U.S./Iraq Involvement (In a Nutshell)

[Roland99]

http://www.conjur.com/blog/2005/07/20/usiraq-involvment-in-a-nutshell/

1) Saddam (via “Chemical Ali”) killed thousands and thousands of Kurds over a period of time in the Anfal campaign.
2) That occurred while Saddam was a “friend” of the United States.
3) Nothing was said or done to sanction Saddam for the genocide committed under his reign.
4) Saddam invades Kuwait after having been given subtle signals that the U.S. would not stop him (granted that was probably a mistake but it happened anyway). One also has to take into account that Kuwait (or the area it comprises) used to be part of Iraq until the British sliced it off.
5) Iraq has now become U.S. enemy #1
6) Previous US involvement in supplying Saddam with WMD pre-cursors and satellite imagery of Iranian troop locations are now brushed aside and covered up.
7) Previously condoned actions by Saddam are now trotted out as egregious humanitarian tragedies as it now to the benefit of the U.S. foreign policy to do so (all while keeping the U.S’s tacit approval brushed under the rug.)

That brings us up to today.

Interesting how that all worked out, eh? And, who cares who died as long as some U.S. companies are making some serious bank and the U.S. now has a firm hand to help direct a large reserve of oil. Not to mention the side benefit of having taken out an enemy of Israel. The PNAC’s funds were well-spent in that regard along with the well-placed Israeli spies in the Pentagon.

[LibinMo]

1. I keep thinking about the letter Mike Malloy read last night

The letter to the British people supposedly from an Iraqi woman.

http://jmpolitics.blogspot.com/

[tocqueville]

2. it's worse than that

1) Saddam was put in charge by the CIA
2) He was backed up by Rumsfeld
3) He was provided with WMDs by Honeywell and others

all that to counter Iran which at that time was the big enemy

Same pattern than the one with Osama, Noriega etc....


http://www.democracynow.org/static/rumsfeldcloset.shtml
http://www.rense.com/general35/rums.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm
http://mediastudy.com/articles/av1-9-03.html

According to newly declassified documents mentioned in “The Washington Post Weekly Edition” (1/6-12/2003), Iraq was already using chemical weapons on an "almost daily basis" when Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam Hussein in 1983, consolidating the U.S.-Iraq military alliance.

Subsequently, the Pentagon supplied logistical and military support; U.S. banks provided billions of dollars in credits; and the C.I.A., using a Chilean conduit, increased Saddam's supply of cluster bombs. U.S. companies also supplied steel tubes and chemical substances, the types of material for which the Security Council is now searching.

As late as 1989 and 1990, according to a report from U.S. representative Dennis Kucinich (Democrat, Ohio), U.S. companies, under permits from the first Bush administration, sent mustard gas materials, live cultures for bacteriological research, to Iraq. U.S. companies helped Iraq build a chemical weapons factory, and then shipped Hussein a West Nile virus, hydrogen cyanide precursors, and parts for a new nuclear plant.

The infamous massacre at Halabja -- the gassing of the Kurds -- took place in March 1988. On September 19, sixth months later, U.S. companies sent eleven strains of germs, four types of anthrax to Iraq, including a microbe strain, called 11966, developed for germ warfare at Fort Detrick in the '50s. (Judith Miller provides a partial account of the sordid traffic in U.S. chemicals and germs in her book, “Germs: Biological Weapons And America’s Secret War”.)

Dow Chemical (infamous for its napalm in the Vietnam War) sold large amounts of pesticides, toxins that cause death by asphyxiation. Twenty-four U.S. firms exported arms and materials to Baghdad. France also sent Hussein 200 AMX medium tanks, Mirage bombers, and Gazelle helicopter gunships. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage testified in 1987: "We cannot stand to see Iraq defeated."

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/time.html

[Roland99]

3. Oh, I know. I had come up with list real quick as a reply to someone

and I thought...hmm...not bad so I put it on my blog. I know there's a lot more to it and I'll have to write something up someday soon.