Henri Naths wrote:
Hakan,
I would like to give a humble option here,
( Hakan wrote;...Criminal, established by the fact that we now know that
Iraq were no WMD threat to US. )
We took out Hitler for the same reason, Him and Suddam Hussein were
weapons of mass destruction.
H.
Judging from past posts, I think Hakan and many others here are a little
sceptical about claims that the US "took out" Hitler.
As for Saddam, as is very well known and widely established beyond any
possibility of doubt or controversy...
http://www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html
The Progressive magazine
April 1998 Issue
Anthrax for Export
U.S. companies sold Iraq the ingredients for a witch's brew
by William Blum
The United States almost went to war against Iraq in February because of
Saddam Hussein's weapons program. In his State of the Union address,
President Clinton castigated Hussein for "developing nuclear, chemical,
and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them."
"You cannot defy the will of the world," the President proclaimed. "You
have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny
you the capacity to use them again."
Most Americans listening to the President did not know that the United
States supplied Iraq with much of the raw material for creating a
chemical and biological warfare program. Nor did the media report that
U.S. companies sold Iraq more than $1 billion worth of the components
needed to build nuclear weapons and diverse types of missiles, including
the infamous Scud.
When Iraq engaged in chemical and biological warfare in the 1980s, barely
a peep of moral outrage could be heard from Washington, as it kept
supplying Saddam with the materials he needed to build weapons.
From 1980 to 1988, Iraq and Iran waged a terrible war against each other,
a war that might not have begun if President Jimmy Carter had not given
the Iraqis a green light to attack Iran, in response to repeated
provocations. Throughout much of the war, the United States provided
military aid and intelligence information to both sides, hoping that each
would inflict severe damage on the other.
Noam Chomsky suggests that this strategy is a way for America to keep
control of its oil supply:
"It's been a leading, driving doctrine of U.S. foreign policy since the
1940s that the vast and unparalleled energy resources of the Gulf region
will be effectively dominated by the United States and its clients, and,
crucially, that no independent indigenous force will be permitted to have
a substantial influence on the administration of oil production and
price."
During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq received the lion's share of American
support because at the time Iran was regarded as the greater threat to
U.S. interests. According to a 1994 Senate report, private American
suppliers, licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, exported a
witch's brew of biological and chemical materials to Iraq from 1985
through 1989. Among the biological materials, which often produce slow,
agonizing death, were:
* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.
* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.
* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain,
spinal cord, and heart.
* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.
* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic
illness.
* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.
Also on the list: Escherichia coli (E. coli), genetic materials, human
and bacterial DNA, and dozens of other pathogenic biological agents.
"These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were
capable of reproduction," the Senate report stated. "It was later learned
that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to
those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi
biological warfare program."
The report noted further that U.S. exports to Iraq included the
precursors to chemical-warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological
warfare production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment.
The exports continued to at least November 28, 1989, despite evidence
that Iraq was engaging in chemical and biological warfare against
Iranians and Kurds since as early as 1984.
The American company that provided the most biological materials to Iraq
in the 1980s was American Type Culture Collection of Maryland and
Virginia, which made seventy shipments of the anthrax-causing germ and
other pathogenic agents, according to a 1996 Newsday story.
Other American companies also provided Iraq with the chemical or
biological compounds, or the facilities and equipment used to create the
compounds for chemical and biological warfare. Among these suppliers were
the following:
* Alcolac International, a Baltimore chemical manufacturer already linked
to the illegal shipment of chemicals to Iran, shipped large quantities of
thiodiglycol (used to make mustard gas) as well as other chemical and
biological ingredients, according to a 1989 story in The New York Times.
* Nu Kraft Mercantile Corp. of Brooklyn (affiliated with the United Steel
and Strip Corporation) also supplied Iraq with huge amounts of
thiodiglycol, the Times reported.
* Celery Corp., Charlotte, NC
* Matrix-Churchill Corp., Cleveland, OH (regarded as a front for the
Iraqi government, according to Representative Henry Gonzalez, Democrat of
Texas, who quoted U.S. intelligence documents to this effect in a 1992
speech on the House floor).
