By Stephen Green    CounterPunch.org    2-24-3
You have to give Defense Secretary Rumsfeld this credit: he's a risk taker, and he's damned brassy about it.  Both were in evidence last week when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Under criticism for his prior characterizations of France and Germany as "old Europe," Rumsfeld fumed: "We would not be facing the problems in Iraq today if the technologically advanced countries of the world had seen the danger and strictly enforced the economic sanctions against Iraq."  The Defense Secretary knew well, naturally, his audience in the Senate Armed Services Committee. As Senator Robert Byrd recently said from the Senate floor, ...."this Chamber is, for the most part, silent--ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing."  Still, Rumsfeld's statement was some chutspa! He was well aware that it was the U.S. Senate itself (Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs) which had conducted extensive hearings in 1992 and 1994 on "United States Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and Their Impact on the Health of Persian Gulf War Veterans." And he'd probably read the front page Washington Post story ("U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup", 12/30/02) based upon recently declassified documents, which revealed that it was Rumsfeld himself who, as President Reagan's Middle East Envoy, had traveled to the Region to meet with Saddam Hussein in December 1983 to normalize, particularly, security relations.  At the time of the visit , Iraq had already been removed from the State Department's list of terrorist countries in 1982; and in the previous month, November, President Reagan had approved National Security Decision Directive 114, on expansion of U.S.-Iraq relations generally. But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period....not by our European allies, but by the U.S. Department of Commerce.  To be sure, many of these weapons were expended in the latter phases of the Iran-Iraq war. Others were destroyed by Coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War, or by UN weapons inspectors in the control regime established by the UN Security Council following that conflict. But a great many undoubtedly remain, and pose grave risks to the 150,000 U.S. troops deployed in Kuwait, and 100,000 on the way. Imagine the embarrassment to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before the Armed Services Committee last week if one or more Senators had had the awareness AND the courage to raise the matter of Iraq's secret supplier.  And in this case, the devil is quite literally in the details.  There were few if any reservations evident in the range of weapons which President Ronald Reagan, and his successor George W. H. Bush were willing to sell Saddam Hussein. Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, the foreign sale of munitions and other defense equipment and technology are controlled by the Department of State. During the 1980s, such items could not be sold or diverted to Communist states, nor to those on the U.S. list of terrorist-supporting countries. When Iraq came off that list in 1982, however, some $48 million of items such as data privacy devices, voice scramblers, communication and navigation equipment, electronic components, image intensifiers and pistols (to protect Saddam) were approved for sale during 1985-90.  But it was through the purchase of $1.5 billion of American "dual-use items," having, sometimes arguably, both military and civilian functions, that Iraq obtained the bulk of it weapons of mass destruction in the late 80s. "Duel-use items" are controlled and licensed by the Department of Commerce under the Export Administration Act of 1979. This is where the real damage was done.  In 1992 and again in1994, hearings were conducted by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has Senate oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act. The purpose of the hearings was the Committee's concern that "tens of thousands" of Gulf War veterans were suffering from symptoms associated with the "Gulf War Syndrome", possibly due to their exposure to chemical and biological agents that had been exported from the U.S. during that brief period of "normalisation" of relations with Iraq in 1985-90.  At the opening of the second round of hearings on May 25,1994, Chairman Donald Riegle and Ranking Member Alphonse D'Amato released a detailed staff report which constituted a searing indictment of U.S. arms export policies during the Reagan/Bush Administrations, linking those exports to the health problems of Gulf War veterans, and excoriating the then current (Clinton) Administration for denying that such a link existed.  According to the hearing reports (which are available on a current website: www.chronicillnet.org/PGWS/tuite/default.htm) among the chemical weapons which had been sold to Iraq were some of the very most lethal available: Sarin, Soman, Tabun, VX, Lewisite, Cyanogen Chloride, Hydrogen Cyanide, blister agents and Mustard Gas. Some of the powerful biological agents sold included anthrax, Clostridium Botulinum, Histoplasma Capsulatum (causes a tuberculosis-like disease) , Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens and Escherichia Coli.  