Showing posts with label US-IRAQ RELATIONS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US-IRAQ RELATIONS. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Saddam Hussein: A Hero of Islam - VI

Jack Stone wrote:

The "National Security Archive" is a PRIVATE organization of liberal (leftwing) people who hate the United States. They have chosen a name to SOUND like they are official.

As per US National Security Archive

Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/


Jack Stone
=================================================


Dear Mr Jack,

There is a big difference between hating the USA and hating the US Foreign Policy and its Governance regarding the Third World. Nobody hates the USA or American People but they the policies of USA toward the Third World Countries.

For Example

1 - Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum

2 - Killing Hope : U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II-updated 2003 by William Blum

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=William+Blum

From a Diary of a American Spy [who has recently passed away]

Late Philip Agee [Former CIA Operative in Latin America]

"QUOTE"

Excerpts from the book CIA Diary Inside the Company by Philip Agee Penguin Books, 1975


p37

... what the Agency [CIA] does is ordered by the President and the NSC [National Security Council]. The Agency neither makes decisions on policy nor acts on its own account. It is an instrument of the President.


... the question of Congressional monitoring of intelligence activities and of the Agency in particular. The problem resides in the National Security Act of 1947 and also in its amendment, the Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949. These laws charged the DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] with protecting the 'sources and methods' of the US intelligence effort and also exempted the DCI and the Bureau of the Budget from reporting to Congress on the organization, function, personnel and expenditures of the CIA - whose budget is hidden in the budgets of other executive agencies. The DCI, in fact, can secretly spend whatever portion of the CIA budget he determines necessary, with no other accounting than his own signature. Such expenditures, free from review by Congress or the General Accounting Office or, in theory, by anyone outside the executive-branch, are called 'unvouchered funds'.


By passage of these laws Congress has sealed itself off from CIA activities, although four small sub-committees are informed periodically on important matters by the DCI. These are the Senate and House sub-committees of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees, and the speeches of their principal spokesman, Senator Richard Russell, are required reading for the JOT'S.


There have been several times when ClA autonomy was threatened. The Hoover Commission Task Force on Intelligence Activities headed by General Mark Clark recommended in 1955 that a Congressional Watchdog Committee be established to oversee the CIA much as the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy watches over the AEC. The Clark Committee, in fact, did not believe the sub-committees of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees were able to exercise effectively the Congressional monitoring function. However, the problem was corrected, according to the Agency position, when President Eisenhower, early in 1956, established his own appointative committee to oversee the Agency. This is the President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities, whose chairman is James R. Killian, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It can provide the kind of 'private citizen' monitoring of the Agency that Congress didn't want. Moreover ... the more Congress gets into the act the greater the danger of accidental revelation of secrets by indiscreet politicians. Established relationships with intelligence services of other countries, like Great Britain, might be complicated. The Congress was quite right at the beginning in giving up control - so much for them, their job is to appropriate the money.


p49


In addition to discovering ordinary state secrets, the CS is responsible for obtaining the most complete and accurate information possible on the global manifestations of Soviet imperialism, that is, on local communist parties and related political groups. The exceptions to the world-wide operating charter of the CS is the agreement among the US, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand whereby each has formally promised to abstain from secret operations of any kind within the territory of the others except with prior approval of the host government. The governments of all other nations, their internal political groups and their scientific, military and economic secrets are fair game.


p53


The most important liaison operation of the CIA is with MI-6, whose cryptonym is SMOTH. It has been almost ten years since Burgess and Maclean disappeared, and SMOTH has apparently tightened its loose, 'old boy', clubby security practices. The inner club also includes the services of Canada, Australia and New Zealand although the CIA receives relatively little from these. Liaison with the Dutch is considered excellent because they facilitate support operations against targets of mutual interest, as do the Italians who tap telephones and intercept correspondence for the CIA station in Rome. The West German services are considered to be thoroughly penetrated by the Soviets while liaison with the French has become difficult and sensitive since the return of de Gaulle.


p69


Psychological and paramilitary, known as PP or KUCAGE, operations differ from those of PI or CI because they are action rather than collection activities. Collection operations should be invisible so that the target will be unaware of them. Action operations, on the other hand, always produce a visible effect. This, however, should never be attributable to the CIA or to the US government, but rather to some other person or organization. These operations, which received their Congressional charter in the National Security Act of 1947 under 'additional services of common concern', are in some ways more sensitive than collection operations. They are usually approved by the PP staff of the DDP, but when very large amounts of money are required or especially sensitive methods are used approval may be required of the OCB (Undersecretary level), the NSC or the President himself.


PP operations are, of course, risky because they nearly always mean intervention in the affairs of another country with whom the US enjoys normal diplomatic relations. If their true sponsorship were found out the diplomatic consequences could be serious. This is in contrast to collection operations, for if these are discovered foreign politicians are often prepared to turn a blind eye - they are a traditional part of every nation's intelligence activity. Thus the cardinal rule in planning all PP operations is 'plausible denial', only possible if care has been taken in the first place to ensure that someone other than the US government can be made to take the blame.


PP programmes are to be found in almost every CIA station and emphasis on the kinds of PP operations will depend very much on local conditions. Psychological warfare includes propaganda (also known simply as 'media'), work in youth and student organizations, work in labour organizations (trade unions, etc.), work in professional and cultural groups and in political parties. Paramilitary operations include infiltration into denied areas, sabotage, economic warfare, personal harassment, air and maritime support, weaponry, training and support for small armies.


Media Operations


The CTA'S role in the US propaganda programme is determined by the official division of propaganda into three general categories: white, grey and black. White propaganda is that which is openly acknowledged as coming from the US government, e.g. from the US Information Agency (USIA); grey propaganda is ostensibly attributed to people or organizations who do not acknowledge the US government as the source of their material and who produce the material as if it were their own, black propaganda is unattributed material, or it is attributed to a non-existent source, or it is false material attributed to a real source. The CTA is the only US government agency authorized to engage in black propaganda operations, but it shares the responsibility for grey propaganda with other agencies such as USTA. However, according to the 'Grey Law' of the National Security Council contained in one of the NSCID'S, other agencies must obtain prior CIA approval before engaging in grey propaganda.


The vehicles for grey and black propaganda may be unaware of their CIA or US government sponsorship. This is partly so that it can be more effective and partly to keep down the number of people who know what is going on and thus to reduce the danger of exposing true sponsorship.

Thus editorialists, politicians, businessmen and others may produce propaganda, even for money, without necessarily knowing who their masters in the case are. Some among them obviously will and so, in agency terminology, there is a distinction between 'witting' and 'unwitting' agents.

In propaganda operations, as in all other PP activities, standard agency security procedure forbids payment for services rendered to be made by a CIA officer working under official cover (one posing as an official of the Department of State, for instance). This is in order to maintain 'plausible denial' and to minimize the danger of embarrassment to the local embassy if anything is discovered by the local government. However, payment is made by CTA officers under non-official cover, e.g. posing as businessmen, students or as retired people; such officers are said to be working under non-official cover.


Officers working under non-official cover may also handle most of the contacts with the recruited agents in order to keep the officer under official cover as protected as possible. Equally, meetings between the two kinds of officer will be as secret as may be. The object of all this is to protect the embassy and sometimes to make the propaganda agents believe that they are being paid by private businesses.


Headquarters' propaganda experts have visited us in ISOLATION and have displayed the mass of paper they issue as material for the guidance of propaganda throughout the world. Some of it is concerned only with local issues, the rest often has world-wide application. The result of the talks was to persuade most of us that propaganda is not for us - there is simply too much paperwork. But despite that, the most interesting part of propaganda was obviously the business of orchestrating the treatment of events of importance among several countries. Thus problems of communist influence in one country can be made to appear of international concern in others under the rubric of 'a threat to one is a threat to all'. For example, the CIA station in Caracas can cable information on a secret communist plot in Venezuela to the Bogota station which can 'surface' through a local propaganda agent with attribution to an unidentified Venezuelan government official. The information can then be picked up from the Colombian press and relayed to CTA stations in Quito, Lima, La Paz, Santiago and, perhaps, Brazil. A few days later editorials begin to appear in the newspapers of these places and pressure mounts on the Venezuelan government to take repressive action against its communists.


