Before we begin a discussion regarding Iraq-US conflicts it
would be appropriate to bring in some factual information
regarding the risks associated with war. Here is a good
source regarding the current basis of the conflict and who
is 'ultimately responsible'. In order to apply the
precautionary principle it is always appropriate to
investigate 'causes' and then make suitable inferences as to
causality. The application of the  precautionary principle
is justified where there are adequate assessments of the
risk. Risk first has to be 'characterized' prior to a 'risk
management' plan being implemented.

In the case of Iraq the risks associated with war (whether
morally justified or unjustified) have to be addressed. The
risks are obviously greater for the innocent and the
environment of Iraq than they are for the US, and the UK.

Please read and disperse this article as far as you can.


http://www.counterpunch.org/boles1010.html



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: [log in to unmask]