Witnesses on the first day of the hearings included Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Edwin Dorn, and the officials in both the Defense Department and the CIA responsible for non-proliferation policy. Interestingly, in what was often an adversarial exchange between the Committee and these officials, the latter admitted in sworn testimony that while no chemical/biological weapons had been found to have been "stored or used" by the Iraqi Army during the conflict, American troops had nevertheless been exposed to airborne traces of C/B agents from having been downwind of storage facilities that were bombed by U.S. planes.  Simply put, while Saddam Hussein had shown restraint in the Gulf War by not deploying his most lethal weapons, the U.S. Government had, a) sold chemical/biological agents and shipped them directly to Iraqi military installations, including some just months before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, b) distributed faulty chemical/biological agent detection sensors and protrction gear such as gasmasks to U.S. troops and, c) caused the exposure of these troops by the bombing of military storage areas upwind of them.  It got worse. Dr. Gordon Oehler, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Non-Proliferation Center testified that, between 1984 and 1990, the CIA's Office of Scientific and Weapons Research had issued five alert memos...." covering Iraqi's dealings with United States firms on purchases, discussions, or visits that appeared to be related to weapons of mass destruction programs." Such memos, Oehler explained, were sent to Commerce, Justice, Treasury and the FBI when collected intelligence indicated that U.S. firms had been targeted by foreign governments of concern, or were involved in possible violations of U.S. law.  At another point in the hearings, Dr. Oehler indicated that CIA's concerns about Iraqi weapons programs, in particular...."a Samarra chemical plant, including six separate chemical weapons lines between 1983 and 1986," had been reported...."directly to our customers." Under questioning from Chairman Riegle, he identified these as the President and the Secretaries of Defense and State.  Perhaps the most surprising testimony taken by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs was that given in the earlier 1992 hearings on the matter of U.S. assistance to the Iraqi ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs. Gary Milhollin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, testified that U.S. companies were being licensed by the Commerce Department to ship such items directly to the Al-Qaqaa and Badr facilities, which the Pentagon had formally identified as part of the Iraqi nuclear weapons production program, and to Salah al Din, known to be the center of its ballistic missile development efforts.  In all, Milhollin identified 40 U.S. companies involved in such sales. And it was critical equipment--vacuum pumps, electron beam welders, mass spectrometers, accelerometers, missile guidance systems, navigational radar, high speed computers and filling systems to load CB agents in missiles, among many other items. Such "stuff" was being sent to Iraq until late 1989 less than a year before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait!  Through the mid and late 1980s, said Milhollin, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Office Naval Intelligence, among others, continued to warn the White House that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were maturing at a rapid pace, as was work on the ballistic missiles to deliver them. The warnings were falling on deaf ears: in October, 1989, 10 months before the Kuwait invasion, President George Bush signed NSD 26, updating NSDD 114, and again committing the U.S. to normal relations with Saddam Hussein's government.  As had been the case with chemical and biological weapons, the list of American and European companies which sold the nuclear equipment and technology to Iraq were a virtual pantheon of industry names: Hewlett Packard, International Computer Systems, Siemens, TI Coating, Carl Zeiss, Rockwell Collins International, Spectra Physics, Unisys, Tektronix, Scientific Atlanta and Semetex, among many, many others. With such assistance, Iraq became a regional power during 1984-90, and developed regional ambitions.  But these companies were not, per se, Saddam Hussein's main weapons suppliers: that designation should properly go to Ronald Reagan and George W.H. Bush, the signers, respectively, of NSDD 114 and NSD 26, both of which remain classified. As the primary recipients and ultimate "customers" of the alert memos from the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community, they were currently and fully aware of the use to which the equipment and technology were being put, and of the security policy implications of the process.  And the instrument, the person, the envoy, who negotiated the process in the first instance, is the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." Â Â President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass  destruction program."  Â
I missed where he waged war on us.
and it sure looks like we already had seriously diminished the threat before we invaded...I mean, where are all these big bad weapons that Rummy sold him?
