in it since the trial reopened
after Saddam's execution. With virtually no public discussion of
Anfal, the chances are slim that light will be shed on the U.S.
role in Saddam's quest for W.M.D.s in the 1980s.
However, Riegle's 1994 report lists materials licensed by the
Commerce Department and shipped to Iraq from the United States
between 1985 and 1990, leaving little doubt about U.S. assistance
to Saddam.
On May 2, 1986 a shipment of several forms each of Bacillus
anthracis (anthrax) and Clostridium botulinum (botulinum toxin)
went to the Iraq Ministry of Higher Education.
Shipped on Aug. 31, 1987 to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission were
two batches of Escherichia coli (E. coli).
A 1992 Defense Department report quoted by Senator Riegle said
Iraq’s biological warfare program probably began in the late 1970s
and concentrated on the development of two agents: botulinum toxin
and anthrax bacteria. Large-scale production of these agents began
in 1989 at four facilities in Baghdad.
Biological Weapons
Another destination for American biological toxins was al-Muthanna,
Iraq's primary chemical weapons research, development, and
production facility, according to Global Security.org.
Thousands of tons of precursors, nerve agents and mustard gas were
produced there. Al-Muthanna was also the initial location for
Iraq's biological weapons program in 1985~86.
Al-Muthanna researchers investigated anthrax, botulinim toxin and
others.
"Muthanna also conducted small-scale production of botulinim toxin
[and] provided weaponization expertise to the biological weapons
program, primarily chemical weapons munition technology and
testing." [See, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/
muthanna.htm.]
On March 10 and April 21, 1986, two vials of botulinum toxoid from
the Center for Disease Control were sent to al-Muthanna. Al-
Muthanna received advanced U.S. technology and materials, either
directly or through front companies.
In November 1989, the C.I.A. provided the Bush I administration a
list of bad end users known to be working on nuclear, ballistic
missile and biological weapons projects.
This list, in Rep. Gonzalez's words, "included most of the State
Establishments and procurement fronts to which Commerce habitually
granted licenses."
Despite this, according to Gonzalez, the Bush I administration
actually expanded trade with Iraq. In fact, Gonzalez said, out of a
total of 771 export licenses granted between 1985 and 1990, 239
were granted by the Bush I administration during the 19 months
between George H.W. Bush's inauguration and Saddam's invasion of
Kuwait.
The most effective means of ensuring that exported sensitive dual-
use technology did not end up in weapons projects would have been
post-installation checks -- i.e., on-site inspections.
But Gonzalez said the Reagan and Bush I administrations seemed
unconcerned about ultimate uses and destinations.
"Out of the total 771 export licenses approved for Iraq between
1985 and 1990, only one post-installation check was conducted. Even
then Iraq was warned well in advance of the visit," Gonzalez said.
And, he added, the inspectors neither spoke nor read Arabic.
In his July 1992 statement, Gonzalez asserted, "Any claim that the
U.S. may have ‘inadvertently’ helped to arm Iraq is a smokescreen
to obscure the massive blunder that occurred during the coddling of
Hussein."
He added, "Once you understand the context of the decision to
provide financial assistance and technology to Iraq, you will
understand that it was U.S. policy to accommodate Saddam Hussein’s
military ambitions."
But the full story of how the Reagan and Bush I administrations fed
Saddam's appetite for weapons of mass destruction may never be
known, since Saddam was sent to the gallows before he could say too
much.
~~~
Peter Dyer is a machinist who moved with his wife from California
to New Zealand in 2004. He can be reached at:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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