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CounterPunch
October
10, 2002
Helping Iraq
Kill with Chemical Weapons:
The Relevance of Yesterday's US Hypocrisy Today
by ELSON E. BOLES
You may feel disgusted by the hypocrisy of US
plans to make war on Iraq and sickened at the inevitable slaughter
of thousands of people. But if you could only vaguely recall
the details of how deep the hypocrisy goes, then read on.
The US not only helped arm Iraq with
military equipment right up to the time of the Kuwait invasion
in 1989, as did Germany, Britain, France, Russia and others,
but also sold and helped Iraq to integrate chemical weapons into
their US-provided battle plans while fighting Iran between 1985-1988.
According to a New York Times article
in August, 2002, Col. Walter P. Lang, a senior defense intelligence
officer at the time, explained that D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials
"were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose"
to Iran. "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis
was not a matter of deep strategic concern," he said. One
veteran said, that the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by
Iraq's use of gas." "It was just another way of killing
people _ whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any
difference."
Now consider just how deceptive the recent
comments from the White House are. In late September spokesman
Ari Fleischer said that British Prime Minister Blair's dossier
of evidence is "frightening in terms of Iraq's intentions
and abilities to acquire weapons." A few days later, while
making his case against Saddam, President Bush said "He's
used poison gas on his own people." Bush deceives because
he hides the fact that US officials, including his father, had
no qualms about helping Saddam gas Iranians. What is truly frightening
are the US policies toward Iraq, the cover ups of those policies,
and the US officials who personally profit in the millions of
dollars from those policies. To whatever degree Saddam is a tyrant,
he would not be that without the US government.
The question is not whether Saddam is
willing to use chemical or other weapons of mass destruction
again. The question is whether the US is currently selling and
helping countries use weapons of mass destruction.
Details about Iraq killing Iranians with
US-supplied chemical and biological weapons significantly deepens
our understanding of the current hypocrisy. It began with "Iraq-gate"
-- when US policy makers, financiers, arms-suppliers and makers,
made massive profits from sales to Iraq of myriad chemical, biological,
conventional weapons, and the equipment to make nuclear weapons.
Reporter Russ Baker noted, for example, that, "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." This was just the tip of a mountain of
scandals.
A major break in uncovering Iraqgate
began with a riveting 1990 Nightline episode which revealed that
top officials of the Reagan administration, the State Department,
the Pentagon, C.I.A., and D.I.A., collectively engaged in a massive
cover up of the USS Vincennes' whereabouts and actions when it
shot down an Iranian airliner in 1987 killing over 200 civilians.
The "massive cover up" Koppel explained, was designed
to hide the US secret war against Iran, in which, among other
actions, US Special Operations troops and Navy SEALS sunk half
of Iran's navy while giving battle plans and logistical information
to Iraqi ground forces in a coordinated offensive.
In continuing the probe, as Koppel explained
in June, 1990, "It is becoming increasingly clear that George
Bush [Sr.], operating largely behind the scenes throughout the
1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence,
and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive
power that the United States ultimately had to destroy."
A PBS Frontline episode, "The Arming
of Iraq" (1990) detailed much of the conventional and so-called
"dual-use" weapons sold to Iraq. The public learned
from other sources that at least since mid-1980s the US was selling
chemical and biological material for weapons to Iraq and orchestrating
private sales. These sales began soon after current Secretary
of State, Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad in 1985 and met
with Saddam Hussein as a private businessman on behalf of the
Reagan administration. In the last major battle of the Iran-Iraq
war, some 65,000 Iranians were killed, many by gas.
Investigators turned up new scandals,
including the involvement of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL),
the giant Italian bank, and many of the very same circles of
arms suppliers, covert operators, and policy makers in and out
of the US government and active in those roles for years. The
National Security Council, CIA and other US agencies tacitly
approved about $4 billion in unreported loans to Iraq through
the giant Italian bank's Atlanta branch. Iraq, with the blessing
and official approval of the US government, purchased computer
controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments,
special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial
goods for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons
programs.
However, the early reports on BNL's activities
and the startling revelations that the US government astonishingly
knew that BNL was financing billions of dollars of purchases
illegally, were rather comical in view of later revelations regarding
who was involved. US government officials didn't just know and
approve, but some were employees at BNL directly or indirectly.
It was Representative Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas) who relentlessly
brought key information into the Congressional Record (despite
stern warnings by the State Department to stop his personal investigation
for the sake of "national security").
Gonzalas revealed, for example, that
Brent Scowcroft served as Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates
until being appointed as National Security Advisor to President
Bush in January 1989. As Gonzalez reported, "Until October
4,1990, Mr. Scowcroft owned stock in approximately 40 U.S. corporations,
many of which were doing busies in Iraq." Scowcroft's stock
included that in Halliburton Oil, also doing business in Iraq
at the time, which had also been run by current Vice President
Dick Cheney for a time. Recall that this year President George
Bush Sr. faced suspicion of insider trading in relation to selling
his stock in Halliburton. The companies that Scowcroft owned
stock in, according to Gonzalez, "received more than one
out of every eight U.S. export licenses for exports to Iraq.
