US Knew Iraq was Using Chemical Weapons Against Iran

Whoa indeed....but I am not surprised.

Reagan was soooooo shady. Deals with the pope, helping drug dealers in central america.....but hey, wasnt it fun to have him as the Prez....

 

Yeah that Pope is so shady. sheesh.

This is disturbing...but it was a much different time in the world. Iran had kidnapped Americans and sponsored a rash of hijackings. I'm not saying that it is a justification...but the feeling at the time was the ends justify the means. It was the me first 1980s afterall.

 

Color me stupid. I'd like to know exactly why chemical weapons are so much worse than non-chemical weapons. I'd also, of course, like to know why we arm the hell out of Iraq so they can fight Iran and then send troops to war with Iraq because they are armed.... With arms we gave or sold them. Will this ever end? Probably not. Or at least probably not until the American electorate pays any attention at all to anything other than personality or "character." (And, man, should THAT word be banned from electoral politics.)

Refman asked in the other Iraq thread if people would condone action against Iraq if they had, and were prepared to share, chemical weapons, since the nuclear weapon thing seems to have fallen away. Here's my answer, Ref. Absolutely ****ing not. Got a problem with it? Talk to the people who made it all possible -- your very own party bosses.

Aside from dealing with its own borders and its own citizens, Iraq has not deployed or shared chemical weapons with anyone, to the best of our collective knowledge. They may have them, yes. Like we have nukes. And they may threaten to use them, if they are threatened, as we do with nukes. And none of that justifies a preemptive strike. Why? Because they are currently using them as defensive deterrents. The same way we use our weapons of mass destruction. Does anyone here feel our country is so morally superior to any other that we should be the only country granted that right?

Of COURSE we were okay with whatever Iraq did against Iran. There is a very strong argument we were even for whatever Iraq did against Kuwait (see: Where is April Glaspie). Our politics are cynical and they work because our electorate is ignorant. It's too complicated to understand what's really going on, so we talk about moral imperatives and new Hitlers and character. And, believe it or not, it actually works.

The people who wring their hands over how much worse chemical death is than death by bullets or bombs are the exact same people who don't understand why hate crime murders are worse than other murders. Can't have it both ways.

It was okay when we shared an enemy in Iran and it's not now? Why? How ****ing arrogant are we in this country? I thought Bush was supposed to be running AGAINST military arrogance. Turns out, like so many of us thought, he was lying on that too. Just like his fantasies of tax cuts and the maintenance of the surplus somehow co-existing. Has even one thing this guy ran on come true? I mean, even just one.

If anyone at all is offended by the cynicism this article demonstrates, I have just one recommendation: Grow up. The demonization of various countries, coupled with our arming of the self-same countries whenever it suits us, and the way they constantly overlap and switch is as American as apple pie. Both parties are guilty of this outrageous cynicism, but the Republicans (most especially Reagan/Bush) made it a ****ing art form.

Flame away, righties. But don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

 

It's a whole lot harder for me to take out 10,000 people with a gun than it is with an explosive devise loaded with sarin gas. That's the difference. It is a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION (emphasis on MASS).

I have tried to be diplomatic about this but now I'm going to put it painfully clearly. Saddam hates us and our allies. Very few people have argued against the notion that when he acquires nukes that he will use them. A staggering percentage of the populace believes that he will use them. Even Nostradamus predicted that the third antichrist would come out of the Middle East. I don't necessarily believe in Nostradamus as a prophet, but it is interesting to point out. The pain and anger I felt from watching the events on 9/11 will never leave me so long as I draw breath. I'm not willing to go through that again with mustard gas being unleashed in downtown LA or some equivalent act so that people will "feel better" about an attack on Iraq. If in order to prevent such an attack the intelligence shows we must take out Saddam then so ****ing be it. Some problems are difficult to solve, but when push comes to shove sometimes you have to have the Spaldings to get the job done...something the Dems have shown a unique ineptitude for. There it is...flame away. I probably deserve it.

When exactly did the Republicans give Saddam chemical weapons? I missed that in the article.

Chemical weapons attacks against the Kurds is defensive exactly how?

