A Saddam Chronology

Stephen R. Shalom

Saddam Hussein is one of the world's great monsters. Nothing would be more welcome than to have him put on trial, a trial which could offer Iraqis and the world an honest accounting of his many crimes. However, as so often happens, when a trial is organized by those who are themselves guilty of serious crimes, truth is not the goal. Instead the historical record is falsified to make the one monster seem uniquely blameworthy and the ones running the show above criticism.

We saw this pattern in the Tokyo trials following World War II, where the crimes of Japanese officials were documented in gruesome detail (except for the biological warfare programs, which Washington wanted to use for itself and except for the involvement of the emperor, who was to serve U.S. purposes during the occupation), while the crimes of the victors, such as the horrific fire-bombing raids and the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were disregarded. Likewise, Panamanian ruler Manual Noriega was a thug who certainly belonged in the dock. But when the U.S. military invaded Panama in violation of international law and seized him for trial in the United States, there was no intention by the kidnappers that the trial be a forum for revealing the long-time ties between Noriega and the U.S. government, and particularly between Noriega and former CIA director George H. W. Bush.

It is a matter of principle in Washington that Americans not be held to the same international standards as others. Thus, the U.S. refuses to endorse the International Criminal Court and demands that its allies give up their right to invoke the jurisdiction of the court when U.S.
citizens are involved. But those of us who truly care about justice ought to demand that Saddam Hussein be tried before a court that is in no way subject to U.S. control or manipulation. Only in that way can the real truth come out.

Already, however, much of the media is falling into line in framing the crimes of Saddam Hussein. For example, the Washington Post website offered a summary of "Events in the Life of Saddam Hussein" from the Associated Press. But the chronology was seriously incomplete. Below is that chronology, corrected to include -- indented and in brackets -- some of the most serious omissions.
Sunday, December 14, 2003; 8:34 AM

snip

edited for copyright thingy

see link below

Holy kripes. I was just about to post this!!

Good reference while discussing the brutal legacy of this thug and the support he received.

I got it via an email.

I found it here:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=4685

Just reposted on another thread, but it's good for this thread as well....


http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990
Prepared by Nathaniel Hurd.
15 July 2000 (updated 12 December 2001 by Nathaniel Hurd and Glen Rangwala).

Before 1980
• Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War Iraq severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. In late 1979 the State Department (SD) put Iraq on its list of States sponsoring groups categorized by the SD as "terrorist."<1>
1980
• The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) asserted in a report that Iraq has been ‘actively acquiring’ Chemical Weapons capacities since the mid-1970s.<2>
1982
• Despite intelligence reports that Iraq still sponsored groups on the SD's terrorist list, and "apparently without consulting Congress", the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from the State terrorism sponsorship list in 1982.<3> The removal made Iraq eligible for U.S. dual-use and military technology.<4>
1983
• A SD report concluded that Iraq continued to support groups on the SD’s terrorist list.<5>
• Iraq reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and significantly increased CW use in 1983. Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, said that reports of Iraq using CWs on Iranian military personnel "drifted in" at the year’s end.<6> A declassified CIA report, probably written in late 1987, notes Iraq's use of mustard gas in August 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the SD and/or National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq's use of CW at this time.<7>
• Analysts recognized that "civilian" helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.<8> Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters.<9> Later, and despite some objections from the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters,<10> officially for crop spraying. See "1988" for note on Iraq using U.S. Helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons.
• Later in the year the Reagan Administration secretly began to allow Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer to Iraq U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons.<11> Reagan personally asked Italy’s Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq.<12>

<more there> fully documented with backing footnotes