There are obviously hosts of other uses to which propaganda, both black and grey, can be put, using books, magazines, radio, television, wall-painting, handbills, decals, religious sermons and political speeches as well as the daily press. In countries where handbills or wall-painting are important media, stations are expected to maintain clandestine printing and distribution facilities as well as teams of agents who paint slogans on walls. Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty are the best known grey propaganda operations conducted by the CIA against the Soviet bloc.


Youth and Student Operations


At the close of World War II, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union began a major propaganda and agitation programme through the formation of the International Union of Students (IUS) and the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), both of which brought together national affiliates within their respective fields in as many countries as possible. These organizations promoted CPSU objectives and policy under the guise of unified campaigns (anti-colonialism, anti-nuclear weapons, propeace groups, etc.), in which they enlisted the support of their local affiliates in capitalist countries as well as within the communist bloc. During the late 1940s the US government, using the Agency for its purpose, began to brand these fronts as stooges of the CPSU with the object of discouraging non-communist participation. In addition to this the Agency engaged in operations in many places designed to stop local groups affiliating with the international bodies. By recruiting leaders of the local groups and by infiltrating agents, the Agency tried to gain control of as many of them as possible, so that even if such a group had already affiliated itself to either the IUS or the WFDY, it could be persuaded or compelled to withdraw.

The Agency also began to form alternative youth and student organizations at local and international level. The two international bodies constructed to rival those sponsored by the Soviet Union were the Coordinating Secretariat of National Unions of Students(COSEC) with headquarters in Leyden, and the World Assembly of Youth (WAY) situated in Brussels. Headquarters' planning, guidance and operational functions in the CTA youth and student operations are centralized in the International Organizations Division of the DDP.


Both COSEC and WAY, like the TUS and WFDY, promote travel, cultural activities and welfare, but both also work as propaganda agencies for the CTA - particularly in underdeveloped countries. They also have consultative status as non-governmental institutions with United Nations agencies such as UNESCO and they participate in the UN special agencies' programmes.


One very important function of the CTA youth and student operations is the spotting, assessing and recruiting of student and youth leaders as long-term agents, both in the PI and PP fields. The organizations sponsored or affected by the Agency are obvious recruiting grounds for these and, indeed, for other CTA operations. It is particularly the case in the underdeveloped world that both COSEC and WAY programmes lead to the recruitment of young agents who can be relied on to continue CTA policies and remain under CTA control long after they have moved up their political or professional ladders.

Apart from working through COSEC and WAY the Agency is also able to mount specific operations through Catholic national and international student and youth bodies (Pax Romana and the International Catholic Youth Federation) and through the Christian Democrat and non-communist socialist organizations as well. In some countries, particularly those in which there are groups with strong communist or radical leaderships, the Catholic or Christian Democratic student and youth organization are the main forces guided by the Agency.

Agents controlled through youth and student operations by a station in any given country, including those in the US National Students Association (NSA) international programme run by headquarters, can also be used to influence decisions at the international level, while agents at the international level can be used for promoting other agents or policies within a national affiliate. Control, then, is like an alternating current between the national and international levels.


Largely as a result of Agency operations, the WFDY headquarters was expelled from France in 1951, moving to Budapest. The TUS headquarters, on the other hand, was never allowed to move to the free world after its founding at Prague in 1946. Moreover, the WFDY and TUS have been clearly identified with the communist bloc, and their efforts to conduct conferences and seminars outside the bloc have been attacked and weakened by WAY and COSEC. The WFDY, for example, has been able to hold only one World Youth Festival outside the bloc, in Vienna in 1959, and then it was effectively disrupted by CIA-controlled youth and student organizations. The TUS has never held a congress in the free world. More important still, both WAY and COSEC have developed overwhelming leads in affiliate members outside the communist bloc.


p79

Political-Action Operations

Communist expansion brought forth still another type of PP operation: political action. Operations designed to promote the adoption by a foreign government of a particular policy vis-a-vis communism are termed political-action operations. While the context of these operations is the assessment of the danger of communist or other leftist influence in a given country, the operations undertaken to suppress the danger arc pegged to specific circumstances. These operations often involve promotion through funding and guidance of the careers of foreign politicians through whom desired government policy and action can be obtained. Conversely, these operations often include actions designed to neutralize the politicians who promote undesirable local government policy regarding communism.


Although political-action operations after World War II began with electoral funding of anti-communist political parties in France and Italy in the late 1940s, they are now prevalent in the underdeveloped countries where economic and social conditions create a favourable climate for communist advance. The obvious human elements in political-action operations are political parties, politicians and military leaders, although agents in other PP operations including labour, student and youth, and media are often brought to bear on specific political-action targets.


In order to obtain political intelligence as well as to develop relationships with potential political-action agents, most stations have continuing programmes for cultivating local politicians from opposition as well as from government parties. Making acquaintances in local politics is not usually difficult because CTA officers under diplomatic cover in embassies have natural access to their targets through cocktail parties, receptions, clubs and other mechanisms that bring them together with people of interest. Regular State Department Foreign Service Officers and Ambassadors as well may also facilitate the expansion of station political contacts through arranging introductions. When a local political contact is assessed favourably for station goals, security clearance and operational approval is obtained from headquarters, and the station officer m contact with the target begins to provide financial support for political campaigns or for the promotion of the target's political group or party. Hopefully, almost surely, the target will use some of the money for personal expenses thereby developing a dependency on the station as a source of income. Eventually, if all goes well, the local politician will report confidential information on his own party and on his government, if he has a government post, and he will respond to reasonable station direction regarding the communist question.


A station's liaison operations with local security services are also a valuable source of political-action assets. Because of frequent political instability in underdeveloped countries, the politicians in charge of the civilian and military security forces are in key positions for action as well as for information, and they are often drawn into an operational relationship with the station when they enter office merely by allowing ongoing liaison operations to continue. They are subjected to constant assessment by the station for use in political action and when deemed appropriate they may be called upon for specific tasks. Financial support is also available for furthering their political careers and for a continuing relationship once they leave the ministry.


As final arbiters of political conflicts in so many countries, military leaders are major targets for recruitment. They are contacted by station officers in a variety of ways, sometimes simply through straightforward introduction by US military attaches or the personnel of US Military Assistance Missions. Sometimes the liaison developed between the Agency and local intelligence services can be used for making these contacts. Again CTA officers can make contact with those military officers of other countries who come to the US for training. As in the case of politicians, most Agency stations have a continual programme for the development of local military leaders, both for the collection of intelligence and for possible use in political action.


The political actions actually undertaken by the Agency are almost as varied as politics itself. High on the list of priorities is the framing of Soviet officials in diplomatic or commercial missions in order to provoke their expulsion. Politicians working for the Agency are expected to take an active part in working for expulsion of 'undesirables'. Similarly, where the Soviet Union tries to extend its diplomatic or commercial activities, our politicians are expected to use their influence to oppose such moves. They are also expected to take a hard line against their own nationals engaged in left-wing or communist activities. In the last of these instances success means the proscription of the parties, the arrest or exile of their leaders, the closure of their offices, publications and bookstores, the prohibition of their demonstrators, etc. Such large-scale programmes call for action both by anticommunist movements and by national governments - where possible the Agency likes to use the same political action agents for both purposes.


But it is not just a matter of financing and guiding local politicians. In situations regarded as dangerous to the US, the Agency will conduct national election operations though the medium of an entire political party. It will finance candidates who are both 'witting' and 'unwitting'. Such multi-million-dollar operations may begin a year or more before an election is due and will include massive propaganda and public-relations campaigns, the building of numerous front organizations and funding mechanisms (often resident US businessmen), regular polls of voters, the formation of 'goon-squads' to intimidate the opposition, and the staging of provocations and the circulation of rumours designed to discredit undesirable candidates. Funds are also available for buying votes and vote counters as well.