Several of the companies were also clients of Kissinger Associates
while Mr. Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of that firm." Thus,
Kissinger Associates helped US companies obtain US export licenses
with BNL-finance so Iraq could purchase US weapons and materials
for its weapons programs.
Many US business-men and officials made
handsome profits. This included Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary
of State under Richard Nixon, who was an employee of BNL while
BNL was simultaneously a paying client of Kissinger Associates.
Gonzalez reported that Mr. Alan Stoga, a Kissinger Associates
executive, met in June 1989 Mr. Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. "Many
Kissinger Associates clients received US export licenses for
exports to Iraq. Several were also the beneficiaries of BNL loans
to Iraq," said Mr. Gonzalez. Kissinger admitted that "it
is possible that somebody may have advised a client on how to
get a license."
Perhaps the most bizarre revelations
about the involvement of former US officials concerned a Washington-based
enterprise called "Global Research" which played a
middleman role in selling uniforms to Iraq. It was run by, none
other than Spiro Agnew (Nixon's former VP who resigned to avoid
bribery and tax evasion charges), John Mitchell (Nixon's chief
of staff and Watergate organizer), and Richard Nixon himself.
In the mid-1980s, more than a decade after Watergate, Nixon wrote
a cozy letter to former dictator and friend Nicolae Ceausescu
to close the deal. Global Research, incidentally, swindled the
Iraqis, who thought they were getting US-made uniforms for desert
conditions. Instead they received, and discarded, the winter
uniforms from Romania.
By late 1992, the sales of chemical and
biological weapons were revealed. Congressional Records of Senator
Riegle's investigation of the Gulf War Syndrome show that that
the US government approved sales of large varieties of chemical
and biological materials to Iraq. These included anthrax, components
of mustard gas, botulinum toxins (which causes paralysis of the
muscles involving swallowing and is often fatal), histoplasma
capsulatum (which may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the liver
and spleen, anemia, acute inflammatory skin disease marked by
tender red nodules), and a host of other nasty chemicals materials.
To top it all off, there is the question
as to whether Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was a set up. Evidence
indicates that the US knew of Iraq's plans -- after all, the
military and intelligence agencies of the two countries were
working very closely. Newspaper reports about the infamous meeting
between then-Ambassador Glaspie and Iraq officials, and a special
ABC report in the series "A Line in the Sand," indicated
that, although the US officials told Iraq that it disapproved,
they indicated that the US would not interfere.
Bear in mind the attitude of the US policy
makers not only regarding Iraq's use of gas against Iranians,
but in general. Richard Armatige, then Asst. Sec. of Defense
for International Security Affairs and now Deputy Secretary of
State, said with a hint of pride in his voice that the US "was
playing one wolf off another wolf" in pursuing our so-called
national interest. This kind of cool machismo resembled the pride
that Oliver North verbalized with a grin during the Iran-Contra
hearings as "a right idea" with regard to using the
Ayatollah's money to fund the Contras. The setting up of Iraq
thus would be very consistent with the goals and the character
of US foreign policy in the Middle East: to control the region's
states either for US oil companies or as bargaining chips in
deals with other strong countries, and to profit by selling massive
quantities of weapons to states that will war with or deter those
states that oppose US "interests."
The problem that Armatige refers to was
the fact that by 1990, the US and allied arming of Iraq had given
Iraq a decisive military edge over Iran, which upset the regional
"balance." The thinking among the US hawks was Iraq's
military needed to somehow be returned to its 1980 level. An
invasion of Kuwait would enable the US to do that.
But initially many arms suppliers opposed
the war on Iraq because they had been making huge profits from
arms sales to Saddam's regime during the 1980s. Indeed, one US
official interviewed expressed his disappointment with Iraq's
invasion and the subsequent Gulf War because the relationship
with Iraq could have continued to be "very profit...uh mutually
profitable."
Bush Sr. and others expected that after
the war, Saddam would capitulate to US designs on the region.
With a heeled Saddam, the interests of arms suppliers, defense
contractors, and the many US oil corporations could be renewed.
Iraqi would have to re-arm itself and invest in oil drilling
and processing facilities that were destroyed by US forces. And
to pay for all that, Iraq would have to sell oil cheap, which
served the interests both of the giant oil corporations and the
American public who had begun buying GM SUVs en masse. It would
be good for US business.
The invasion today is, above all, to
renew US firm's access to Iraqi oil. As reported recently in
the New York Times, former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who
has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from
power, argues that, "It's pretty straightforward, France
and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should
be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward
decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the
new government and American companies work closely with them.
If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult
to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government
to work with them."