The following companies were also named as chemical and biological
materials suppliers in the 1992 Senate hearings on "United States export
policy toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait":
* Mouse Master, Lilburn, GA
* Sullaire Corp., Charlotte, NC
* Pure Aire, Charlotte, NC
* Posi Seal, Inc., N. Stonington, CT
* Union Carbide, Danbury, CT
* Evapco, Taneytown, MD
* Gorman-Rupp, Mansfield, OH
Additionally, several other companies were sued in connection with their
activities providing Iraq with chemical or biological supplies:
subsidiaries or branches of Fisher Controls International, Inc., St.
Louis; Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., Princeton, NJ; Bechtel Group, Inc., San
Francisco; and Lummus Crest, Inc., Bloomfield, NJ, which built one
chemical plant in Iraq and, before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August
1990, was building an ethylene facility. Ethylene is a necessary
ingredient for thiodiglycol.
In 1994, a group of twenty-six veterans, suffering from what has come to
be known as Gulf War Syndrome, filed a billion-dollar lawsuit in Houston
against Fisher, Rhone-Poulenc, Bechtel Group, and Lummus Crest, as well
as American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and six other firms, for
helping Iraq to obtain or produce the compounds which the veterans blamed
for their illnesses. By 1998, the number of plaintiffs has risen to more
than 4,000 and the suit is still pending in Texas.
A Pentagon study in 1994 dismissed links between chemical and biological
weapons and Gulf War Syndrome. Newsday later disclosed, however, that the
man who headed the study, Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, was a director
of ATCC. Moreover, at the time of ATCC's shipments to Iraq, which the
Commerce Department approved, the firm's CEO was a member of the Commerce
Department's Technical Advisory Committee, the paper found.
A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq with the specialized
computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and other instruments
and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons, missiles, and
delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in nuclear
weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid
carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program's
secrecy. The 1992 Senate hearings implicated the following firms:
* Kennametal, Latrobe, PA
* Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA
* International Computer Systems, CA, SC, and TX
* Perkins-Elmer, Norwalk, CT
* BDM Corp., McLean, VA
* Leybold Vacuum Systems, Export, PA
* Spectra Physics, Mountain View, CA
* Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, PA
* Finnigan MAT, San Jose, CA
* Scientific Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
* Spectral Data Corp., Champaign, IL
* Tektronix, Wilsonville, OR
* Veeco Instruments, Inc., Plainview, NY
* Wiltron Company, Morgan Hill, CA
The House report also singled out: TI Coating, Inc., Axel Electronics,
Data General Corp., Gerber Systems, Honeywell, Inc., Digital Equipment
Corp., Sackman Associates, Rockwell Collins International, Wild Magnavox
Satellite Survey, Zeta Laboratories, Carl Schenck, EZ Logic Data,
International Imaging Systems, Semetex Corp., and Thermo Jarrell Ash
Corporation.
Some of the companies said later that they had no idea Iraq might ever
put their products to military use. A spokesperson for Hewlett Packard
said the company believed that the Iraqi recipient of its shipments, Saad
16, was an institution of higher learning. In fact, in 1990 The Wall
Street Journal described Saad 16 as "a heavily fortified,
state-of-the-art complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and,
almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research."
Other corporations recognized the military potential of their goods but
considered it the government's job to worry about it. "Every once in a
while you kind of wonder when you sell something to a certain country,"
said Robert Finney, president of Electronic Associates, Inc., which
supplied Saad 16 with a powerful computer that could be used for missile
testing and development. "But it's not up to us to make foreign policy,"
Finney told The Wall Street Journal.
In 1982, the Reagan Administration took Iraq off its list of countries
alleged to sponsor terrorism, making it eligible to receive high-tech
items generally denied to those on the list. Conventional military sales
began in December of that year. Representative Samuel Gejdenson, Democrat
of Connecticut, chairman of a House subcommittee investigating "United
States Exports of Sensitive Technology to Iraq," stated in 1991:
"From 1985 to 1990, the United States Government approved 771 licenses
for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and
high-tech equipment with military application. [Only thirty-nine
applications were rejected.] The United States spent virtually an entire
decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted. . .
. The Administration has never acknowledged that it took this course of
action, nor has it explained why it did so. In reviewing documents and
press accounts, and interviewing knowledgeable sources, it becomes clear
that United States export-control policy was directed by U.S. foreign
policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was U.S. foreign
policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."