If a situation can be more effectively retrieved for US interests by unconstitutional methods or by coup d'etat, that too may be attempted. Although the Agency usually plays the anti-communist card in order to foster a coup, gold bars and sacks of currency are often equally effective. In some cases a timely bombing by a station agent, followed by mass demonstrations and finally by intervention by military leaders in the name of the restoration of order and national unity, is a useful course. Agency political operations were largely responsible for coups after this pattern in Iran in 1953 and in the Sudan in 1958.


Paramilitary Operations

At times the political situation in a given country cannot be retrieved fast or effectively enough through other types of PP operations such as political action. In these cases the Agency engages in operations on a higher level of conflict which may include military operations - although these should not be seen as US sponsored. These unconventional warfare operations are called paramilitary operations. The Agency has the charter from the National Security Council for US government unconventional warfare although the military services also sustain a paramilitary capability in case of general war. These operations seem to hold a special fascination, calling to mind OSS heroism, resistance, guerrilla warfare, secret parachute jumps behind the lines. Camp Peary is a major Agency training base for paramilitary operations.


An indictment of a murderous U.S. foreign policy establishment that repeatedly violates international law, overthrows democratically elected foreign governments, aids in the murder of millions of peasants and workers across the globe, perverts elections and other democratic processes, and ignores world opinion against its actions at the behest of the domestic corporate elite. Rather than presenting a sustained argument, the author presents numerous cases of U.S. malfeasance, hoping that the sheer preponderance of evidence will convince readers that the Government is not acting out of concern for humanitarian goals or even the interests of the majority of its own population.


"UNQUOTE"

Saddam Hussein: A Hero of Islam - V

Jack Stone wrote:

The Iraqi government says that 150,000 people have died since 2003, 90% of them MUSLIMS KILLLING MUSLIMS. The USA did not create this mess.

Jack Stone
========================================

Dear Mr Jack,

Would you like to throw some light on this:

In 1996 then-UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright was asked by 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, in reference to years of U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iraq, “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” To which Ambassador Albright responded, “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”

As per US National Security Archive

Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Saddam Hussein: A Hero of Islam - IV

Jack Stone wrote:


Yes, they did. The Iraqis invaded Kuwait, a Muslim nation. Yes, they did this to themselves. NO ONE dropped over one million tons of bombs and ordinance in Iraq. The USA dropped bombs only on military targets, using precision bombs.

Jack Stone

=========================================

Dear Mr Jack,

You are correct to the hilt regarding Iraq invaded Kuwait. You are wrong to the hilt that USA and UK dropped bomb on Military Targets in Iraq.

USA and UK used Depeleted Uranium Bombs in Iraq

Iraqi cancers, birth defects blamed on U.S. depleted uranium

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/95178_du12.shtml



By LARRY JOHNSON SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR

SOUTHERN DEMILITARIZED ZONE, Iraq -- On the "Highway of Death," 11 miles north of the Kuwait border, a collection of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles are rusting in the desert.

They also are radiating nuclear energy.

In 1991, the United States and its Persian Gulf War allies blasted the vehicles with armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium -- the first time such weapons had been used in warfare -- as the Iraqis retreated from Kuwait. The devastating results gave the highway its name.

Today, nearly 12 years after the use of the super-tough weapons was credited with bringing the war to a swift conclusion, the battlefield remains a radioactive toxic wasteland -- and depleted uranium munitions remain a mystery.

Although the Pentagon has sent mixed signals about the effects of depleted uranium, Iraqi doctors believe that it is responsible for a significant increase in cancer and birth defects in the region. Many researchers outside Iraq, and several U.S. veterans organizations, agree; they also suspect depleted uranium of playing a role in Gulf War Syndrome, the still-unexplained malady that has plagued hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans.

Depleted uranium is a problem in other former war zones as well. Yesterday, U.N. experts said they found radioactive hot spots in Bosnia resulting from the use of depleted uranium during NATO air strikes in 1995.

With another war in Iraq perhaps imminent, scientists and others are concerned that the side effects of depleted uranium munitions -- still a major part of the U.S. arsenal -- will cause serious illnesses or deaths in a new generation of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqis.


THE DANGERS

Depleted uranium, known as DU, is a highly dense metal that is the byproduct of the process during which fissionable uranium used to manufacture nuclear bombs and reactor fuel is separated from natural uranium. DU remains radioactive for about 4.5 billion years.

Uranium, a weakly radioactive element, occurs naturally in soil and water everywhere on Earth, but mainly in trace quantities. Humans ingest it daily in minute quantities.

DU shell holes in the vehicles along the Highway of Death are 1,000 times more radioactive than background radiation, according to Geiger counter readings done for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Dr. Khajak Vartaanian, a nuclear medicine expert from the Iraq Department of Radiation Protection in Basra, and Col. Amal Kassim of the Iraqi navy.

The desert around the vehicles was 100 times more radioactive than background radiation; Basra, a city of 1 million people, some 125 miles away, registered only slightly above background radiation level.

But the radioactivity is only one concern about DU munitions.

A second, potentially more serious hazard is created when a DU round hits its target. As much as 70 percent of the projectile can burn up on impact, creating a firestorm of ceramic DU oxide particles. The residue of this firestorm is an extremely fine ceramic uranium dust that can be spread by the wind, inhaled and absorbed into the human body and absorbed by plants and animals, becoming part of the food chain.

Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment and create up to a hundredfold increase in uranium levels in ground water, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.

Studies show it can remain in human organs for years.

The U.S. Army acknowledges the hazards in a training manual, in which it requires that anyone who comes within 25 meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain wear respiratory and skin protection, and states that "contamination will make food and water unsafe for consumption."

Just six months before the Gulf War, the Army released a report on DU predicting that large amounts of DU dust could be inhaled by soldiers and civilians during and after combat.

Infantry were identified as potentially receiving the highest exposures, and the expected health outcomes included cancers and kidney problems.

The report also warned that public knowledge of the health and environmental effects of depleted uranium could lead to efforts to ban DU munitions.

But today the Pentagon plays down the effects. Officials refer queries on DU munitions to the latest government report on the subject, last updated on Dec. 13, 2000, which said DU is "40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium."

The report also said, "Gulf War exposures to depleted uranium (DU) have not to date produced any observable adverse health effects attributable to DU's chemical toxicity or low-level radiation. . . ."

In response to written queries, the Defense Department said, "The U.S. Military Services use DU munitions because of DU's superior lethality against armor and other hard targets."

It said DU munitions are "war reserve munitions; that is, used for combat and not fired for training purposes," with the exception that DU munitions may be fired at sea for weapon calibration purposes.

In addition to Iraq and Bosnia, DU munitions were used in Kosovo and Serbia in 1999.

Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations.

Parker, who first raised the DU issue in the United Nations in 1996, contends that DU "violates the existing law and customs of war."

She said there are four rules derived from all of humanitarian law regarding weapons:


Weapons may only be used in the legal field of battle, defined as legal military targets of the enemy in war. Weapons may not have an adverse effect off the legal field of battle.


Weapons can only be used for the duration of an armed conflict. A weapon that is used or continues to act after the war is over violates this criterion.


Weapons may not be unduly inhumane.


Weapons may not have an unduly negative effect on the natural environment.

"Depleted uranium fails all four of these rules," Parker said last week.

On Oct. 17, 2001, Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., introduced a bill calling for "the suspension of the use, sale, development, production, testing, and export of depleted uranium munitions pending the outcome of certain studies of the health effects of such munitions. . . ."

More than a year later, the bill -- co-sponsored by Reps. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio; Barbara Lee, D-Ca.; and Jim McDermott, D-Wash. -- remains in committee awaiting comment from the Defense Department.


THE STUDIES

Gulf War veterans faced a wide array of potentially toxic materials during the war: smoke from oil and chemical fires, insecticides, pesticides, vaccinations and DU.

Of the 696,778 troops who served during the recognized conflict phase (1990-1991) of the Gulf War, at least 20,6861 have applied for VA medical benefits. As of May 2002, 159,238 veterans have been awarded service-connected disability by the Department of Veterans Affairs for health effects collectively known as the Gulf War Syndrome.

There have been many studies on Gulf War Syndrome over the years, as well as on possible long-term health hazards of DU munitions. Most have been inconclusive. But some researchers said the previous studies on DU, conducted by groups and agencies ranging from the World Health Organization to the Rand Corp. to the investigative arm of Congress, weren't looking in the right place -- at the effects of inhaled DU.