But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period....not by our European allies, but by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
...We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period....not by our European allies, but by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period
you think that other countries don't play at war profiteering too?
You are delusional. They had and it has been proven in my link that they still did have these weapons. Your claims about Rumsfeld are way off the mark as well.
They had and it has been proven in my link that they still did have these weapons.
They didn't use them in against Iran...Kuwait..the Gulf War?
Your claims about Rumsfeld are way off the mark as well.
no they aren't....that's what he did.
But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period....not by our European allies, but by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
that 1.5 BILLION dollars worth....771 export licenses granted.
...Since 1980, U.S. policy has been to deny export licenses for commercial sales of defense items to Iraq,except when the items were for the protection of the head of state. As a result of the exception, license applications valued at $48 million were approved. The Department of Defense (DOD) has not made any foreign military sales to Iraq since 1967.In contrast, U.S. policy toward Iraq for sales of dual-use items (items that have both civilian and military uses)was not constrained by national security controls, and there were few applicable foreign policy controls until August 1990. Thus, the Department of Commerce approved the licenses for exporting $1.5 billion of dual-useitems to Iraq between 1985 and 1990.
Available information showed two cases of unauthorized transfers of U.S. military items to Iraq by Middle East countries. Although three other Middle East countries and one of the other countries had proposed to serve as transshipment points of military equipment for Iraq, the proposals were turned down by the Department of State.There were also two additional cases of diversion to Iraq by two of the three other countries, and one case of possible diversion-related activity by the third. While this data does not suggest patterns of diversion, we were unable to determine whether other unauthorized transfers were made....
...Between 1983 and 1990, State approved 19 license applications, mostly for sales of communication devices, valued at $48 million and disapproved 25 licenses valued at $2.6 million. However, according to State officials, 4 of the 19 licenses approved in July 1990, valued at $43 million, were revoked immediately after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and no items were shipped. Approved items and their stated end uses for 11 of the 19 approved licenses are detailed in appendix I. In two of the approved cases, the Iraqi military was the end user. The cases were approved because an Iraqi Air Force official, along with a civil aviation official, certified that the equipment would be used at civilian airports...
...Iraq was not included on the original list of controlled countries; thus, according to Commerce officials, Commerce had no legal basis to deny Iraq any of the national security controlled items, unless it believed that the items would be diverted to controlled countries....
I see no mention of gases and such in this report.
Perhaps the most surprising testimony taken by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs was that given in the earlier 1992 hearings on the matter of U.S. assistance to the Iraqi ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs. Gary Milhollin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, testified that U.S. companies were being licensed by the Commerce Department to ship such items directly to the Al-Qaqaa and Badr facilities, which the Pentagon had formally identified as part of the Iraqi nuclear weapons production program, and to Salah al Din, known to be the center of its ballistic missile development efforts.  In all, Milhollin identified 40 U.S. companies involved in such sales. And it was critical equipment--vacuum pumps, electron beam welders, mass spectrometers, accelerometers, missile guidance systems, navigational radar, high speed computers and filling systems to load CB agents in missiles, among many other items. Such "stuff" was being sent to Iraq until late 1989 less than a year before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait!
Commerce data showed that between 1985 and 1990, it approved 771 licenses, valued at $1.5 billion, for sales to Iraq, while only 39 applications were rejected. According to Commerce, another 323 applications valued at $442 million were returned to the applicants without action, primarily due to incomplete information. Sixty-three of the license applications were sent to State for foreign policy review. State recommended approval for 58 and disapproval for 5. Commerce acted in accordance with State's recommendations.
The bulk of the items licensed were computers and other electronics, and other items such as civilian helicopters and machine tools were also licensed.Dollar wise, the largest amounts involved three licenses, totaling more than $1 billion for heavy duty trucks.Commerce subsequently informed us that these trucks were never actually shipped to Iraq. A Commerce official told us that Commerce was informed by the exporters that the purchasers for these trucks withdrew from the sales agreements at the last minute.
I see no mention of gases and such in this report.
