The deep politics of regime removal in Iraq: Overt conquest, covert operations
Part Four: The unfinished business between Saddam Hussein and George H.W. Bush
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Contributing Editor
November 14, 2002—In a much-publicized CNN interview on September 18, 2002, former President and CIA Director George H.W. Bush declared that he "hates" Saddam Hussein. This canard-filled propaganda display was designed to cloak the historical fact that the elder Bush "loved" Saddam Hussein—as a key Middle East ally, a CIA asset, and partner in numerous illegal business partnerships. Indeed, the recalcitrant Saddam Hussein poses a grave threat, i.e., to the secrecy that cloaks the Bush family's involvement in some of the most unsavory episodes in American history.
"Read My Lips, I'm Lying"
 "I hate Saddam Hussein," the trembling former president told interviewer Paula Zahn. "I don't hate a lot of people. I don't hate easily, but I think he's, as I say, his word is no good and he's a brute. I have nothing but hatred in my heart for him." Bush added, threateningly, "He's got a lot of problems, but immortality isn't one of them."
Not satisfied with simply offering deceptive opinion, the elder Bush began reeling off historical falsehoods, starting with the now-classic Saddam Hussein "gassing" legend. "He's used poison gas on his own people!" Bush declared, not mentioning, of course, that he and other members of the Reagan-Bush administrations armed the Iraqi regime with this poison gas, and encouraged its use.
As documented by US Congressional records, the Reagan administration—with VP George H.W. Bush spearheading top-level policy—furnished Iraq with the biological and chemical materials, throughout the 1980s. This continued through Bush I's administration, right up to the start of the Gulf War.
Poison gas used in the Iran-Iraq War was manufactured using ingredients reportedly supplied by LaFarge Corporation, of which Bush was a substantial owner, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was a director.
On July 3, 1991, the Financial Times reported that a Florida company run by an Iraqi national had produced cyanide—some of which went to Iraq for use in chemical weapons—and had shipped it via a CIA contractor.
According to investigative journalist Tom Flocco, Baker & Botts, the law firm of then-Secretary of State James Baker, maintained numerous legal and financial ties with a Boca Raton, Florida, chemical company headed by Iraqi terrorist Ihsan Barbouti. This connection continued, according to Flocco, "during the period when illegal nerve gas precursors were shipped by the Boca Raton company to Iraq just months prior to the outbreak of Gulf War hostilities." With the help of then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, Bush manufactured a "conflict of interest waiver" that absolved his administration from criminal prosecution. Of course, this waiver was kept secret from Congress.
Details of another direct Bush-Iraq tie emerged in September 1992, when a six-month investigation by John Connolly in Spy Magazine exposed that Wackenhut Corporation (a CIA front company) ferried equipment for the manufacture of chemical weapons to Iraq in 1990. George Wackenhut is a close friend of the Bush family, and has made enormous contributions to the campaigns of all Bush family members who have run for office.
A recent New York Times page one story (8/18/02), "Officers Say US Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas," revealed that the Reagan administration provided Iraq with battle planning assistance despite knowledge that chemical weapons were being used against Iran.
Members of the current Bush administration, leftovers from the previous Bush reign, were also heavily involved. Journalist Jeremy Scahill reported that in 1984, "Donald Rumsfeld was in a position to draw the world's attention to Saddam's chemical threat. He was in Baghdad as the UN concluded that chemical weapons had been used against Iran. He was armed with a fresh communication from the State Department that it had available evidence Iraq was using chemical weapons. But Rumsfeld said nothing."
Reagan-Bush also provided Saddam with dual-use technology—computers, armored vehicles, helicopters, chemicals—through a vast network of companies, based in the U.S. and abroad.
Apologists for Bush might insist that, regardless of US involvement, the Iraqis still gassed the Kurds. Not entirely true.
According to UC Berkeley Professor Peter Dale Scott, Stephen Pelletiere, chief of the CIA Iraq desk at Langley in the 1980s (and author of Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf) confirms that several hundred Kurds were likely killed by Iran—not Iraq. Furthermore, these deaths were caused by cyanide gas, which Iraq had not used in the war against Iran (they used mustard gas), and which, says Pelletiere, they had no ability to produce.
Pelletiere argues that the gassing deaths of 100,000 Kurds claimed by former Secretary of State George Shultz was a complete fabrication, and that to this day no bodies were ever found. Scott concludes that although there is evidence that both sides used gas, and Iranian gas killed the Kurds, this information was not revealed until 1990, leaving the impression that only Iraq was involved, and cementing the "Saddam gassed Kurds" legend into place—to be exploited and repeated endlessly.