Dr. Asaf Durakovic, director of the private, non-profit Uranium Medical Research Centre in Canada and the United States, and center research associates Patricia Horan and Leonard Dietz, published a unique study in the August issue of Military Medicine medical journal.

The study is believed to be the first to look at inhaled DU among Gulf War veterans, using the ultrasensitive technique of thermal ionization mass spectrometry, which enabled them to easily distinguish between natural uranium and DU.

The study, which examined British, Canadian and U.S. veterans, all suffering typical Gulf War Syndrome ailments, found that, nine years after the war, 14 of 27 veterans studied had DU in their urine. DU also was found in the lung and bone of a deceased Gulf War veteran.

That no governmental study has been done on inhaled DU "amounts to a massive malpractice," Dietz said in an interview last week.


THE ACTIVIST

Dr. Doug Rokke was an Army health physicist assigned in 1991 to the command staff of the 12th Preventive Medicine Command and 3rd U.S. Army Medical Command headquarters. Rokke was recalled to active duty 20 years after serving in Vietnam, from his research job with the University of Illinois Physics Department, and sent to the Gulf to take charge of the DU cleanup operation.

Today, in poor health, he has become an outspoken opponent of the use of DU munitions.

"DU is the stuff of nightmares," said Rokke, who said he has reactive airway disease, neurological damage, cataracts and kidney problems, and receives a 40 percent disability payment from the government. He blames his health problems on exposure to DU.

Rokke and his primary team of about 100 performed their cleanup task without any specialized training or protective gear. Today, Rokke said, at least 30 members of the team are dead, and most of the others -- including Rokke -- have serious health problems.

Rokke said: "Verified adverse health effects from personal experience, physicians and from personal reports from individuals with known DU exposures include reactive airway disease, neurological abnormalities, kidney stones and chronic kidney pain, rashes, vision degradation and night vision losses, lymphoma, various forms of skin and organ cancer, neuropsychological disorders, uranium in semen, sexual dysfunction and birth defects in offspring.

"This whole thing is a crime against God and humanity."

Speaking from his home in Rantoul, Ill., where he works as a substitute high school science teacher, Rokke said, "When we went to the Gulf, we were all really healthy, and we got trashed."

Rokke, an Army Reserve major who describes himself as "a patriot to the right of Rush Limbaugh," said hearing the latest Pentagon statements on DU is especially frustrating now that another war against Iraq appears likely.

"Since 1991, numerous U.S. Department of Defense reports have said that the consequences of DU were unknown," Rokke said. "That is a lie. We warned them in 1991 after the Gulf War, but because of liability issues, they continue to ignore the problem." Rokke worked until 1996 for the military, developing DU training and management procedures. The procedures were ignored, he said.

"Their arrogance is beyond comprehension," he said. "We have spread radioactive waste all over the place and refused medical treatment to people . . . it's all arrogance.

"DU is a snapshot of technology gone crazy."


BIRTH DEFECTS IN IRAQ

At the Saddam Teaching Hospital in Basra, Dr. Jawad Al-Ali, a British-trained oncologist, displays, in four gaily colored photo albums, what he says are actual snapshots of the nightmares.

The photos represent the surge in birth defects -- in 1989 there were 11 per 100,000 births; in 2001 there were 116 per 100,000 births -- that even before they heard about DU, had doctors in southern Iraq making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

There were photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities went on and on. There also were photos of cancer patients.

Cancer has increased dramatically in southern Iraq. In 1988, 34 people died of cancer; in 1998, 450 died of cancer; in 2001 there were 603 cancer deaths.

On a tour of one ward of the hospital, doctors pointed out boys and girls who were suffering from leukemia. Most of the children die, the doctors said, because there are insufficient drugs available for their treatment.

There was one notable exception, a young boy whose family was able to buy the expensive drugs on the black market.

Al-Ali said it defies logic to absolve DU of blame when veterans of the Gulf War and of the fighting in the Balkans share common illnesses with children in southern Iraq.

"The cause of all of these cancers and deformities remains theoretical because we can't confirm the presence of uranium in tissue or urine with the equipment we have," said Al-Ali. "And because of the sanctions, we can't get the equipment we need."

Irregular Weapons Used Against Iraq April 07, 2003 By Simon Helweg-Larsen

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/10635

Saddam Hussein: A Hero of Islam - III


Virginia F. Raines wrote:

Jack, remember how we were promised that mass graves would prove Hussein's brutality? SEE BELOW.

The Kurds have been victimized in the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War between the US and Iraq, while being exploited as pawns in the continuing effort to remove Saddam Hussein from Iraq. They've been napalmed by the Turkish air force, slaughtered by the Iranian army, attacked and gassed by Iraq's Republican Guard, betrayed by the US and otherwise ignored by the international community.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/


=============================================

Dear Ms. Virginia,

The website i.e. National Security Archive is not valid and vercious of Mr Jack Stone when it narrates the US Connivance with Saddam Hussain even when USA/Great Britain supplies Chemical and other weapons Saddam Hussain to fix Iran, Kurds and others who opposed Saddam. May I ask why these Declassified from the same websites are not acceptable for all and sundry?

Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/




"QUOTE"

March 28, 1988 -- Uses chemical weapons against Kurdish town of Halabja, killing estimated 5,000 civilians.

From Iraq's first use of chemical weapons in 1983, the U.S. took a very restrained view. When the evidence of Iraqi use of these weapons could no longer be denied, the U.S. issued a mild condemnation, but made clear that this would have no effect on commercial or diplomatic relations between the United States and Iraq. Iran asked the Security Council to condemn Iraq's chemical weapons use, but the U.S. delegate to the U.N. was instructed to try to prevent a resolution from coming to a vote, or else to abstain. An Iraqi official told the U.S. that Iraq strongly preferred a Security Council presidential statement to a resolution and did not want any specific country identified as responsible for chemical weapons use. On March 30, 1984, the Security Council issued a presidential statement condemning the use of chemical weapons, without naming Iraq as the offending party.



President Reagan ordered the Defense Department and the CIA to supply Iraq's military with intelligence information, advice, and hardware for battle after being advised to do so by CIA Director William Casey. Former Reagan National Security official Howard Teicher said that Casey "personally spearheaded the effort to insure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war." The U.S. continued to provide thi type of intelligence to Iraq until 1988.



Iraq began using chemical weapons against Iran. By the end of the decade, some 100,000 people would die as a result the chemical warfare waged by the Iraqis . February 1982. The Reagan administration - despite stern objections from Congress- removed Iraq from the U.S. State Department's list of states sponsoring terrorism. This cleared the way for future U.S. military aid to that country. The U.S. State Department reported that Iraq's support of terrorist groups continued unabated. The Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 civilian Hughes helicopters to Iraq, in spite of the fact it was widely understood that the helicopters could be weaponized with little effort. Critics regarded the sale as military aid cloaked as civilian assistance. Secretary of Commerce George Baldridge and Secretary of State George Shultz successfully lobbied the National Security Council (NSC) advisor to approve the sale of 10 Bell helicopters to Iraq in spite of objections from the rest of the NSC. It was officially stated that the helicopters would be used for crop spraying. These same helicopters were later used in 1988 to deploy poison gas against Iranians and possibly the Kurds. Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran increased significantly. The U.S. was informed of Iraq's use of chemical weapons later that year. "Early 80s." Diplomats brought photographs to the United Nations and several national capitals showing the swollen, blistered and burned bodies of injured and dead Iranians who had been victims of Iraqi chemical attacks. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt supplied Iraq with U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons with the secret approval of the Reagan administration. President Reagan personally requested Italian Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to funnel arms to Iraq. Iraq was using mustard gas.


It is not clear if the use of this weapon was known by the U.S. State Department and National Security Agency [Profile] at that time. [CIA Declassified Report ca. 1997] Late 1983. According to the memoirs of then Secretary of State George Shultz, U.S. intelligence began receiving reports that Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran had increased . U.S. State Department official Jonathan T. Howe told Secretary of State George P. Shultz that intelligence reports indicated that Saddam Hussein's troops were resorting to "almost daily use of CW [Chemical Weapons]" against their Iranian adversaries. By the end of 1983, 60 Hughes MD 500 "Defender" helicopters had been shipped to Iraq in spite of objections from four Republican Senators.