Congressional investigations after the Gulf War revealed that the Commerce Department had licensed sales of biological agents, including anthrax, and insecticides, which could be used in chemical weapons, to Iraq.
On October 27, 1992, the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held hearings that revealed that the United States had exported chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile-system equipment to Iraq that was converted to military use in Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons program. Many of these weapons -- weapons that the U.S. and other countries provided critical materials for -- were used against us during the war.
Endless days of big headlines and lead stories on prisoner abuse make one believe Iraq is just one big holding pen instead of a place where people can now protest openly and hold religious observances once banned. If any one of the 200,000 members of our armed forces is doing something right in Iraq, the average viewer and reader would be hard pressed to find out. Yet if there is even speculation of something wrong, it leads the newscasts and makes the front page.
man Dan, you sure are a sucker if you can't smell the rat in this ruse they are pulling on us.
You made the claim that GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) somehow has chemical and nuclear sales in it. Here is a linkto the report that you have claimed contains this information. Please show us where it says anything like this.
You quote Gary Milhollin as saying we sent some welders, vacuum pumps, computers, etc. to Iraq yet you forgot that section of his statement saying that stuff was still transfered through Huawei, a Chinese company, during the Clinton administration and after the 1st Gulf War when it was illegal link) Then you go on to quote CBS of all places, which quotes a newspaper that claims to have some mysterious documents as well as a quote from some mysterious website that we have no idea what group is behind to somehow backup your claim. Still no links to the actual documents though.
Yeah, I can sure "smell the rat in this ruse they are pulling on us" and it sure isn't Rumsfeld, but rather, those with political axes to grind.
You quote Gary Milhollin as saying we sent some welders, vacuum pumps, computers, etc. to Iraq yet you forgot that section of his statement saying that stuff was still transfered through Huawei, a Chinese company, during the Clinton administration and after the 1st Gulf War when it was illegal link
so, you claim we weren't selling this stuff and you do it by showing the we continuedto sell it during Clinton's administration?
well, alrighty then...no political ax to gring there...nosiree!
so, you claim we weren't selling this stuff and you do it by showing the we continued to sell it during Clinton's administration?
Wrong again. I am showing that we sold some computers and such. There is no evidence I have seen so far that we sold them mustard gas and other such weapons. Clinton's administration did sell them stuff when it was illegal to do so.
well, alrighty then...no political ax to gring there...nosiree!
Have you found those supporting documents yet or do you just want to grind your ax some more?
Fold, you're the absolute last person that will ever say anything good about anyone in Iraq or that has anything to do with Iraq. Or are your constant, bitchy, whiney, complaints, your way of showing support???
actually, I'm just pointing out what a hypocrite Von is.
I've commented on it as least as much as everyone here did about what Von called spam when Naz posted a graph.
crabgrass 5/22/04 7:58pm
So... you don't care to comment on the content of the various links provided in my post.
Go figure. Typical.
aka Crabgrass?
http://www.politicsforum.org/images/flame_warriors/flame_59.php
I have already...sorry you missed it.
still wondering what this has to do with Von's hypocricy. Anyone gonna comment on that?
crabgrass 5/22/04 8:20pm
Sorry Sonny, but that doesn't deal with the content of the links in my post.
Do try again.
I've already addressed that. Sorry you missed it.
you gonna address Von's hypocricy concerning your multiple posts?
Sorry Sonny, but that doesn't deal with the content of the links in my post.
Do try again.
You got a problem with Von take it up with him. Or you can be the:
Artful Dodger.
Rich T, normally I'd side with Crabby, but I liked your spam.
BTW: Not that anyone cares, but I learned today that THX 1138 is coming to DVD in September.
http://www.thx1138movie.com
If you have broadband, here's the trailer:
http://www.thx1138movie.com/trailer.html?play=1&size=lg
like I said, I've already dealt with your old, out of context quotes.
were you trying to make a point with them or something?
actually, it's Von who has a problem with your behavior, but he only applies it to things he doesn't agree with.
JR Whipple...consider the source of a guy who is a Nazi about squeezing toilet paper.