Closer to a new Stalin in actuality.

We are talking about attacking them to disrupt a weapons program that consists of items we never gave them. We never gave them the capability for weapons of mass destruction. To say we did is inaccurate.

It's not even the same argument. As an aside, I wrote a few pages about hate crimes that I'd be more than willing to send to you for your amusement.

That is a bipartisan phenomenon. Gore made a career out of obfuscating the issues.

Show me that Bush knew all of these events were going to unfold and I'll agree that he lied. What is really unfair is that should another attack be perpetrated on this country and it turns out that Iraq provided the means...the Dems will hammer Bush for not preventing it. He's got LOTS of options.

He'd be handling this SO much better. The Dems have shown no aptitude for handling the military. Remember when Clinton just handed the US military over to the UN? Our servicepeople had a UN flag swen to their uniforms. That's REAL leadership though...right?

I understand that you don't like Bush and we'll never agree on that. But the accusations made in this thread are speculative at best and a fabrication at worst. Which is it, I don't know. It's probably somewhere in the middle as is the case with most things.

BTW...let's assume the whole damned thing is true. I seriously doubt that it could have been done without the aid of a single Dem. Both houses were controlled by Dems at the time and you know as well as I do that if something this convoluted were to have happened the Dem leadership would have caught wind of it and acquiesed. To villify one party for something our entire governement did is just not an accurate assessment of reality.

 

You didn't, it was an embellishment.

 

I agree that it is a real problem. The fact is that in the Middle East the country causing the most problems changes from moment to moment. In the early 1980s there is no question that Iran was a huge problem for us...so we funded Iraq. Now Iran has gotten a new regime after the death of Khomeni, and they have been pretty quiet. Now, ironically, it is Iraq threatening the stability of the region, our security and the security of our allies. We funded the Afghans due to our notion that we needed to help all people stave off communism. Sadly the result of the war was internal strife that landed them the Taliban....the rest is history.

What I really have a problem with is that certain people act as though this is strictly a Republican problem. That's absurd. Both parties have involved themselves in this. Congress (at the time Dem controlled) has to approve any and all monetary appropriations. To think that Reagan could just sneak million under the radar is ridiculous.

 

It is not really wise to equate Gore with Clinton in regards to military policy. Keep in mind that for years Gore was never a serious Dem candidate because he was so pro-military.

I didn't vote for the guy, nor would I ever, but his military expertise is light years beyond Clinton and Bush Jr. combined.

In regards to the article that started this thread...this has been known for some time...it is nothing really new.

 

Lol, his shadiness was also the reason why Kennedy had to practically swear an oath to the flag, Bible, etc, that the Pope would not be running the country if he were to win.

 

Didn't I see the Pope wearing a trenchcoat and hat meeting at midnight in a dark parking garage with RC Solcum?

 

Now, if every american could know this and understand this, would the country be the same?

 

Actually Reagan's administration did go behind Congress' back to fund the contras. In fact they also sold weapons to Iran to do it. It looks like they were selling to both sides. If they did one without Congress' knowledge why couldn't they have done both? While both parties have done wrong in foreign policy, it doesn't mean that the prinicple party guilty at the time shouldn't take the hits. IMO Reagan's whole support of former dictators in latin America, mining Nicaragua's harbor, actually going against Congress to fund the Contras, selling arms to terrorist regimes like Iran, and now supporting the use of chemical weapons by Iraq is dispicable.

You are correct had Reagan's administration acted legally they would have had congress' approval for some of these things. But as history has shown us, acting with legality wasn't top on the Reagan administrations priority list.

Actually the military seems to have done well under Clinton. They've performed excellently, and seemed up to the task for the Afghanistan job.

I will fault Dems for their military policy as well. Bombing the Asprin factory by Clinton was incredibly wrong. Carter helping out the regime in El Salvador was horrible as well. Funding govts. that use death squads and kill nuns seem horrible to me.