U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who at the time was CEO of the pharmaceutical company, Searle, personally met with Saddam Hussein in an attempt to reestablish diplomatic relations with Iraq. Other issues that were discussed included plans for the construction of an Iraq-Jordan oil pipeline to be built by Bechtel and an Israeli offer to help Iraq in its war against Iran. According to a declassified State Department cable, Rumsfeld “conveyed the President’s greetings and expressed his pleasure at being in Baghdad.” Commenting on the meeting, Newsweek noted, "Like most foreign-policy insiders, Rumsfeld was aware that Saddam was a murderous thug who supported terrorists and was trying to build a nuclear weapon. (The Israelis had already bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak.)" Declassified documents revealed that Rumsfeld's trip happened at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran "almost daily" in defiance of international conventions. On September 19, 2002, almost two decades later, Rumsfeld was questioned in Congress about this visit. He stated, "I was, for a period in late '83 and early '84, asked by President Reagan to serve as Middle East envoy after the Marines--241 Marines were killed in Beirut. As part of my responsibilities I did visit Baghdad. I did meet with Mr. Tariq Aziz. And I did meet with Saddam Hussein and spent some time visiting with them about the war they were engaged in with Iran. At the time our concern, of course, was Syria and Syria's role in Lebanon and Lebanon's role in the Middle East and the terrorist acts that were taking place. As a private citizen I was assisting only for a period of months." In his testimony he also denied any knowledge of the role the U.S. would play in helping Iraq develop its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons capabilities. [U.S. Congressional Record: September 20, 2002 (Senate) Page S8987-S8998] 1984.


The CIA secretly provided Iraqi intelligence with instructions on how to "calibrate" its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. The CIA established a direct intelligence link with Iraq. An Iraqi military spokesman warned Iran, "The invaders should know that for every harmful insect, there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it . . . and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide." February 1984. Western journalists reporting on the war between Iraq and Iran verified the use of chemical weapons. 4 p. 76] March 1984. The United Nations dispatched experts to the conflict zone on a mission that documented Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The U.S. State Department reported that "available evidence" indicated Iraq was using "lethal chemical weapons", specifically mustard gas, against Iran. U.S. State Department desk officer, Frank Riccuardone, urged the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with short-term loans "for foreign relations purposes." U.S. intelligence officials claimed to have "incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass-producing the lethal chemical warfare agent" Iran accused Iraq of poisoning 600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas. On that same day, the UPI wire service reported that a team of UN experts had concluded that "Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz." In a memo to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State George Shultz expressed concern that relations with Iraq had soured because of the State Department's March 6 report that Iraq was using chemical weapons. The Reagan administration sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad again. While in Iraq, Rumsfeld discussed the proposed Iraq-Jordan pipeline that was to be built by Bechtel. That same day, a UN investigation reported on Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iraq. "[C]hemical weapons in the form of aerial bombs have been used in the areas inspected in Iraq by the specialists," the report said. During a meeting in Jordan with Iraqi diplomat Kizam Hamdoon, U.S. diplomat James Pecke in Jordan asked that Iraq halt its purchasing of chemical weapons from U.S. suppliers so as not to "embarrass" the U.S. [Institute for Policy Studies, 3/24/03] November 26, 1984. The United States Government re-established full diplomatic ties with Baghdad even though it was fully aware that Iraq was using chemical weapons in its war against Iran. 1985. Christopher Drogoul of the Atlanta branch of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro began embezzling funds to Iraq.


The funds consisted of government backed loans meant for agricultural purposes as well as unreported loans that had been made in secret. While roughly half the funds were used by Saddam Hussein's government to purchase agricultural goods, the remainder was used to "supply Iraqi missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs with industrial goods such as computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods." Additionally, the money spent on agriculture allowed Saddam's regime to divert a significant portion of its own funds to the task of weapons development. Between 1985 and 1989 almost $5 billion made its way to Iraq from the U.S.. Memos obtained by reporters revealed that both the Federal Reserve and Department of Agriculture had suspected that Iraq was using these funds inappropriately. Iraq eventually defaulted on the government-backed loans, leaving U.S. taxpayers with $2 billion dollars in unpaid debts. U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz successfully convinced Rep. Howard Berman to drop a House bill that put Iraq back on the State Department's list of states that sponsor terrorism. Shultz argued that the United States was actively engaged in "diplomatic dialogue on this and other sensitive issues," and asserted that "Iraq has effectively distanced itself from international terrorism." The Secretary of State further claimed that if the U.S. discovered any evidence implicating Iraq in the support of terrorist groups, the U.S. Government "would promptly return Iraq to the list."


In addition to providing satellite photography to Iraq, which revealed the movements of the Iranian forces, the U.S. secretly deployed U.S. Air Force officers to Iraq to assist their counterparts in the Iraqi military as well as “more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency" who secretly provided "detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq.” The U.S. also provided Iraq with intelligence gathered by Saudi-owned AWACS, which were being operated by the Pentagon. The information provided by the U.S. was considered essential to Iraq’s military planning as it resulted in Iraq's improved "accuracy in targeting, hitting Iran's bridges, factories, . . . power plants relentlessly, and . . . Iranian oil terminals in the Lower Gulf." The Central Intelligence Agency authored a then-classified report acknowledging that Iraq was using chemical weapons as an "integral part" of its military strategy and that it was a "regular and recurring tactic." “[T]wo batches of bacillus anthracis - the micro-organism that causes anthrax - were shipped . . . along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum - the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning”- to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. U.S. intelligence learned that Iraq's "Saad 16" research center was attempting to develop ballistic missiles. This information was relayed by the Defense Department’s Under Secretary for Trade Security Policy, Stephen Bryen, to the Commerce Department’s (CD) Assistant Secretary for Trade Administration. In spite of this, the Commerce Department subsequently approved more than $1 million in computer sales to the Iraqi research center over the next four years. In 1991, The House Committee on Government Operations reported that 40% of the equipment at the "Saad 16" research center had come from the U.S. The United Nations dispatched experts to the conflict zone on a mission that documented Iraq's use of chemical weapons.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli was sent to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries with the approval of the U.S. Department of Commerce. U.S. provided Baghdad with $500 million in credits to buy American farm products.

"UNQUOTE"

References:

US-IRAQ RELATIONS

http://www.awostudycenter.com/History/Feb2004/Chronology_US_Iraqi.pdf.

"From Posterboy to Wanted Poster" By KURT NIMMO Going After Qaddafi (Again) 06/25/2004:Copyright (c) 2001-2005 AfricaSpeaks.com

Misconceptions dominate the oil debate By Bassam Fattouh Bassam Fattouh is a lecturer in financial studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Source: The Daily Star

Iran-contra affair, U.S. History AllRefer.com

Bush's Mideast Plan: Conquer and Divide By Eric Margolis December 8, 2002 Global Policy Forum./Toronto Sun.

The Iran-Contra Scandal in Perspective Malcolm Byrne Peter Kornbluh January 26, 1990

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv

International Crisis & Neutrality US Foreign Policy Toward the Iran/Iraq War by FRANCIS A. BOYLE

http://www.counterpunch.org/

Historical Background of the religion of Shiism

http://www.geocities.com/~abdulwahid/ahlibayt/history_of_shiism.html


Saudi Arabia Regional Security

http://countrystudies.us/saudi-arabia/


The war on Iraq: Conceived in Israel By STEPHEN J. SNIEGOSKI

http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/conc_toc.htm


JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY The Iran-Iraq War

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index.html


THE UNITED STATES AND THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR STEPHEN R. SHALOM This is a footnoted version of the article "The United States and the Gulf War," which appeared in _Z_ magazine, Feb. 1990. A revised version appears in my _Imperial Alibis_ (Boston: South End Press, 1993).]

www.zmag.org

Latin America's Dilemma: Otto Reich's Propaganda is Reminiscent of the Third Reich by Tom Turnipseed April 18, 2002

www.zmag.org



Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and civil rights activist in Columbia, South Carolina.