THX 1138 5/22/04 8:45pm
Interesting trailer.
crabgrass 5/22/04 8:49pm
Ah...
Ever the Artful Dodger
So be it.
consider the source of a guy who is a Nazi about squeezing toilet paper.
New tagline!
Interesting trailer.
I can't explain why, but I love that movie.
do you have a point Rich?
I mean, spit it out.
or you gonna let Whipple do your thinking for you?
I know they had WMD, Rummy has the receipts.
I know they had WMD, Rummy has the receipts.
Good one, Crabby.
Of course, you can't use it for and against like you do.
Who Armed Saddam? -
   Rumsfeld's Account Book
By Stephen Green
   CounterPunch.org
   2-24-3
You have to give Defense Secretary Rumsfeld this credit: he's a risk taker, and he's damned brassy about it.
ÂÂ
Both were in evidence last week when he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Under criticism for his prior characterizations of France and Germany as "old Europe," Rumsfeld fumed: "We would not be facing the problems in Iraq today if the technologically advanced countries of the world had seen the danger and strictly enforced the economic sanctions against Iraq."
ÂÂ
The Defense Secretary knew well, naturally, his audience in the Senate Armed Services Committee. As Senator Robert Byrd recently said from the Senate floor, ...."this Chamber is, for the most part, silent--ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing."
ÂÂ
Still, Rumsfeld's statement was some chutspa! He was well aware that it was the U.S. Senate itself (Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs) which had conducted extensive hearings in 1992 and 1994 on "United States Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and Their Impact on the Health of Persian Gulf War Veterans." And he'd probably read the front page Washington Post story ("U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup", 12/30/02) based upon recently declassified documents, which revealed that it was Rumsfeld himself who, as President Reagan's Middle East Envoy, had traveled to the Region to meet with Saddam Hussein in December 1983 to normalize, particularly, security relations.
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At the time of the visit , Iraq had already been removed from the State Department's list of terrorist countries in 1982; and in the previous month, November, President Reagan had approved National Security Decision Directive 114, on expansion of U.S.-Iraq relations generally. But it was Donald Rumsfeld's trip to Baghdad which opened of the floodgates during 1985-90 for lucrative U.S. weapons exports--some $1.5 billion worth-- including chemical/biological and nuclear weapons equipment and technology, along with critical components for missile delivery systems for all of the above. According to a 1994 GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) some 771 weapons export licenses for Iraq were approved during this six year period....not by our European allies, but by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
ÂÂ
To be sure, many of these weapons were expended in the latter phases of the Iran-Iraq war. Others were destroyed by Coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War, or by UN weapons inspectors in the control regime established by the UN Security Council following that conflict. But a great many undoubtedly remain, and pose grave risks to the 150,000 U.S. troops deployed in Kuwait, and 100,000 on the way. Imagine the embarrassment to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before the Armed Services Committee last week if one or more Senators had had the awareness AND the courage to raise the matter of Iraq's secret supplier.
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And in this case, the devil is quite literally in the details.
ÂÂ
There were few if any reservations evident in the range of weapons which President Ronald Reagan, and his successor George W. H. Bush were willing to sell Saddam Hussein. Under the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, the foreign sale of munitions and other defense equipment and technology are controlled by the Department of State. During the 1980s, such items could not be sold or diverted to Communist states, nor to those on the U.S. list of terrorist-supporting countries. When Iraq came off that list in 1982, however, some $48 million of items such as data privacy devices, voice scramblers, communication and navigation equipment, electronic components, image intensifiers and pistols (to protect Saddam) were approved for sale during 1985-90.
ÂÂ
But it was through the purchase of $1.5 billion of American "dual-use items," having, sometimes arguably, both military and civilian functions, that Iraq obtained the bulk of it weapons of mass destruction in the late 80s. "Duel-use items" are controlled and licensed by the Department of Commerce under the Export Administration Act of 1979. This is where the real damage was done.
