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
At 11:16 PM 3/31/2005, you wrote:
All I know is what I read in the brief biography. (and what I
recall from hearing about his work many years ago)
Hakan Falk wrote:
Bob,
I stand corrected and the only excuse I have, is that I only
brought forward a mistake that I read earlier. I remember that
it was an article about the hearings in US congress in mid
70'. Will however not do this mistake again, but do not
despair, there are many others I will do and surely in my far
from perfect English. -:)
What was his field at Berkeley?
Hakan
At 05:35 PM 3/31/2005, you wrote:
Howdy Hakan, calling him a mathematician is a bit short-sighted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_King_Hubbert
Hubbert was born in San Saba, Texas in 1903. He attended the
University of Chicago, where he received his B.S. in 1926,
his M.S. in 1928, and his Ph.D in 1937, studying geology,
mathematics, and physics. He worked as an assistant geologist
for the Amerada Petroleum Company for two years while
pursuing his Ph.D. He joined the Shell Oil Company in 1943,
retiring in 1964. After he retired from Shell, he became a
senior research geophysicist for the United States Geological
Survey until his retirement in 1976. He also held positions
as a professor of geology and geophysics at Stanford
University from 1963 to 1968, and as a professor at Berkeley
from 1973 to 1976.