VINNELL CORPORATION and Saudi Arabia.

http://www.ww3report.com/86.html




Saddam Hussein: A Hero of Islam - II

Jack Stone wrote:

No, the US and UK did not supply Iraq with chemical weapons. GERRMANY or France, probably did. This is another fantasy. There were NO weapons of mass destruction given to Iraq by the USA.

Jack Stone
==================================

Dear Mr Jack,

"QUOTE"

Britain's dirty secret by David Leigh and John Hooper

The Guardian, Thursday March 6 2003

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/mar/06/uk.iraq



A chemical plant which the US says is a key component in Iraq's chemical warfare arsenal was secretly built by Britain in 1985 behind the backs of the Americans, the Guardian can disclose. Documents show British ministers knew at the time that the £14m plant, called Falluja 2, was likely to be used for mustard and nerve gas production.

Senior officials recorded in writing that Saddam Hussein was actively gassing his opponents and that there was a "strong possibility" that the chlorine plant was intended by the Iraqis to make mustard gas. At the time, Saddam was known to be gassing Iranian troops in their thousands in the Iran-Iraq war.

But ministers in the then Thatcher government none the less secretly gave financial backing to the British company involved, Uhde Ltd, through insurance guarantees.

Paul Channon, then trade minister, concealed the existence of the chlorine plant contract from the US administration, which was pressing for controls on such exports.

He also instructed the export credit guarantee department (ECGD) to keep details of the deal secret from the public.

The papers show that Mr Channon rejected a strong plea from a Foreign Office minister, Richard Luce, that the deal would ruin Britain's image in the world if news got out: "I consider it essential everything possible be done to oppose the proposed sale and to deny the company concerned ECGD cover".

The Ministry of Defence also weighed in, warning that it could be used to make chemical weapons.

But Mr Channon, in line with Mrs Thatcher's policy of propping up the dictator, said: "A ban would do our other trade prospects in Iraq no good".

The British taxpayer was even forced to write a compensation cheque for £300,000 to the German-owned company after final checks on the plant, completed in May 1990, were interrupted by the outbreak of the Gulf war.

The Falluja 2 chlorine plant, 50 miles outside Baghdad, near the Habbaniya airbase, has been pinpointed by the US as an example of a factory rebuilt by Saddam to regain his chemical warfare capability.

Last month it featured in Colin Powell's dossier of reasons why the world should go to war against Iraq, which was presented to the UN security council.

Spy satellite pictures of Falluja 2 identifying it as a chemical weapons site were earlier published by the CIA, and a report by Britain's joint intelligence committee, published with Tony Blair's imprimatur last September, also focused on Falluja 2 as a rebuilt plant "formerly associated with the chemical warfare programme".

UN weapons inspectors toured the Falluja 2 plant last December and Hans Blix, the chief inspector, reported to the security council that the chemical equipment there might have to be destroyed.

But until now, the secret of Britain's knowing role in Falluja's construction has remained hidden.

Last night, Uhde Ltd's parent company in Dortmund, Germany, issued a statement confirming that their then UK subsidiary had built Falluja 2 for Iraq's chemical weapons procurement agency, the State Enterprise for Pesticide Production.

A company spokesman said: "This was a normal plant for the production of chlorine and caustic soda. It could not produce other products".

The British government's intelligence at the time, as shown in the documents, was that Iraq, which was having increasing difficulty in obtaining precursor chemicals on the legitimate market, intended to use the chlorine as a feedstock to manufacture such chemicals as epichlorohydrin and phosphorous trichloride. These in turn were used to make mustard gas and nerve agents.

Paul Channon, since ennobled as Lord Kelvedon, was last night holidaying on the Caribbean island of Mustique. He issued a statement through his secretary, who said: "He can't object to the story. So he's got no comment."


Here is my translation of the original article of 12-18-02 published in the Taz (die tageszeitung), followed by a link and translation of the supplier list of 12-19-02.

USA CENSORS IRAQ REPORT

Germany and the other non-permanent members of the UN Security Council received only a truncated version of the weapons dossier. Data concerning foreign suppliers of Iraq are missing.

Geneva: The 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council--to which Germany will belong starting in January--have been withheld substantial parts of the Iraqi arms report. All information about the supplies from--and the support of--foreign companies, research labs and governments from the mid-1970's on, related to Iraqi arms programs, have been deleted. The 5 permanent Council members, the USA, Russia, China, France and Great Britain, are aware of this censorship. According to the German Press Agency DPA, it has reduced the 12,00 page report to only 3000 pages.

From information gathered from UN diplomats of 2 of these 5 countries taz learned that the censorship was agreed on primarily upon the urging of the United States. Among the 5 constant members of the Security Council it was the USA that stood out by giving the strongest support to Saddam Hussain's regime by arming it with the means of mass destruction.

The report gives us a complete overview of these supplies for the first time. In particular it names the 24 US companies and when and to whom in Iraq the supplies were delivered. And it makes clear how strongly the Reagan and the first Bush administrations supported the arming of Iraq, from 1980 up to the Gulf conflict of 1990/91. Substantial construction units for the Iraqi nuclear weapon and rocket programs were supplied with permission of the government in Washington. The poison Anthrax for the arming of Iraq with biological weapons stemmed from US laboratories. Iraqi military and armament experts were trained in the US and there received know-how having to do with their domestic arms programs.

According to the estimation of Susan Wright, a US arms-control expert from the University of Michigan, publication of this information would be "especially embarassing for the USA." It would "remind people in the USA of a very dark chapter, which the Bush administration would prefer to forget about." Whether the US had already struck out this information before it made copies for the other 4 permanent Council members continues to be unclear.

Author: Andreas Zumach

Original in German at



Translator: Anu de Monterice



The full list of arms suppliers to Iraq, as published by the taz on 12/19/02, can be found at

http://www.taz.de/pt/2002/12/19/a0080.nf/textdruck



Legend used in this list:

A = nuclear program,

B = bioweapons program,

C = chemical weapons program,

R = rocket program,

K = conventional weapons, military logistics, supplies at the Iraqi

Defense Ministry and the building of military plants.

After the list of US firms are these remarks: "In addition to these 24 companies home-based in the USA are 50 subsidiaries of foreign enterprises which conducted their arms business with Iraq from within the US. Also designated as suppliers for Iraq's arms programs (A, B, C & R) are the US Ministries of Defense, Energy, Trade and Agriculture as well as the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories." (Anu's translation)


US CORPORATIONS

1 Honeywell (R, K)

2 Spectra Physics (K)

3 Semetex (R)

4 TI Coating (A, K)

5 Unisys (A, K)

6 Sperry Corp. (R, K)

7 Tektronix (R, A)

8 Rockwell (K)

9 Leybold Vacuum Systems (A)

10 Finnigan-MAT-US (A)

11 Hewlett-Packard (A, R, K)

12 Dupont (A)

13 Eastman Kodak (R)

14 American Type Culture Collection (B)

15 Alcolac International (C)

16 Consarc (A)

17 Carl Zeiss - U.S (K)

18 Cerberus (LTD) (A)

19 Electronic Associates (R)

20 International Computer Systems (A, R, K)

21 Bechtel (K)

22 EZ Logic Data Systems, Inc. (R)

23 Canberra Industries Inc. (A)

24 Axel Electronics Inc. (A)

Zusätzlich zu diesen 24 Firmen mit Stammsitz USA werden in dem irakischen Rüstungsbericht knapp 50 Tochterfirmen ausländischer Unternehmen aufgeführt, die ihre Rüstungskooperation mit dem Irak von den USA aus betrieben. Außerdem werden die Washingtoner Ministerien für Verteidigung, Energie, Handel und Landwirtschaft sowie die Atomwaffenlaboratorien Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos und Sandia als Zulieferer für Iraks Rüstungsprogramme für A-, B- und C-Waffen sowie für Raketen benannt.