 

Refman: Bombs are weapons of mass destruction, too. So are nukes. The more we find out about the cynical nature of our government's foreign policy, the closer we get to giving up the right as the world's moral compass to be the one of the only countries allowed to maintain weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam's past treatment of the Kurds is not grounds for a present invasion. If it were, we'd have to go after other countries as well. My point here was that Saddam has not used weapons of mass destruction against us or our allies, except when they were under attack by the US, at which time they used Scuds they had bought from us to bomb Israel. We reserve the right to maintain weapons of mass destruction for defensive purposes. Saddam is a bad man, I agree, but what's different about him saying he'll use such weapons if attacked?

I'd also like to add Noriega to the list of 'dangerous madmen' that we'd supported, armed, shared intelligence with and lent comfort to before coming to the world's rescue by taking out the monster we'd created. As Bill Hicks pointed out, we're like James Coburn in The Gunfighter, tossing the gun to the shepard's feet. "Pick up the gun..." "I don't wanna pick up the gun, mister. You'll shoot me." "Pick up the gun..." The shepard picks up the gun, Coburn shoots the shepard and says, "You all saw him... He had a gun..."

I was drunk and pissed off when I posted before, and my post was unnecessarily partisan. Frankly, I've disagreed with both parties' foreign policy, many times. But Bush is going back on his foreign policy campaign promises, in every possible way. When that happens, when Reagan lies to Congress to conduct his own secret war, when we secretly condone chemical weapons while publically condemning them, I get really pissed off about how much our government lies to us as to how, when and why thousands of civilians (as well as American soldiers) die at the hands of madmen we've befriended with weapons we gave or sold them, all the while assuming moral superiority over the rest of the world. Jeff's right. It's no wonder we're hated in that region and elsewhere. Our arrogance is astounding. If Bush goes forward with this thing, without international support, he will break new records in this regard.

Again, I aplogize for my very partisand post, but most of these things have happened under Republican presidents. When my favorite right wing poster comes on to say it's really not a big deal, even though he is otherwise extremely concerned about chem weapons, it is frustrating. People from both parties should be pissed about this.

Finally, it always blows my mind when people say "Thank goodness Bush is president during 9/11, etc..." Like Gore would have rolled over. As FranchiseBlade said above, Gore has always been considered terrifically hawkish. And I really doubt he would have allowed this most recent embarassing split on Iraq to have occurred. Dislike Gore, distrust him, disagree, hate him if you have to (I don't particularly like him myself), but don't insinuate he would have handled the last year's events less efficiently or with less force than Bush. It is also important to remember that not one single thinking person has ever postulated that Gore was less studied or less intelligent on foreign policy than Bush. Gore's written books on it. Bush had never in his life even visited a foreign country until he was running for president. Yeah. Thank goodness Bush is in charge. Gore woulda been horrible.

 

Read the quote from the senior defense intelligence officer at the time, someone who was there and is not a "source", Col. Lang... "This use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern... the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the Iraqi struggle for survival."

I'm not naive. I realize that nations have to do things to advance their foreign policy that can be distasteful and sometimes immoral. That they have to deal with regimes who not only aren't their friends, but who might normally be seen as enemies in order to achieve their national interests.

But poison gas! We and the other combatants in WWII managed to get through the worst war in history without resorting to it's use. (don't throw the Nazi death camps at me... I'm talking about military against military) I'm astonished that we would assist ANYONE that we knew were going to use that information to deploy gas on the battlefield. And apparently we knew.

 

Since this seems like the best thread for Iran-Iraq stories..........

<A HREF="http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2002/august/08_19_1.html">IRAN DOES NOT RULE OUT MISSILES TO IRAQ</A>

<i>
LONDON [MENL] -- Iran has agreed to examine an Iraqi request to supply Baghdad with intermediate-range missiles and combat aircraft.

Western intelligence sources said Iran and Iraq have agreed to establish a committee to discuss the request by President Saddam Hussein for the Shihab-3 intermediate-range missiles as well as up to 100 aircraft. The sources said the Iranian agreement to consider Baghdad's request comes amid rapidly improving relations between the two countries.

"Iran won't do anything that is rash," a senior Western intelligence analyst said. "But the mere fact that Iran did not say no to the Iraqi request is significant and reflects how far their relations have developed."

