Pre-1991 Iraqi weapons said a threat to US troops (Rumsfeld)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22434436.htm

Pre-1991 Iraqi weapons said a threat to US troops


WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) - Abandoned Iraqi chemical weapons dating from before the 1991 Gulf War could pose a deadly new threat to American forces if they fell into the hands of insurgents, U.S. officials warned on Thursday.

But intelligence officials denied Republican suggestions that 500 chemical munitions found since May 2004 are the elusive weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion.

"They are dangerous, and anyone ... in that country would be concerned if they got into the wrong hands," asserted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "It's dangerous to our forces and it's a concern."

...

Rep. Jane Harman of California, senior Democrat on the House intelligence panel, charged that the Army report was selectively declassified for partisan Republican purposes.

November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical weapons against the Iranians. <1>

December 20, 1983. Donald Rumsfeld , then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support. <1> & <15>

July, 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. <19>

January 14, 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application. <2>

March, 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the US becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons. <10>

May, 1986. The US Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax. <3>

May, 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade botulin poison to Iraq. <7>

March, 1987. President Reagan bows to the findings of the Tower Commission admitting the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. Oliver North uses the profits from the sale to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua. <17>

Late 1987. The Iraqi Air Force begins using chemical agents against Kurdish resistance forces in northern Iraq. <1>

February, 1988. Saddam Hussein begins the "Anfal" campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq. The Iraq regime used chemical weapons against the Kurds killing over 100,000 civilians and destroying over 1,200 Kurdish villages. <8>

April, 1988. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of chemicals used in manufacture of mustard gas. <7>

August, 1988. Four major battles were fought from April to August 1988, in which the Iraqis massively and effectively used chemical weapons to defeat the Iranians. Nerve gas and blister agents such as mustard gas are used. By this time the US Defense Intelligence Agency is heavily involved with Saddam Hussein in battle plan assistance, intelligence gathering and post battle debriefing. In the last major battle with of the war, 65,000 Iranians are killed, many with poison gas. Use of chemical weapons in war is in violation of the Geneva accords of 1925. <6> & <13>



References:
Washingtonpost.com. December 30, 2002
Jonathan Broder. Nuclear times, Winter 1990-91
Kurt Nimno. AlterNet. September 23, 2002
Newyorktimes.com. August 29, 2002
ABC Nightline. June9, 1992
Counter Punch, October 10, 2002
Riegle Report: Dual Use Exports. Senate Committee on Banking. May 25, 1994
Timeline: A walk Through Iraq's History. U.S. Department of State
Doing Business: The Arming of Iraq. Daniel Robichear
Glen Rangwala. Labor Left Briefing, 16 September, 2002
Financial Times of London. July 3, 1991
Elson E. Boles. Counter Punch. October 10, 2002
Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. Iranchamber.com
Columbia Journalism Review. March/April 1993. Iraqgate
Times Online. December 31, 2002. How U.S. Helped Iraq Build Deadly Arsenal
Bush's Secret Mission. The New Yorker Magazine. November 2, 1992
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia: Iran-Contra Affair
Congressional Record. July 27, 1992. Representative Henry B. Gonzalez
Bob Woodward. CIA Aiding Iraq in Gulf War. Washington Post. 15 December, 1986
Case Study: The Anfal Campaign. www.gendercide.com

According to the December declaration, treated with much derision from the Bush administration, U.S. and Western companies played a key role in building Hussein's war machine. The 1,200-page document contains a list of Western corporations and countries -- as well as individuals -- that exported chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades.

Embarrassed, no doubt, by revelations of their own complicity in Mideast arms proliferation, the U.S.-led Security Council censored the entire dossier, deleting more than 100 names of companies and groups that profited from Iraq's crimes and aggression. The censorship came too late, however. The long list -- including names of large U.S. corporations -- Dupont, Hewlett-Packard, and Honeywell -- was leaked to a German daily, Die Tageszeitung. Despite the Security Council coverup, the truth came out.

...

Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq. A Tennessee manufacturer contributed large amounts of a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in Gulf War diseases.

Phyllis Bennis, author of "Before and After," notes that "the highest quality seed-stock for anthrax germs (along with those of botulism, E. coli, and a host of other deadly diseases) were shipped to Iraq by U.S. companies, legally, under an official U.S. Department of Commerce license throughout the 1980s." A Senate Banking subcommittee report in 1994 confirmed that shipments of biological germ stock continued well into 1989.

According to Judith Miller in "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War," Iraq purchased its seed stock -- its "starter germs" -- from "The American Type Culture Collection," a supply company in a Washington, D.C., suburb.