Subsequently, Representative John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan,
investigated the Department of Energy concerning an unheeded 1989 warning
about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. In 1992, he accused the DOE of
punishing employees who raised the alarm and rewarding those who didn't
take it seriously. One DOE scientist, interviewed by Dingell's Energy and
Commerce Committee, was especially conscientious about the mission of the
nuclear non-proliferation program. For his efforts, he received very
little cooperation, inadequate staff, and was finally forced to quit in
frustration. "It was impossible to do a good job," said William Emel. His
immediate manager, who tried to get the proliferation program fully
staffed, was chastened by management and removed from his position. Emel
was hounded by the DOE at his new job as well.
Another Senate committee, investigating "United States export policy
toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait," heard testimony in 1992
that Commerce Department personnel "changed information on sixty-eight
licenses; that references to military end uses were deleted and the
designation 'military truck' was changed. This was done on licenses
having a total value of over $1 billion." Testimony made clear that the
White House was "involved" in "a deliberate effort . . . to alter these
documents and mislead the Congress."
American foreign-policy makers maintained a cooperative relationship with
U.S. corporate interests in the region. In 1985, Marshall Wiley, former
U.S. ambassador to Oman, set up the Washington-based U.S.-Iraq Business
Forum, which lobbied in Washington on behalf of Iraq to promote U.S.
trade with that country. Speaking of the Forum's creation, Wiley later
explained, "I went to the State Department and told them what I was
planning to do, and they said, 'Fine. It sounds like a good idea.' It was
our policy to increase exports to Iraq."
Though the government readily approved most sales to Iraq, officials at
Defense and Commerce clashed over some of them (with the State Department
and the White House backing Commerce).
"If an item was in dispute, my attitude was if they were readily
available from other markets, I didn't see why we should deprive American
markets," explained Richard Murphy in 1990. Murphy was Assistant
Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs from 1983 to
1989.
As it turned out, Iraq did not use any chemical or biological weapons
against U.S. forces in the Gulf War. But American planes bombed chemical
and biological weapons storage facilities with abandon, potentially
dooming tens of thousands of American soldiers to lives of prolonged and
permanent agony, and an unknown number of Iraqis to a similar fate. Among
the symptoms reported by the affected soldiers are memory loss, scarred
lungs, chronic fatigue, severe headache, raspy voice, and passing out.
The Pentagon estimates that nearly 100,000 American soldiers were exposed
to sarin gas alone.
After the war, White House and Defense Department officials tried their
best to deny that Gulf War Syndrome had anything to do with the bombings.
The suffering of soldiers was not their overriding concern. The top
concerns of the Bush and Clinton Administrations were to protect
perceived U.S. interests in the Middle East, and to ensure that American
corporations still had healthy balance sheets.
William Blum is the author of "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II" (Common Courage Press, 1995).
----- Original Message -----
From: "Hakan Falk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: 31 March, 2005 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Re: The Energy Crunch To Come
Bob,
You were right and I am wrong and I am glad that I did get
a very good explanation on how Hubbert could be so right.
It also explains why president Carter was so genuinely
worried, when he developed his energy plan. He had the
foresight to realize that Hubbert was right.
It also explains why we see the surge in the genuine hate
of Americans. It is the cost of aggressive and egoistic foreign
policies, that resulted in about 10 more years of artificially
low oil prices.
All of this, ending up in an almost criminal behavior by the
Bush administration. I say almost, because I do not want
to be too "crude". The legal aspect of being criminal, is very
clearly established, Criminal, established by the fact that we
now know that Iraq were no WMD threat to US. By laying
the responsibility at the feet of faulty "US intelligence
community", the Bush administration is trying deliberately
to avoid their legal responsibility. A kind of reversed side
of the well known argument "it was not my fault, I was
ordered to do it". LOL
All of this supported by the America people, in a reelection
of president Bush. I hear the false argument that only 48%
voted him in office. This argument is poor mathematics, I
cannot get to this result, when Bush won with a more than
3 million of the populous American vote. It was the first
election of Bush, that he did not have a populous majority
and he was put in office by the Courts.
Hakan