The Iranian side of the proposed panel would be represented by Gen. Mohammed Baqer Zolqadr, deputy commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The sources said the Iranians want the panel to examine ways to ensure that any weapons supplied by Teheran would not be used against the Islamic regime.
</i>

 

It is no longer necessary to triangulate. That is the definatative change then/now. I would think the U.S. can and should remove these troublesome bad actors and cut a hegemony deal with Russia for pipeline rights. All the boo hoo about soveriegnty and religion is a red herring. If the Saudi's, Mubarak, Assad or any other dicatator wants to cry about it, tough sh@#. Put this target on, please. You're next.

 

You'll never take out an entire city with a conventional bomb. With a nuke you will. WMD are typically nukes, chemical and biological weapons. The international community has outlawed the use of chemical and biological weapons due to this fact.

You'll have to instruct the rest of the Western world too.

We have...see Slobodan Milosevic....see Somalia...etc etc etc

Bush is currently studying the intelligence...he has said he has not made up his mind on military action on Iraq (he said it yesterday)...if we do he will have a clear explanation as to why to give the public...and he will have an exit strategy. How is that different than what he promised? I'll agree that if he goes in without explanation and without an exit startegy that I would be very disappointed.

Are you sure you're not confusing us with the French?

It's all good brother.

Are you talking about me? If so thank you very much.
You know that you are my favorite lib on the BBS.
I do think it's a big deal. I also know that the worlds was a vastly different place and fear makes strange bedfellows. The thing that really bothers me is if Congress was bypassed. We are a nation of laws...not a nation of men.

Nope...but we'd still be seeking UN approval. In recent years the Dems haven't taken a crap overseas without UN permission.

THIS happened under a Republican president. I assure you that the Dems have done things that would make us both shudder when in the White House as well. We won't know for 20 years what crazy stuff may have happened in the Clinton White House.

I'm one of them. He understands the issues but he acts in a fundamentally different way than would I. I know Gore is a smart guy...I just don't agree with him. It doesn't make him stupid...just wrong in my book. On the other side, while Bush will never be accused of being the world's greatest orator, he isn't stupid either.

I think that Bush genuinely cares about this country and tries to act in accordance. Sometimes he hits and sometimes he misses. The fact is just by being President right now he has walked into a hornet's nest that I don't think I could do any better than he has in. I think after an intellectual assessment you'll agree. All of that being said...Bush needs to make his case should he decide that action needs to be taken in Iraq.

 

Just a few minor points:

We did not ever *condone* Saddam's use of CBW against the Iranians (or the Kurds, for that matter). We knew we were dealing with a bad guy from day one - ever since Saddam killed his mentor and started building nuclear facilities that were capable of producing weapons-grade radioactives.

Re: Conventional arms -

During the Iran-Iraq war we gave the Iraqis alot of $$$ and we gave them satellite intelligence - both of which made a huge difference in their achieving a stalemate with the Iranians. Who, I remind you, were trying to spread radical Islam throughout the Gulf region, and who were consequently much greater - and more immediate - enemies at the time. If you want to bit*h at someone for giving them equipment, then point the finger at the French, Russians, and Chinese - curiously, the same factions who want to reopen economic/diplomatic ties with Saddam (and rearm Iraq). But if you want to bit*h at someone for giving them intelligence assets and money (both of which allowed a small Iraq to battle a large Iran), then point the finger at yourself - us.

The Iraqis do not own - and never did - any actual US arms. We did not give them a single tank, APC, AIFV, artillery piece, SAM, AD gun, etc - all of it was intelligence info and $$. Which is far more valuable than tanks and rockets, especially when it comes in the form of detailed satellite photos...

Re: Chemical / Biological weapons -

It is true that the Iraqis gained their anthrax strain from a US research lab, but an often ignored detail in that matter is that they obtained the original samples from a civilian research company that specialized in culturing samples that were intended to be sent to universities worldwide (and I do mean worldwide - it ended up in many countries) for research purposes. The Iraqis didn't get it from Ft. Detrick, as many conspiracy buffs would have you believe... If I had a letter of request with a bona-fide university letterhead then I could have ordered a sample (as the Iraqis did), and no one would have asked any questions - there were virtually no controls placed on such transfers until the Clinton admin - one thing he did right. But it wasn't a conspiracy; no one ever really noticed the inherent threat in letting civilian research companies sending out samples without stringent controls. I know it seems stupid now (it was), but no one was concerned about bioterrorism 25 years ago... Just a different age.

