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CounterPunch
March 14,
2003
Flashback
to 1989
When
Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. Refused to Back a UN Resolution to Investigate
Saddam for Human Rights Abuses
by JASON LEOPOLD
In
1989, the State Department released a report that described in
gruesome detail Iraq's violation of human rights, specifically
how Iraq's President Saddam Hussein tortured his own people for
allegedly being disloyal.
But despite the atrocities outlined in
the report, which President Bush now refers to when speaking
about his desire to remove Hussein from power, the United States,
under the first Bush Administration, refused to vote in favor
of a United Nations resolution calling for an inquiry into Iraq's
treatment of its population and possibly indicting Hussein for
war crimes and human rights abuses.
The two people most vocal about refusing
to go along with the U.N. investigation are now lobbying for
a U.N. resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq and are highly
critical of the countries that refuse to back a U.S. led coalition
to use military force to remove Hussein from power. Those men
are Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage.
But in 1989, the first Bush administration
refused to join the U.N. in publicly protesting the forced relocation
of at least half a million ethnic Kurds and Syrians in the late
1980s, even though the act violated principles of the 1948 Genocide
Convention, according to Middle East Watch, a human rights organization.
The Bush and Reagan administrations also
declined to punish Iraq when it used poison gas against Iranian
soldiers in 1984 and Kurdish citizens in 1988. Moreover, the
U.S. did not oppose the fact that Hussein bought 45 American
helicopters, worth about $200 million, with assurances they were
for civilian use, then transferred them to his military.
Armitage said in 1990 that that "in
retrospect, it would have been much better at the time of their
use of gas if we'd put our foot down," according to an August
1990 story in the Los Angeles Daily News.
Despite U.S. intelligence reports that
showed Iraq's capability of building weapons of mass destruction
and its inhumane treatment of its own civilians, the Bush Administration
turned a blind eye and instead focused on improving U.S. relations
with Hussein. The U.S. removed Iraq from its list of countries
supporting terrorism in 1983, which reopened the door to federal
subsidies and loans to Iraq.
Saddam Hussein "made it clear that
Iraq was not interested in making mischief in the world,"
Rumsfeld said, who, as a Middle East envoy for the Regan Administration,
reopened discussions with Saddam in 1983, according to the Daily
News story. "It struck us as useful to have a relationship
with him."
The current Bush Administration, many
of whom served in the Reagan and the first Bush administrations,
refuse to acknowledge that their policies toward Iraq at the
time backfired and we may be paying a price for it now. But at
this point, Iraq does not pose a threat to the U.S. and threats
against the nation appear to be purely personal.
Under former Rumsfeld's watch during
his years in the Reagan and Bush administrations, he and the
former presidents allowed Hussein to build his army and a cache
of chemical and nuclear weapons. In fact, many of the hawks that
serve in the current Bush Administration assisted Hussein's regime
in reaching these goals during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
For example, Judicial Watch said, according
to the Daily News story, "that the U.S. extended $270 million
in government-guaranteed credit from the Export-Import Bank to
buy other American goods, despite repeated failures to make loan
repayments on time. Since 1982, Baghdad has become one of the
biggest buyers of U.S. rice and wheat, purchasing $5.5 billion
in crops and livestock with federally guaranteed loans and agricultural
subsidies and its own hard cash."
"Iraq benefited from a thriving
grain trade with American farmers, cooperation with U.S. intelligence
agencies, oil sales to American refiners that helped finance
its military, and muted White House criticism of its human rights
and war atrocities," the Daily News story said.
Armitage admitted in 1990 that the Reagan
and Bush administrations were well aware of Hussein's brutality,
but still, the U.S. was more interested in maintaining a healthy
relationship with Iraq because the country's vast oil reserves
was beneficial to U.S. interests.
"We knew this wasn't the League
of Women Voters," Armitage said, referring to Hussein's
regime, according to the Daily News story.
Jason Leopold
is a regular columnist for CounterPunch. He can be reached at:
jasonleopold@hotmail.com
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