ÂÂ
In 1992 and again in1994, hearings were conducted by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, which has Senate oversight responsibility for the Export Administration Act. The purpose of the hearings was the Committee's concern that "tens of thousands" of Gulf War veterans were suffering from symptoms associated with the "Gulf War Syndrome", possibly due to their exposure to chemical and biological agents that had been exported from the U.S. during that brief period of "normalisation" of relations with Iraq in 1985-90.
ÂÂ
At the opening of the second round of hearings on May 25,1994, Chairman Donald Riegle and Ranking Member Alphonse D'Amato released a detailed staff report which constituted a searing indictment of U.S. arms export policies during the Reagan/Bush Administrations, linking those exports to the health problems of Gulf War veterans, and excoriating the then current (Clinton) Administration for denying that such a link existed.
ÂÂ
According to the hearing reports (which are available on a current website: www.chronicillnet.org/PGWS/tuite/default.htm) among the chemical weapons which had been sold to Iraq were some of the very most lethal available: Sarin, Soman, Tabun, VX, Lewisite, Cyanogen Chloride, Hydrogen Cyanide, blister agents and Mustard Gas. Some of the powerful biological agents sold included anthrax, Clostridium Botulinum, Histoplasma Capsulatum (causes a tuberculosis-like disease) , Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens and Escherichia Coli.
ÂÂ
Witnesses on the first day of the hearings included Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Edwin Dorn, and the officials in both the Defense Department and the CIA responsible for non-proliferation policy. Interestingly, in what was often an adversarial exchange between the Committee and these officials, the latter admitted in sworn testimony that while no chemical/biological weapons had been found to have been "stored or used" by the Iraqi Army during the conflict, American troops had nevertheless been exposed to airborne traces of C/B agents from having been downwind of storage facilities that were bombed by U.S. planes.
ÂÂ
Simply put, while Saddam Hussein had shown restraint in the Gulf War by not deploying his most lethal weapons, the U.S. Government had, a) sold chemical/biological agents and shipped them directly to Iraqi military installations, including some just months before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, b) distributed faulty chemical/biological agent detection sensors and protrction gear such as gasmasks to U.S. troops and, c) caused the exposure of these troops by the bombing of military storage areas upwind of them.
ÂÂ
It got worse. Dr. Gordon Oehler, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Non-Proliferation Center testified that, between 1984 and 1990, the CIA's Office of Scientific and Weapons Research had issued five alert memos...." covering Iraqi's dealings with United States firms on purchases, discussions, or visits that appeared to be related to weapons of mass destruction programs." Such memos, Oehler explained, were sent to Commerce, Justice, Treasury and the FBI when collected intelligence indicated that U.S. firms had been targeted by foreign governments of concern, or were involved in possible violations of U.S. law.
ÂÂ
At another point in the hearings, Dr. Oehler indicated that CIA's concerns about Iraqi weapons programs, in particular...."a Samarra chemical plant, including six separate chemical weapons lines between 1983 and 1986," had been reported...."directly to our customers." Under questioning from Chairman Riegle, he identified these as the President and the Secretaries of Defense and State.
ÂÂ
Perhaps the most surprising testimony taken by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs was that given in the earlier 1992 hearings on the matter of U.S. assistance to the Iraqi ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs. Gary Milhollin, Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, testified that U.S. companies were being licensed by the Commerce Department to ship such items directly to the Al-Qaqaa and Badr facilities, which the Pentagon had formally identified as part of the Iraqi nuclear weapons production program, and to Salah al Din, known to be the center of its ballistic missile development efforts.
ÂÂ
In all, Milhollin identified 40 U.S. companies involved in such sales. And it was critical equipment--vacuum pumps, electron beam welders, mass spectrometers, accelerometers, missile guidance systems, navigational radar, high speed computers and filling systems to load CB agents in missiles, among many other items. Such "stuff" was being sent to Iraq until late 1989 less than a year before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait!
