You have to give Defense Secretary Rumsfeld this credit: he's a risk taker, and he's very 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.
Added Comment:
It is a reported fact that Iraq was supplied the "weapons of mass destruction"
for use against Iran.
It is also a fact but not so widely reported that 1) Iraq used these weapons
on Iranians and the incidence of Gassing Kurds resulted as a result of faulty
intelligence, where the Iranians had taken over a Kurdish village when the Kurds
had moved out, the Kurds had retaken the village and moved back in when the
gas attack was mounted killing Kurds as oppose to killing Iranians.
It is also a fact that Saddam sought and got US approval for his attack on Kuwait.
An attack made as a result of Kuwait stealing massive amounts of Iraqi Oil by
drilling at an angle under the border between the two Countries.
It is also a fact that the claim that Iraqi solders were tipping babies out
of their humicribs in a Kuwait Hospital was a total fabrication
The US lied in 1990s and is lying today. History is, today your are an ally
tomorrow you are an enemy. There is one solution, each country in the world
must adopt total neutrality and the will and ability to defend its territory.
Nation v Nation arguments must be settled by fair, supervised negotiations.
The UN has proved to be worse than useless, which is dangerous. The world has
seen no peace under the UN.
We do not have a choice we declare neutrality or accept a world dictatorship
with people like Bush and worse, if that is possible,in total control. Remember
power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Regards, Joe Bryant.
Steven Green lives in Berlin, Vermont. He can be reached at: sjgreen@sover.net
http://www.counterpunch.org/green02242003.html