Poppy Bush went on to explain to Zahn why Saddam was left in power. "I know what would have happened. I know that the coalition would have shattered. My only regret is that I was wrong, as was every other leader, in thinking that Saddam Hussein would be gone." This explanation is deceptive.
In fact, Saddam was deliberately left in place (albeit disarmed and crippled) as a "lingering threat" so that the US could 1) justify a permanent military presence in Saudi Arabia (and other neighboring countries) and throughout the immediate region to police Middle East oil, and 2) organize a coup or insurrection, and install a new puppet regime in Baghdad acceptable to the US (the second step has been in the works since 1991, and has been difficult to execute) and 3) curtail the ability of OPEC to influence world oil prices.
In a final deception, Bush said in response to Zahn's question about what the country should do with the Iraqi leader now, "That's the problem facing the president of the United States of America, not me."
In fact, the elder Bush remains intimately involved with his son's administration, and many believe that he initiates policy. In July 2001, Bush personally contacted Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to "clarify" his son's Middle East policies. Also during the summer of 2001, Bush forwarded his son a North Korea policy plan penned by "Asia expert" and former ambassador to Korea, Donald Gregg. Gregg is a 31-year CIA veteran and the elder Bush's former national security adviser whose expertise involved participation in the Vietnam-era Phoenix Program (death squads), Air America heroin smuggling, "pacification" efforts in El Salvador and Guatemala, the "October Surprise," and the Iran-Contra operation (for which Gregg received a Bush pardon in 1992).
A few months later, North Korea was named to George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil," right alongside Iraq—no doubt influenced by the Bush-Gregg "suggestions."
Poppy Bush continues to be briefed by the CIA, a "privilege" granted to all former US presidents. But Bush receives these briefings more frequently than other ex-presidents.
The BCCI-BNL-Iraqgate Skeletons That Keep Rattling
As CIA director, and throughout the Reagan-Bush administrations, Poppy Bush funneled money to Saddam Hussein without congressional approval, through the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). It was through these loans and other covert arrangements that Iraq's war machine was armed.
BCCI itself was a product of the original Soviet-Afghan War, the primary covert bank for the CIA, global crime syndicates, and virtually every world government. Officials of both US political parties were deeply involved. Among BCCI's other clients were the Medellin Cartel, Manuel Noriega, and Golden Triangle heroin warlord Khun Sa.
The connection between the Bush family and BCCI (and its agents and later incarnations) remains intact today. Former BCCI executive and Carlyle Group investor Khalid bin Mahfouz is the banker for the Saudi royal family, and connected to both the Bush and bin Laden families. A business association with Texas investment banker and CIA-connected James Bath ties George W. Bush directly to Osama bin Laden and BCCI. Bath served in the Texas Air National Guard and co-owned Arbusto Energy with the junior Bush. Bath is a broker for the bin Laden financial empire, and bin Mahfouz's portfolio manager.
As noted by Russ W. Baker in the Columbia Journalism Review (March/April 1993), the obscure Atlanta branch of BNL, "relying partially on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. Some government-backed loans were supposed to be for agricultural purposes, but were used to facilitate the purchase of stronger stuff than wheat. In February 1990, Attorney General Dick Thornburgh blocked U.S. investigators from traveling to Rome and Istanbul to pursue the case. More damningly, we know now that mid-level staffers at the Commerce Department altered Iraqi export licenses to obscure the exported materials' military function—before sending the documents on to Congress, which was investigating the affair.
According to the Financial Times, top officials at the International Monetary Fund and the Pentagon expressed alarm over Export-Import Bank loan guarantees to Iraq, which abetted the development and stockpiling of a major chemical warfare capability in Iraq. Among the companies shipping technology to Iraq were Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, and Matrix Churchill, through its Ohio branch.
ABC's Nightline, which had been looking at Iraqgate for some time, hooked up with the Financial Times in an unusual and productive arrangement. On May 2, 1991, the team reported the secret minutes of the President's National Advisory Council, at which, despite earlier reports of abuses, an undersecretary of state declared that terminating Iraqi loans would be "contrary to the president's (Bush's) intentions."
In his book Defrauding America, investigator and former federal inspector Rodney Stich documents the BNL-Iraqgate case in even greater detail:
"Some of the money furnished by the US was used to purchase poison gas that was used on an Iraqi Kurdish village, much of it purchased through Cardeon Industries in Chile, a CIA asset. According to documents, CIA deliberately withheld evidence of the transactions. US District Judge Marvin Shoob: 'The employees of BNL were pawns or bit players in a far larger and wider-ranging sophisticated conspiracy that involved BNL-Rome and possibly large American and foreign corporations and the governments of the United States, England, Italy and Iraq.'"
The manager of the Atlanta branch of BNL, Christopher Dragoul, was ordered by his superiors in Rome, who in turn received orders from US representatives, to fund the fraudulent diversion of funds and falsify the paperwork. Britain was involved in the diversion of funds.