ÂÂ
Through the mid and late 1980s, said Milhollin, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Office Naval Intelligence, among others, continued to warn the White House that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were maturing at a rapid pace, as was work on the ballistic missiles to deliver them. The warnings were falling on deaf ears: in October, 1989, 10 months before the Kuwait invasion, President George Bush signed NSD 26, updating NSDD 114, and again committing the U.S. to normal relations with Saddam Hussein's government.
ÂÂ
As had been the case with chemical and biological weapons, the list of American and European companies which sold the nuclear equipment and technology to Iraq were a virtual pantheon of industry names: Hewlett Packard, International Computer Systems, Siemens, TI Coating, Carl Zeiss, Rockwell Collins International, Spectra Physics, Unisys, Tektronix, Scientific Atlanta and Semetex, among many, many others. With such assistance, Iraq became a regional power during 1984-90, and developed regional ambitions.
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But these companies were not, per se, Saddam Hussein's main weapons suppliers: that designation should properly go to Ronald Reagan and George W.H. Bush, the signers, respectively, of NSDD 114 and NSD 26, both of which remain classified. As the primary recipients and ultimate "customers" of the alert memos from the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community, they were currently and fully aware of the use to which the equipment and technology were being put, and of the security policy implications of the process.
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And the instrument, the person, the envoy, who negotiated the process in the first instance, is the current U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
for what?
THX 1138 5/22/04 8:55pm
That won't stop him from trying though.
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We
want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction program."
 Â
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.
Try dealing with the content Crabgrass. That is of course if you think you can.
for what?
I've seen you argue there are no WMD's, then you say there are, and that Rummy has the receipts...
Goodnight guys.
I missed where he waged war on us.
and it sure looks like we already had seriously diminished the threat before we invaded...I mean, where are all these big bad weapons that Rummy sold him?
where the fuck are they?
I've always said that it was US who armed him.
try providing the context.
We have been through this many times before Crabs, but here it is again...
STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY
...We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
Grandpa Dan Zachary 5/22/04 9:27pm
Crabs doesn't let the facts get in his way.
You left out
At the time of the visit , Iraq had already been removed from the State Department's list of terrorist countries in 1982
so we could sell them arms, yes.
it's a simple war profiteering scam.
I suppose we sold them these MIG's as well?
you think that other countries don't play at war profiteering too?
you remember, the one where we recruited Saddam to use the WMD we sold him against Iran
you remember, the one where we recruited Saddam to use the WMD we sold him against Iran
Yet you claim that he had no such weapons. Which is it?
you must be thinking of someone else...
and you might want to learn what the difference is between "had" and "have", tense-wise.
Rummy and friends didn't have a problem with Saddam when he was gassing Iranians and Kurds
You are delusional. They had and it has been proven in my link that they still did have these weapons. Your claims about Rumsfeld are way off the mark as well.
They didn't use them in against Iran...Kuwait..the Gulf War?
no they aren't....that's what he did.
that 1.5 BILLION dollars worth....771 export licenses granted.
not off the mark at all.
From the GAO report you are supposedly quoting...
link
...Since 1980, U.S. policy has been to deny export licenses for commercial sales of defense items to Iraq,except when the items were for the protection of the head of state. As a result of the exception, license applications valued at $48 million were approved. The Department of Defense (DOD) has not made any foreign military sales to Iraq since 1967.In contrast, U.S. policy toward Iraq for sales of dual-use items (items that have both civilian and military uses)was not constrained by national security controls, and there were few applicable foreign policy controls until August 1990. Thus, the Department of Commerce approved the licenses for exporting $1.5 billion of dual-useitems to Iraq between 1985 and 1990.
Available information showed two cases of unauthorized transfers of U.S. military items to Iraq by Middle East countries. Although three other Middle East countries and one of the other countries had proposed to serve as transshipment points of military equipment for Iraq, the proposals were turned down by the Department of State.There were also two additional cases of diversion to Iraq by two of the three other countries, and one case of possible diversion-related activity by the third. While this data does not suggest patterns of diversion, we were unable to determine whether other unauthorized transfers were made....
