On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, James A. Donald wrote:From the same site I linked to before:
On 17 Dec 2003 at 22:54, Michael Kalus wrote:
No, but it is very interresting that all of this didn'tYou are making up your own history. When Saddam came to power,
matter while Saddam was the "good guy" for our causes (and by
that I mean the Western world general).
he seized western property and murdered westerners, especially
Americans, and you lot cheered him to an echo. Saddam was
always an enemy of the west, he was never a good guy. He was
at times an ally, in the sense that Stalin and Pol Pot were at
times temporary allies, yet somehow I never see you fans of
slavery and mass murder criticizing the west for allying with
Stalin.
Relevant numbers from the Times today, quoting Air Force Monthly, January
2003: from 1980 to 1990 Iraq imported 28.9 billion pounds worth of
weapons. 19% by value were from France; 57% from the Soviet Union (ie
Russia), East Germany, and Czechoslovakia; 8% from China. Sales from the
United States were inconsequential and did not make the list. From
earlier articles in other publications I believe that in fact US sales
were a small fraction of 1%.
[...]
By January 1984, /The Washington Post/ was reporting that the United States had told friendly nations in the Persian Gulf that the defeat of Iraq would "be contrary to U.S. interests." That sent the message that America would not object to U.S. allies offering military aid to Iraq. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait sent howitzers, bombs and other weapons to Iraq. And later that year the U.S. government pushed through sales of helicopters to Hussein's government.
But that was just the beginning of Reagan's pro-Iraq campaign. The United States sold the Iraqis military jeeps and Lockheed L-100 transports. And, according to a recent report in /The New York Times/, as many as 60 American intelligence officers provided Iraq with "critical battle planning assistance," lending detailed information on Iranian deployments, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments. The /Times/ story further reported that this intelligence assistance was offered even though American officers knew the Iraqi commanders would probably use chemical weapons against the Iranians.
The military aid helped Iraq hold off the Iranians, and the war dragged on until 1988. That year the U.S. Senate passed the Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions against Hussein's regime. But the Reagan White House opposed the bill, calling it premature. When it eventually passed, the White House made little effort to enforce it.
[...]
Just because they didn't sell the weapons directly doesn't mean they didn't sell them. It is an age old practice to sell weapons to a middle man in order to get them where they are not supposed to be.
And in regards to arms sales:
[...]
* U.S. arms exports in 1995 amounted to $15.6 billion, three times
that of the next supplier and 49 percent of the world's. Over the
1993-1995 period, U.S. exports went equally to developed and
developing countries.
* The six next largest suppliers, with over $0.5 billion each and
together accounting for 42 percent of the world total, were:U.K. $5.2 billion Germany 1.2 Russia 3.3 Israel 0.8 France 2.2 China, Mainland 0.6
* The Middle East imported over 30 percent of the total number of
major weapons in trade over the last 12 years (1984-1995). In
1993-1995, Western Europe became the main importing region with 32
percent.[...]
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/acda/factshee/conwpn/wmeatfs.htm
It is not coincidental that the Security Council members opposed to
taking any action on Iraq's repeated violations were France, Russia,
Germany, and China: Iraq's weapons suppliers.
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1991/C231.html
[...]
*Kroft. *And other arms dealers and countries did. Brazil provided thousands of armored vehicles. China and the Soviet Union sent tanks, missiles and munitions. German companies sold Saddam poison gas technology, and France, not only approved the sale of artillery to Iraq, but [also sold] armed helicopters and antiaircraft missile systems.
This Chilean arms manufacturer [shown on screen] sold Saddam deadly cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, and the United States allowed American computer technology to go to Iraq as well. It allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be used for civilian purposes. Sarkis told us that the helicopters were used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
*Sarkis. *I did it with the knowledge of U.S. authorities, policy makers--and also they have delivered weapons that are equally weapons as I did. I do not have anything on my conscience. I did not sell the weapons to kill the American boys.
*Kroft. *Which agencies of the U.S. government knew about Sarkis and his deals with Iraq? Well, according to Sarkis, almost all of them. And federal court documents show that Sarkis Soghanalian had a relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies for decades, and has performed work on their behalf.
Not all of Sarkis's deals with Iraq involve weapons. He arranged the sale of $280 million in uniforms to the Iraqi army. And Sarkis's partners in the deal included former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a former Attorney General, Colonel Jack Brennan.
The partners used their influence to get ex-President Nixon to provide them with these letters of introduction [shown on screen] to heads of state around the world.
[To Sarkis] Do you think there was anything unusual about a former Vice President and a former Attorney General and a former Chief of Staff for the President of the United Stateas to want to be selling military uniforms to the Iraqis?
*Sarkis. *They were not only in the uniform business. They would sell their mothers if they could, just to make the money.
[...]
These repeated claims that Saddam was somehow the US's boy in the Middle
East are puzzling. The US did not supply any significant number of
weapons or other military aid to Iraq.
The word "directly" is missing here.
They did give limited support to Iraq in its war against Iran, a direct consequence of the Irani occupation of the US embassy in Teheran and kidnapping of its staff. If you look at the tactics and weapons used by Saddam in the invasion of Kuwait and in the resulting Gulf War, they were Soviet.
That may be, but they also had Hughes Helicopters (see quote above) as well as other weapons that clearly came from the US. The US was very well aware of what Saddam had because if they didn't sell it to him directly they at least acted as facilitator. And so did pretty much Western Europe.
Chirac's personal relations with Saddam go back to at least 1975, the year that France signed an agreement to sell two nuclear reactors to Iraq. There have been rumors for a long time that Saddam provided financial support to Chirac in various election campaigns.
From the TLC page again:
[...]
In December 1983, President Reagan sent to Baghdad none other than Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy to the Middle East and today one of Hussein's harshest critics as U.S. secretary of defense. Rumsfeld's visit opened up America's relations with Iraq for the first time since the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. Later, Rumsfeld said that "it struck us as useful to have a relationship" and revealed that Hussein had indicated he wasn't interested in causing problems in the world.
[...]
So was apparantly Rumsfeld.
The evidence points to deep ties between Russia, France, and Iraq thatAnd the US was just drawn into it by accident?
goes back decades, plus somewhat weaker ties to China and Germany.
No Government ever cared about the individual if greater gains could be amassed. Be it the US or any other country in the world.Relations between the US and Baath-controlled Iraq were bad from the beginning; American bodies dangling from ropes in Baghdad were not the beginning of a great romance.
BTW, can you provide me with a reference for the "dangling bodies'? Because I was unable to find anything on this so far.
Michael