As early as 1984, Kissinger Associates was involved in arranging some of the loans from BNL to the Iraqi government to finance its arms acquisitions from a little-known subsidiary of Fiat Corporation. Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger were employed by Kissinger. George H.W. Bush was subpoenaed. Testimony and evidence showing Bush's involvement in this fraud were blocked repeatedly by both Bush and Clinton Justice Departments."
Stich's Defrauding America details two other explosive accounts of hidden Gulf War-related Bush administration misconduct:
Several days prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on July 25, 1990 (which was set up and provoked by the Bush administration and the government of Kuwait), Bush prepared a secret deal with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, in which the USSR would not intervene if the US invaded Iraq. In exchange for this agreement, the US would provide the USSR with large amounts of financial aid. Naval Intelligence/ONI-CIA operative Gunther Russbacher was one of eight people (along with CIA Director William Webster and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft) who flew to Moscow on a CIA SR-71 aircraft to secure Gorbachev's signature. Russbacher spoke Russian, had been assigned to the US Embassy in Moscow and knew Gorbachev personally. Russbacher, who participated in numerous CIA deep-cover operations, including the "October Surprise"(he was one of the pilots who flew Bush to Paris), Inslaw, Iran-Contra and looting (via CIA front companies), was promoted following this Moscow mission. Because he posed a serious threat to high officials as a whistleblower, Russbacher was charged with numerous federal offenses, jailed, and silenced.
CIA/ONI/ Navy Seal Commander Robert Hunt participated in a 1992 war game exercise known as Operation Auger Mace. According to Hunt: "Our mission was to go into Baghdad and actually try to bring Saddam back to the United States. The purpose was to help President Bush win re-election. Bush knew at that point in the game that he was in trouble. So we went into Bahrain, and from Bahrain, we went to Tel Aviv, working with an Israeli general by the name of Uri Simhoni. He was an attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington at one time. He was a major general and with his intel network we were to go into Baghdad, extract Saddam Hussein, bring him back, similar to what we did with Noriega. This operation was put together with my unit and also a Delta unit, and we were to go in there with the Israeli and extract him from his quarters, right outside of Baghdad, and just take him on out."
Like Russbacher and other whistleblowers, Hunt was jailed on trumped-up charges and later released.
The Tag-Team Looting Of Billions
According to investigator Sherman Skolnick, George H.W. Bush and Saddam Hussein enjoyed a lucrative personal relationship that went far beyond official diplomatic business.
In documents obtained in Case No. 90C 6863, The People of the State of Illinois ex rel Willis C. Harris vs the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, Chicago), the suppressed bank records of BNL involved secret private joint business partnerships between Bush and Saddam Hussein, who reportedly split $250 billion in Persian Gulf oil kickbacks between 1980 and 1990, which were funneled through BCCI. In these records, Bush is also implicated in other enormous business deals with other "unsavory" world leaders, including Manuel Noriega.
Skolnick and his team were the only journalists who attended this court hearing. He claims that he interviewed participants in the case repeatedly, and that they confirmed the Bush-Hussein transactions. Skolnick has maintained for years that he has a complete record of the Bush-Saddam case, including an affidavit of the CIA general counsel, which warned that revealing the details of the documents would violate national security.
Skolnick is the founder/chairman of Citizen's Committee To Clean Up the Courts, a public interest group that investigates judicial bribery and political murders. His investigations have sent numerous judges to jail.
To date, no one has refuted Skolnick's charges, nor the facts of the Harris v. Federal Reserve court record.
Remove Saddam, Erase History
On November 1, 2001, George W. Bush issued an Executive Order declaring that in light of the "national emergency" of 9/11, the release of papers from the Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidencies would remain sealed—even though the release of these documents is mandated by the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
As a former Bush business partner and US ally, Saddam Hussein is in a position to provide living testimony to decades of treasonous Bush crimes and violations of international law committed by the United States.
Manuel Noriega was in the same position before the US invaded Panama in 1989.
Even as the Bush administration bullies, intimidates, blackmails, threatens and bulldozes its way towards its war in Iraq, this subtext cannot be dismissed.
In his CNN interview, Bush hissed that "there is nothing redeeming" about Saddam Hussein. Is there anything redeeming about George Herbert Walker Bush, the man who is connected to virtually every major political crime in the past forty years?
Is there anything redeeming about the illegitimately installed George W. Bush, whose totalitarian administration (and the financial empire that it represents) has committed more willfully criminal acts, more mass destruction, and more irreversible damage to the rule of law (and the fabric of civil society), in a shorter time than any regime in modern history?
Next: The post-Gulf War Business of Iraq
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