...Between 1983 and 1990, State approved 19 license applications, mostly for sales of communication devices, valued at $48 million and disapproved 25 licenses valued at $2.6 million. However, according to State officials, 4 of the 19 licenses approved in July 1990, valued at $43 million, were revoked immediately after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and no items were shipped.
Approved items and their stated end uses for 11 of the 19 approved licenses are detailed in appendix I. In two of the approved cases, the Iraqi military was the end user. The cases were approved because an Iraqi Air Force official, along with a civil aviation official, certified that the equipment would be used at civilian airports...
...Iraq was not included on the original list of controlled countries; thus, according to Commerce officials, Commerce had no legal basis to deny Iraq any of the national security controlled items, unless it believed that the items would be diverted to controlled countries....
I see no mention of gases and such in this report.
More from the above link...
Commerce data showed that between 1985 and 1990, it approved 771 licenses, valued at $1.5 billion, for sales to Iraq, while only 39 applications were rejected. According to Commerce, another 323 applications valued at $442 million were returned to the applicants without action, primarily due to incomplete information. Sixty-three of the license applications were sent to State for foreign policy review. State recommended approval for 58 and disapproval for 5. Commerce acted in accordance with State's recommendations.
The bulk of the items licensed were computers and other electronics, and other items such as civilian helicopters and machine tools were also licensed.Dollar wise, the largest amounts involved three licenses, totaling more than $1 billion for heavy duty trucks.Commerce subsequently informed us that these trucks were never actually shipped to Iraq. A Commerce official told us that Commerce was informed by the exporters that the purchasers for these trucks withdrew from the sales agreements at the last minute.
Nope, still no WMD's there.
http://www.chronicillnet.org/PGWS/tuite/chembio.html
Show us the documents. I have discredited those reports already.
"dual use"
sure...right.
man Dan, you sure are a sucker if you can't smell the rat in this ruse they are pulling on us.
-------------------------------
Where moms get their news about the war
Endless days of big headlines and lead stories on prisoner abuse make one believe Iraq is just one big holding pen instead of a place where people can now protest openly and hold religious observances once banned. If any one of the 200,000 members of our armed forces is doing something right in Iraq, the average viewer and reader would be hard pressed to find out. Yet if there is even speculation of something wrong, it leads the newscasts and makes the front page.
Read the rest of the story here. :-)
man Dan, you sure are a sucker if you can't smell the rat in this ruse they are pulling on us.
You made the claim that GAO Letter Report (GAO/NSIAD-94-98) somehow has chemical and nuclear sales in it. Here is a linkto the report that you have claimed contains this information. Please show us where it says anything like this.
You quote Gary Milhollin as saying we sent some welders, vacuum pumps, computers, etc. to Iraq yet you forgot that section of his statement saying that stuff was still transfered through Huawei, a Chinese company, during the Clinton administration and after the 1st Gulf War when it was illegal link) Then you go on to quote CBS of all places, which quotes a newspaper that claims to have some mysterious documents as well as a quote from some mysterious website that we have no idea what group is behind to somehow backup your claim. Still no links to the actual documents though.
Yeah, I can sure "smell the rat in this ruse they are pulling on us" and it sure isn't Rumsfeld, but rather, those with political axes to grind.
NOTHING "good" EVER gets said about our sons and daughters and their bravery in IRAQ. NOTHING.
How does another abuse story support this claim?
so, you claim we weren't selling this stuff and you do it by showing the we continuedto sell it during Clinton's administration?
well, alrighty then...no political ax to gring there...nosiree!
so, you claim we weren't selling this stuff and you do it by showing the we continued to sell it during Clinton's administration?
Wrong again. I am showing that we sold some computers and such. There is no evidence I have seen so far that we sold them mustard gas and other such weapons. Clinton's administration did sell them stuff when it was illegal to do so.
well, alrighty then...no political ax to gring there...nosiree!
Have you found those supporting documents yet or do you just want to grind your ax some more?
Fold, you're the absolute last person that will ever say anything good about anyone in Iraq or that has anything to do with Iraq. Or are your constant, bitchy, whiney, complaints, your way of showing support???