Kate, the democracynow.org link is broken. Translation of Zumach articles below.
Sarah Informal translations of Andreas Zumach's articles from the Die Tageszeitung - for articles in German see http://www.taz.de/ 12/17/02: The report of the Iraqi government submitted to council last weekend contains names of more than 80 German companies, several private & publicly financed laboratories, as well as many individual German individuals who, since the second half of the 1970s, delivered complete construction sites, parts, ground substances, and technical know-how for Saddam Hussein's programs to develop nuclear, chemical & biological weapons, and ballistic missiles, as well as documenting the delivery of complete conventional weapons. According to the report, in some cases the cooperation, at least in the conventional area, continued till at least the year 2001. This information stems from chapters of the Iraq report that contains relevant information on international procurement cooperation, in all four sections (chemical, biological, nuclear & missiles). According to info from close associates of VP Cheney, the U.S. administration is trying to collect additional info to prove continuing military technical cooperation of Germany with Iraq. Among others, these concerns include the cooperation of a German micro-electronic company with Iraq, about which the German government has been informed since 1999. Back then, the German government was warned by German arms control experts that these technologies, officially described for only civilian use, some day might be used in the military field, and that this could lead to political problems with Washington. A long-term high-ranking member of the government in Baghdad (whose name is known to Taz), has signaled his readiness to the Bush administration to deliver more specific info regarding German arms cooperation with Iraq, in return for assurances of protection after a potential regime change. According to sources, the Bush admin might want to use this info to insure that Germany (which joins the Security Council in two weeks) complies with the U.S. position in the Sec Council. The overall figure of the German companies listed in the report is larger than the total amount of companies listed from all other countries. In second position, is U.S. with two dozen companies. In addition to that, the report points very prominent support of U.S. government institutions for the development of the Iraqi WMDs. Among others, the Dept of Energy in the 1980s delivered very relevant non-fissile parts for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. The report also lists a number of cases where German authorities and government institutions up to the Ministry of Economics, tolerated and in some cases even actively supported the illegal arms cooperation with Iraq, especially in the period from the end of the 1970s to the Gulf war of 1991. All cooperation in the field of nuclear & bio weapons is forbidden by international treaties since the 1970s, in the case of chemical weapons since 1993. Since the Security Council handed down comprehensive sanctions against Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait in early Aug 1990, this is also true of any cooperation with Iraq in the field of conventional weapons. According to German domestic law, Iraq was already, since the beginning of its war with Iran in 1980, been identified as an "area or region of tension" into which no conventional weapons were allowed to be delivered. It is unclear whether the information from Baghdad has been passed on completely and uncensored to all 15 members of the Security Council. The U.S. had exclusive access to the report for 24 hours, while it made copies for the other four permanent members, in the meantime conducting another round of editing allegedly only concerning nuclear weapons construction plans. The copies which Taz has obtained come from the only complete original report, which after its arrival in NY Sunday night, only US specialists had access to. Is it complete? Or does it include huge holes? The report contains information which the SC never asked Baghdad to provide. None of the five Perm members intended that Iraq should provide procurement information. This knowledge so far has never been published in a comprehensive manner. Bits and pieces exist - mainly from the intelligence agencies of several countries. Some of that has been published since Halabja in 1988, some since the Gulf conflict in 1991. In some cases publication was for the purpose of pressuring other govts, particularly regarding the illegality of shipping weapons. In context of chem weapons used in the war with Iran & against the Kurds, these were war crimes, genocide - knowing and full participation in providing the weapons means complicity. The UNSCOM inspectors found mountains of indications & proof of intl complicity, but that information is still secret. This happened because the 5 perm members, Germany, many other countries, who knew of responsibility, wanted to cover up as far as possible. The official reason from the UN was that they needed cooperation from companies, so the Council agreed not to release any of UNSCOM's material on this issue. The Iraqi government report for the first time gives a comprehensive overview, at least till 1998. After comparing with the UNSCOM documents, it appears all the earlier ones are listed in new report. It lists in detail every company, how they worked, what tricks they used, etc.; it lists in all cases when the cooperation with Iraq began, but does NOT list when that cooperation ended. For the period since Dec '98, the Iraqi govt has listed some cooperation with foreign companies, which are purely civilian use, or at maximum for conventional arms. In most cases, the intention is to reject accusations by the US & UK that Iraq has been running a new active program with nuclear & other WMDS since Dec 98. For instance, Iraq admits it did import special pipes, which would be illegal for any country to provide under the sanctions, but that they were for conventional armaments, not WMDs. According to US reports, those pipes were to be used for a uranium enrichment plant for an alleged nuclear weapons program. The apparent holes in the report - other than claims of a new active nuclear program -- on the bio & chem programs the accounting still not complete. Includes those materials found & destroyed by UNSCOM; materials found but not yet destroyed when UNSCOM left Iraq; other information only from documents that indicated there may be other materials but UNSCOM never saw. Could have been wrong count in the first place; possible yes had but has given away; much of it may have disintegrated with insufficient paper trail. 12/18/02 USA censors Iraq Report by Andreas Zumach Germany and the other non-permanent members of the UN Security Council received only a cleaned-up version of the weapons dossier. Data concerning foreign suppliers of Iraq are missing. Geneva: The 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council--to which Germany will belong starting in January--have been withheld substantial parts of the Iraqi arms report. All information about the supplies from--and the support of--foreign companies, research labs and governments from the mid-1970's on, related to Iraqi arms programs, have been deleted. Thefive permanent Council members, the USA, Russia, China, France and Great Britain, are aware of this censorship. According to the German Press Agency DPA, it has reduced the 12,00 page report to 3000 pages. From information gathered from UN diplomats of 2 of these 5 countries taz learned that the censorship was agreed on primarily upon the urging of the United States. Among the 5 constant members of the Security Council it was the USA that stood out by giving the strongest support to Saddam Hussain's regime by arming it with the means of mass destruction. The report gives us a complete overview of these supplies for the first time. In particular it names the 24 US companies and when and to whom in Iraq the supplies were delivered. And it makes clear how strongly the Reagan and the first Bush administrations supported the arming of Iraq, from 1980 up to the Gulf conflict of 1990/91. Substantial construction units for the Iraqi nuclear weapon and rocket programs were supplied with permission of the government in Washington. The poison Anthrax for the arming of Iraq with biological weapons stemmed from US laboratories. Iraqi military and armament experts were trained in the US and there received know-how having to do with their domestic arms programs. According to the estimation of Susan Wright, a US arms-control expert from the University of Michigan, publication of this information would be "especially embarassing for the USA." It would "remind people in the USA of a very dark chapter, which the Bush administration would prefer to forget about." Whether the USA had this information stricken before it made copies for the other four permanent Council members continues to be unclear.