His views are of course supported by
the new Iraqi government-in-waiting. Faisal Qaragholi, the "petroleum
engineer who directs the London office of the Iraqi National
Congress (INC), an umbrella organization of opposition groups
that is backed by the United States" says that "Our
oil policies should be decided by a government in Iraq elected
by the people." Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, put it more
bluntly and sadi that he favored a U.S.-led consortium to develop
Iraq's oil fields, which would replace the existing agreements
that Iraq has with Russia and France. "American companies
will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi said.
Note also that Bush and company have
a personal stake in unilateral action. According to Leroy Sievers
and the Nightline Staff at ABC, "Dick Cheney's Halliburton
Co. had interests in Iraqi oil production after the [Gulf ] war."
Thus, following the Gulf War, Cheney,
Bush Sr. and others didn't expect that Saddam would refuse to
abide by US interests and join the so-called "family of
nations." This is really what President Bush Jr meant when
he said at a cabinet meeting on Sept. 24, 2002 that he intends
"to hold Saddam Hussein to account for a decade of defiance."
There is no shock about any of this,
nor of the sordid assortment of officials and individuals directly
or indirectly involved -- from the infamous US-based international
arms dealer Sarkis Songhanalian and former Gen. Secord, to Oliver
North and Richard Nixon -- and many others. They had been part
of covert US arms and drug deals and Mafia dating back decades.
Iraqgate was in fact also part of Irangate, and both are about
a shadow government that circumvents domestic and international
laws in arming regimes and terrorist organizations to enhance
the profits of US businessmen and corporations.
The public learned since the mid-1980s
that the shadow government folks played all sides of various
wars, and made curious business alliances. Profits were good,
but there were also ideological reasons. While arming Iraq and
putting proceeds into their pockets, the covert operators also
armed Iran. Israel of course, had also been arming Iran since
the Ayatollah came into power in order to counter Iraq. The US
soon joined these operations after Regan came to power.
Oliver North, Bush Sr., Robert McFarlane,
and Gen. Secord, and others purchased from the CIA spare parts
for US-made weapons and more than two thousand TOW missiles,
which the CIA had purchased at discount rates from the Pentagon.
Secord and North sold the weapons and parts to Iran in exchange
for cash and the release of US hostages in Lebanon.
In public, Ronnie Reagan repeatedly condemned
negotiations with terrorists in principle and even stated on
national TV that there had been no negotiations with terrorists.
He went back on air a few months later and said that while he
still didn't believe "in his heart" that the US had
negotiated with terrorists, the facts told him "otherwise."
He escaped impeachment because he "couldn't remember"
signing detailed instructions for sales of weapons to Iran and
for the diversion of money to the Contras.
Insiders considered these trades "business
as usual." Former General Secord, for instance, unashamedly
told Congressional investigators during the Iran-Contra hearings
that his arms-dealing firm, the "Enterprise," which
sold the TOWs to other brokers and then to Iran, was a legitimate
profit-making business. And as we all know, at the other end
of the deal, North channeled a portion of the proceeds from those
sales through Swiss banks and to the terrorist Contras in Honduras.
Their job was to overthrow the Sandinista regime that overthrew
the brutal 43-year Somoza family dictatorship supported by the
US.
Again, in legal terms, the scandal was
not only that Reagan's administration circumvented the Boland
Amendment which outlawed military support to the Contras, but
also that the CIA had also mined the harbors of Nicaragua. When
the US was taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
and convicted of violating international laws, President Reagan
disregarded this conviction saying the ICJ had no jurisdiction
over the United States.
Bush Jr. has stated the following reasons
for invading Iraq, all of which are accurate except the last:
(1) Iraq used chemical weapons, (2) Iraq tried to build nuclear
weapons, and (3) the US tried to bring Iraq into the "family
of nations" (said first by Bush Sr). He is correct that
Iraq was willing to use chemical weapons and has been trying
to build nuclear weapons for years. Of course, he just fails
to mention that the US was willing to sell, and to help Iraq
use, chemical weapons of mass destruction and that his friends
profited handsomely in so doing. He also fails to note that today
Hussein is not seen as an immediate threat by it's Arab neighbors,
none of whom have called for his ouster, and that Iraq has only
a shadow of the power it had in 1990. There is no evidence to
support Bush or Blair's claims that Iraq has and is preparing
to use chemical or biological weapons.
Lastly, what about Bush Jr.'s third contention,
that the US had tried to bring Saddam into the "family of
nations?" In view of the thousands upon thousands of women,
children, and men butchered with US battle plans and arms, as
well as arms from Europe, one could only characterize that family
as being composed of unscrupulous, profiteering, vile accomplices
to mass murder. Perhaps this is also a reason why the Bush administration
opposes the formation of the World Court and needs US politicians
and military personel exempt from international law.
Elson E. Boles
is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Saginaw Valley State
University University in Michigan.
He can be reached at: boles@svsu.edu
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