CHINA

1 China Wanbao Engineering Company (A, C, K)

2 Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd (K)

3 China State Missile Company (R)


FRANCE

1 Commissariat a lEnergie Atomique (A)

2 Sciaky (A)

3 Thomson CSF (A, K)

4 Aerospatiale and Matra Espace (R)

5 Cerbag (A)

6 Protec SA (C)

7 Thales Group (A)

8 Societé Général pour les Techniques Nouvelles (A)


GREAT BRITAIN

1 Euromac Ltd-Uk (A)

2 C. Plath-Nuclear (A)

3 Endshire Export Marketing (A)

4 International Computer Systems (A, R, K)

5 MEED International (A, C)

6 Walter Somers Ltd. (R)

7 International Computer Limited (A, K)

8 Matrix Churchill Corp. (A)

9 Ali Ashour Daghir (A)

10 International Military Services (R) (im Besitz des brit. Verteidigungsministeriums)

11 Sheffield Forgemasters (R)

12 Technology Development Group (R)

13 International Signal and Control (R)

14 Terex Corporation (R)

15 Inwako (A)

16 TMG Engineering (K)

17 XYY Options, Inc (A)


USSR-RUSSIA

1 Soviet State Missile Co. (R)

2 Niikhism (R)

3 Mars Rotor (R)

4 Livinvest (R)

5 Russia Aviatin Trading House (K)

6 Amsar Trading (K)

Weitere Länder


JAPAN

1 Fanuc (A)

2 Hammamatsu Photonics KK (A)

3 NEC (A)

4 Osaka (A)

5 Waida (A)


NETHERLANDS

1 Melchemie B.V. (C)

2 KBS Holland B.V. (C)

3 Delft Instruments N.V. (K)


BELGIUM

1 Boehler Edelstahl (A),

2 NU Kraft Mercantile Corporation (C),

3 OIP Instrubel (K),

4 Phillips Petroleum (C)

5 Poudries Réunies Belge SA (R)

6 Sebatra (A),

7 Space Research Corp. (R)


SPAIN

1 Spanien: Donabat (R)

2 Treblam (C)

3 Zayer (A)


SWEDEN

1 ABB (A)

2 Saab-Scania (R)

"UNQUOTE"

Saddam Hussein: A Hero of Islam - I

Jack Stone wrote:

Well, one newspaper article does not make it true, but this has nothing to do with the USA. Note how the article says "BEHIND THE BACK OF THE USA" -- the USA knew nothing about it.

=============================================================

Dear Mr Jack,

Would you like to throw some light on this 'UNAWARENESS' of the USA?

"QUOTE"

Never mind that forty years ago, the CIA, under President John F. Kennedy, orchestrated a regime change in Baghdad. In 1963, after a successful coup, the Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq. Using lists provided by the CIA, the new Ba'ath regime systematically eliminated hundreds of doctors, teachers, lawyers, and political figures known to be leftists. An entire intellectual community was slaughtered. (The same technique was used to massacre hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia and East Timor.) The young Saddam Hussein was said to have had a hand in supervising the bloodbath. In 1979, after factional infighting within the Ba'ath Party, Saddam Hussein became the President of Iraq. In April 1980, while he was massacring Shias, the U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi declared, "We see no fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United States and Iraq." Washington and London overtly and covertly supported Saddam Hussein.


They financed him, equipped him, armed him, and provided him with dual-use materials to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. They supported his worst excesses financially, materially, and morally. They supported the eight-year war against Iran and the 1988 gassing of Kurdish people in Halabja, crimes which 14 years later were re-heated and served up as reasons to justify invading Iraq. After the first Gulf War, the "Allies" fomented an uprising of Shias in Basra and then looked away while Saddam Hussein crushed the revolt and slaughtered thousands in an act of vengeful reprisal. It was Herman Goering, that old Nazi, who said, "People can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.… All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." He's right. It's dead easy. That's what the Bush regime banks on. The distinction between election campaigns and war, between democracy and oligarchy, seems to be closing fast. [1]


"QUOTE"

As a most influential associate of Hasan al-Bakr, Iraq's former president (1968-79), Saddam cleverly installed his men in sensitive positions who later helped him in taking over the reins of government in 1979. Soon, he swiftly and ruthlessly eliminated the elements that were not expected to give unquestionable allegiance to him. A state that was dynastic and patriarchal in character further became an exclusive domain of small circle of intimates, linked by networks of tribal alliance and advantage, difficult for anyone to penetrate. Kurds comprising 19 per cent and Shiites 60 per cent of the populace became outcasts. A personality cult was created portraying him as a father of the nation, besides introducing various national institutions to sustain national myths. Iraq's attack on Iran in 1980 was used to divert people's attention from these internal developments. Though the war had a huge economic impact, Saddam became Arab regimes' darling for fighting a "radical" Shiite state.

As a reward, he received a $40 billion loan from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Profiting from the on-going US-Iran confrontation, he also received modern weaponry from US. These contributing factors raised Saddam's stature not only in Iraq but also in other Arab states. Our own General Mirza Aslam Beg was also a "victim" of this charisma. This is also precisely the reason why he sustained politically despite a comprehensive defeat in the 1991 Gulf war.

In the aftermath of the war, Kurds and Shiites threatening his power base were brutally crushed through the use of chemical weapons. This indirectly further strengthened the powerful elite comprising Saddam's own tribe, military hierarchy and Republican Guards as the "outcasts" now became the enemies of State. He also artfully convinced Iraqi public that the economic hardships due to UN sanctions are a result of Iraq's defiance to US imperialism, improving his leadership credentials. In this perspective, it is difficult to understand how come Saddam's military and Republican Guards are ready to rise up against him, being the major beneficiaries of the system. So long as Saddam is alive, they will never ditch him. They know fairly well that the post-Saddam Iraq will be a very difficult place for them.A better way of framing the issue is to focus on Saddam's track record of crimes against humanity and use of chemical and biological weapons against Kurds and Iranians.

SADDAM HUSSEIN AND IRAQ:

"During 1990 when London Observer featured a special investigative report suggesting that Bush Senior had encouraged Iraqi Dictator to attack Kuwait. According to the Observer, Bush sent a secret envoy to meet with one of Saddam's top officials. The envoy told the Dictator's Confidant "that Iraq should engineer higher oil prices to get it out of its dire economic fix ,". The story appeared nowhere that one ever saw in American Media". Saddam took the envoy's advice, moving his troops to the border of Kuwait. U.S. Ambassador to Baghdad April Glaspie told Saddam,"We dont have an opinion on inter-Arab border disputes such as your border dispute with Kuwait". The evidence suggests that US complicity with Saddam went far beyond miscalculation of the Iraqi leader's intentions," wrote Observer reporter Helga Graham. The leaked documents on which she based her piece "have built up a picture of active support for the US President." The story after year a half later appeared in alternative media outlets like The Village Voice, finally penetrated the big-time dailies with a Los Angeles Times report on the Bush/Saddam lovefest.

"In the fall of 1989, at a time when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only nine months away and Saddam Hussein was desperate for money to buy arms," journalists like Murray Waas and Douglas Frantz wrote, "President Bush signed a Top-Secret National Security Decision Directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for $ 1 Billion in new aid". The Waas-Frantz exclusive revealed a pattern of Bush's support for Saddam dating back to Bush's vice presidential days and running practically until the moment of Iraq's invasion. "As late as July 1990, one month before Iraqi troops stormed into Kuwait city, officials at the National Security Council and the State Department were pushing to deliver the second installment of the $ 1 Billion in loan guarantee," the article said. Two years before the invasion, at a time when (according to Waas's reporting) Bush would have been meeting with Iraqi Ofiicals and pressuring American Banks to fork over money for Saddam, Peter Dale Scott wrote an article for Pacific News Service detailing Bush's role in an International Oil-Price rigging scheme.