We weren't concerned with such issues 12 years ago either. It wasn't until we started looking at Iraq's chemical/nuclear apparatus that we began to discover the extent of their biowarfare programs. At the time, we were just coming to the dim realization that the Russians (who had been called "Soviets" only months previously) that the "biowarfare threat" even surfaced in anybody's minds. We thought we were dealing with some chemicals, a possible nuke or two, and 100 or so SCUDs to put them on.

You could say that as soon as we started tearing apart Iraq's weapons programs - that's when we first started thinking about bioterrorism on a large scale (although a Russian defector by the name of Ken Alibekov gave us strong warnings before). It was also when we started wondering what a rogue state could really do...

There were over 1,000,000 chem/bio alerts triggered in the 1991 Gulf War. Many of them could be accounted for, some could not. Analysis of patterns showed that Saddam actually used such weapons - at least nerve agents - against us. Yes, he actually fired friggen' poison gas at us then, it just didn't work (because the troops that went in Desert Storm were in full MOPP IV gear, which is full chem/bio gear).

They also found that Iraq was possibly less than 1 month away from achieving a nuclear device. They apparently had the nuclear material...

As far as the Iraqis' chemical weapons programs go - thank the Germans for that. Those damn IG's... Just business to them. Besides, every chemistry major knows how to throw together a half-decent nerve or blister agent. We didn't give it to them. We have never given any WMD to anyone (even the Israeli nukes are not American, as so many seem to believe - they are based originally on a French design).

The inspectors were kicked out in 1998. The 'Desert Fox' operation achieved none of its objectives, aside from killing a few totally innocent cleaning ladies, and briefly damaging the Iraqi Central Military Command structure (all of which they have rebuilt with funds from the "oil for food" deal - little food is actually bought under that program).

---------------------------------------------------

Yes, we knew that Saddam had chemical weapons. Yes, we knew that he had a biowarfare program (although we had no idea how advanced it was...). We also knew that he was a bad guy, and that he might end up using chems in his war against the Iranians. Did we really care? Honestly, No - as long as it wasn't widespread. As long as he only used them to turn an important battle here or there, and not in any large quantities - hell, who cares? What difference is that in the scale of things, when more people would be killed in other, more important battles by conventional means (bullets and explosives)? Hell, why should we have really cared if he used a touch of VX here and a touch of Sarin there, as long as he didn't spread it all over the place?

We didn't know that it would become a pattern. We certainly f*ked up there. We underestimated his propensity to use WMD - we thought along the lines of "Well, he'll just do it this one time..."

We were wrong.

Taken in the context of the US-Iran conflict - which was very real during the 80s (and still is, even if we don't acknowledge it), we didn't really care what kind of weapons Saddam used against them. Obviously in hindsight we should have - that was definitely a mistake. But I must point out two things: 1) We never in any condoned, authorized, told him to do it, or even allowed him to do it (an important one for the conspiracy buffs - we only found out afterwards); 2) we never knowingly supplied him with any agents for use on the battlefield - unlike some of our so-called "partners" in the war on terrorism (see Russia, France, and China).

And all of the crap that we did give him - aside from battlefield intelligence, which was certainly understandable, given the US-Iran relationship and power politics in the Gulf in the '80s - Good God, did we ever make a mistake (yes). Anthrax from a US research company? In hindsight - Good God, what a friggen mistake... Yes, we f*ed up.

It cannot be said enough, or about enough subjects: What were we thinking in the 1980s???

And - Oh, BTW, the war against Saddam and his Ba'athists is already well underway. Done deal, US troops are already inside Iraq. No televised speech from the Oval Office will be necessary. It's already on.

You think I'm joking. Or drunk. Keep thinking that.

It's just moving too slowly for CNN to notice. This is a good thing...