We DID sell WMDs to Iraq, right?

I've got somebody on Usenet saying otherwise. I guess I could be wrong, but I generally remember hearing that. Anybody have good links about it?

Most of Saddam's WMDs came from Europe actually. Germany, France and the Warsaw Pact countries. Nuclear reactors and materials from The USSR and france. chemical and bio agents mainly from Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Most of his conventional weaponry came from the USSR, China and France.

Saddam did purchase some things from labs in the US like West nile samples but most of his supplies came from Europe and the Communist Bloc.

The US did loan him 6 Billion in the eighties though, so we have to accept some responsibility.

We also provided him with heavy trucks that were later used in the invasion of Kuwait, and helicopters that were modified for military use.

We provided numerous dual-use items.

He could not have built his arsenal as it was without US help. Of course, this arsenal is no longer in existence, but that's not what you asked :).

"During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq received the lion's share of American support because at the time Iran was regarded as the greater threat to U.S. interests. According to a 1994 Senate report, private American suppliers, licensed by the U.S. Department of Commerce, exported a witch's brew of biological and chemical materials to Iraq from 1985 through 1989. Among the biological materials, which often produce slow, agonizing death, were:

* Bacillus Anthracis, cause of anthrax.


* Clostridium Botulinum, a source of botulinum toxin.


* Histoplasma Capsulatam, cause of a disease attacking lungs, brain, spinal cord, and heart.


* Brucella Melitensis, a bacteria that can damage major organs.


* Clostridium Perfringens, a highly toxic bacteria causing systemic illness.


* Clostridium tetani, a highly toxigenic substance.

Also on the list: Escherichia coli (E. coli), genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA, and dozens of other pathogenic biological agents. "These biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," the Senate report stated. "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

The report noted further that U.S. exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical-warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities, and chemical-warhead filling equipment.

The exports continued to at least November 28, 1989, despite evidence that Iraq was engaging in chemical and biological warfare against Iranians and Kurds since as early as 1984.

The American company that provided the most biological materials to Iraq in the 1980s was American Type Culture Collection of Maryland and Virginia, which made seventy shipments of the anthrax-causing germ and other pathogenic agents, according to a 1996 Newsday story."

http://www.progressive.org/0901/anth0498.html

of various things from American labs, but the vast majority of his WMD programs came from Europe. His nuclear and chemical programs as well as biological and conventional capabilities mostly originated in Europe.
The USSR and Communist Bloc countries provided by far the vast majority of all his military equitment, conventional or unconventional. It is a fact. His army used T-55, T-62 and T-72 Tanks. They had BMP armored personnel carriers. Hind attack Helicopters. rifles. Even the Scud missles and air defense systems were Russian. His scurity services were very close to the KGB, and even before 2003 were still close to Russia's current intel services according to documents found in Iraq's files. (all the equitment is Soviet made)
His air force flew Mig Jet fighters, French Mirage Fighter Bombers and Soviet made Ilyushin Heavy Bombers.
Iraqi infantry carried Kalashnikov rifles and soviet RPGs.
His chemical arsenal came mostly from Germany and Czechoslovakia. France and Russia both gave Saddam nuclear reactors. He procured chemical and bio agents all over the world for decades. German companies were still selling him bio and chem agents AFTER the Gulf War.

Those weapons were sold by German companies against a strict law forbidding such trade. 46 people faced charges because of trading with Iraq, 16 were convicted.
Contrary to your information I've seen Portugal, China and Russia listed as the main post 1991 deliverers. The chemical agents were from the UK, France, Russia and the USA.
Besides that: remember that trading with Iraq prior to GW1 was neither forbidden nor considered questionable.