The story was named one of the year's ten best "Censored" stories by "Project Censored," an annual competition to recognize important stories that the big media skip, spike, or suppress. On the sands of Saudi Arabia, the petroleum president was at work once more. After the conflict began in earnest in January 1991- more a one-sided assault than a "war," really-more information started to seep out. The silence of the American Media with regard to anything but "stories" and "smart bombs" was stupefying. But had they paid attention they could have picked up on the type of information contained in Secret Dossier, a book by highly respected foreign correspondents Pierre Salinger and French journalist Eric Laurent. Salinger and Laurent took a matter of fact tone and were clearly reliant on Jordan's King Hussein as a source (the often startling allegations in the book also beg the question of why Salinger, one of ABC's top overseas reporters, didnt report the stuff on his network). Nonetheless a little reading between the lines illuminated "The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War" (the book's subtitle).

Salinger and Laurent's infromation, though it hardly proves that the Kuwaitis prodded Into attacking at the behest of their American protectors, does seem to support the hypothesis.The invasion of Kuwait could have been averted at a peace conference in late July 1990, Secret Dossier reports. Iraq would have been mollified if Kuwait met it requests for a $ 10 Billion loan to cover expenses in the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam felt he owed something for staving off the spread of Iranian-style Islamic Fundamentalism.

Kuwaiti's answer was more like taunt than a refusal. "After much discussion the [Kuwaiti] Crown Prince agreed, in principle, to a loan of $ 9 Billion," Salinger and Laurent report. "His refusal to grant the extra $ 1 Billion struck the Iraqis as a deliberate attempt to humiliate them." No problem, said the oil-bloated Saudis, who were more than mildly interested in assuaging the livid Saddam and preventing an invasion. We'll kick in the extra billion. But just when the difficulty appeared resolved, the Kuwaitis pulled another fast one. "We must decide on the exact demarcation of our borders," the Crown Prince told the Iraqis. Without warning, he'd raised the sorest issue between the two nations. A piece of paper dated November 22, 1989, seized from the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry by pillaging Iraqis, seemed to indicate a complicated situation. The internal Kuwaiti Memo reported a meeting between a high Kuwaiti official and the CIA-which was confirmed by the CIA though it scoffed at the document as a phony.

At that meeting, the memo said, the CIA urged Kuwait to "pressure" Iraq into settling the border dispute. George Bush's administration and military were ready for action when Iraq rolled into Kuwait. Too ready, perhaps? Just a week before the invasion the army ran through a stimulated Middle East Operation called "War Flag'90". In the War Game, despite that real war seemed imminent in that region , Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell omitted names of the various Gulf States from the game map and redrew borders to disguise the nations involved. "Exceptional tact," declares Salinger, with a possible touch of sarcasm. Bush was his manipulative self in the early days of the crisis, playing Arab nations against each other. He told Jordan that the United States would do nothing for forty eight hours, then turned around and, through the State Department, sent a threatening message to Egypt.

Take a "firm stand" against the invasion or Egypt will "no longer be able to count on America." At the United Nations, Bush threw money at some and bullied others to build his "coalition, " legitimizing what might otherwise appear to be another episode of American swashbuckling. "Yemen's ambassador was informed that his would be "the most expensive no vote you ever cast, " if that country balked at the US backed "use of force" resolution, reports a radio journalist who covered the proceedings. What was the reason behind this Gulf War? As per former Watergate investigator Scott Armstrong.

There is a $ 200 billion secret agreement between the USA and Saudi Arabia, Armstrong documented, assuring a permanent US military presence in the Middle East through a staggering program of covert base-building. The deal, says Armstrong, creates a "pre-troops and (fresh) water." However,, it also ties the US Military to the Saudi Monarchy because if the Royal Family loses power the big bucks deal is blown. "Earlier versions of these agreements had set the stage for US intervention in the Persian Gulf War, probably making it inevitable, " wrote Armstrong. And More ominous: "These secret agreements. . . make US involvement in future Middle East conflicts unavoidable." On January 16, 1991, Bush ordered a massive bombing attack against Iraq. In the ensuing saturation media coverage of the war, mentions of the Glaspie green-light to Saddam Hussein cropped up in passing but by and large there was little discussion of US policy toward prior to the conflict.

An American newspaper Metro ran a piece by Village Voice reporter Murray Waas detailing how Glaspie's attitude toward Iraq's "border dispute" with Kuwait was hardly an anomaly. In the months leading up to the invasion, administration officials repeatedly swore off use of force against Iraq. Secretary of State James Baker even went so far to offer what sounded like a rationalization for Iraqi use of chemical weapons. He reported to a Senate Committee Saddam Hussein's explanation that chemical weapons were his only deterrent against Nuclear attack. "I am not taking sides," said Baker-an astonishing statement in light of events that followed. "I am just stating that. Another story ran by Metro was about as to how Silicon Valley 's original high tech company, Hewlett-Packard, sold computers to Iraq knowing that they would be used in ballistic missiles development. Numerous US companies , the article reported, sold military technology to Iraq right up until the international embargo came down after the invasion of Kuwait.


German corporations were far worse offenders. Those companies under the jurisdiction of America's close ally were directly responsible for Iraq's chemical weapon-making ability. Was Bush deliberately trying to get the US into a war, to satisfy yet another cryptic agenda? Waas wrote off the Bushian pro-Iraq stance as a diplomatic blunder, albeit one of history's worst. Perhaps so. The Vietnam war was half a decade old when the Pentagon Papers leaked out to confirmwhat a sizeable segment of the country suspected: the administration's public reasons for throwing the countryinto that war were simply sham. Perhaps someday a "Pentagon Papers II" will appear, exposing how the country was fooled into the Persian Gulf War.


Whatever the reasons for risking thousands of Ameircan lives (and taking thousands of Iraqi lives, including innumerable civilians that includes 500,000 Iraqi children) Bush.Sr. managed the war propaganda well (as his son Bush Jr. doing in Afghanistan). The press was as it is now in Afghanistan, tightly controlled and seem to accept its bitter medicine with disturbing calm. Meanwhile, Bush beaten away on his theme of us against him, Saddam Hussein as now in Afghanistan and again in Iraq but this time by Bush Jr. When one goes through a database of Newspaper Articles from the year 1987 through mid 1990, the single largest subheading in Bush. Sr's entry was "Investigations." In time his life and career will be the subject of hundreds of books. As a Kissinger protege, Nixon stooge, oil baron, CIA agent, Reaganite, Trilateralist, invader of foreign countries, coddler of fascisits, family friend of a brainwashed assassin, president of the United States, and member of a secret society, there is no realm of conspiracy theory that cannot find a comfortablespot for George Bush. Sr. He is an embodiment of conspiracy. Maybe some of those future books will show that those eccentric, incredible theories were tinged with the flavour of truth, and the part he played in reshaping Ameirca will be illuminated a little bit brighter.

"UNQUOTE"

References/Notes:

1 - Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free) by Arundhati Roy Presented in New York City at The Riverside Church May 13, 2003 Published on Sunday, May 18, 2003 by CommonDreams.org Copyright 2003 by Arundhati Roy {1}

http://www.cesr.org/


Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free), by Arundhati Roy {1}

http://cesr.org/arundhatiroytranscript



Transcript of full speech by Arundhati Roy in San Francisco, California on August 16th, 2004. Copyright 2004 Arundhati Roy. For permission to reprint contact arnove@igc.org


2 - Conspiracies, Cover-ups and Crimes by Jonathan Vankin by Dell Publishing, New York.


3 - "Project Censored" by Peter Dale Scott and Craig Mc Laughlin, Syracuse New Times.


4 - The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War by Salinger and Laurent.


5 - How America Lost Kuwait by Murray Waas, San Jose Metro.


6 - "The H-P Connection" Jonathan Vankin.


7 - The Israeli Secret Secret Service by Richard Deacon published by Hamish Hamilton in Great Britain.


8 - Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987 by Bob Woodward published by Pocket Books.


9 - An Afghanistan Primer: The Good, the Bad and the...VERY Bad by Eric Margolis.


10 - 13 Questions for Bush about America's Anti-terrorism Crusade Martin A. Lee, AlterNet September 28, 2001Martin A. Lee (martinalee17@yahoo.com) is the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens.



11 - Annals of National Security King's Ransom, How vulnerable are the Saudi royals? By Seymour M. Hersh dated 2001-10-22.


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?011022fa_FACT1




12 - Some thoughts for America's hawks By Hasan Abbas, Encounters Daily Dawn Karachi-Pakistan.