| |
SUBSCRIBE to Jude's
Newsletter
LOGIN
TalkShop
Testimonials
Customer Service
( 800-331-9458)
- Archives - Newsletter
Memos
SSU
Lessons
- Rec. Links - DrudgeReport LewRockwell WorldNetDaily Forward BlackElectorate OpinionJournal Antiwar.com BEC Link
Rm.
- Pop Links - Yahoo! Finance Ebay
Amazon AOL mail Google CNBC Schwab
Our
Institutional
Research Service
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](javascript:void(0);)
Townhall Member |
|
Saddam Hussein: From Ally to Enemy
To:
Friends of President Bush
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: The 1988 Turning
Point
When the eight year Iran-Iraq war ended in September 1988,
the little Iraq of 20 million people had defeated big Iran of 60 million
people. We recently have been looking back on that period because they
speak volumes about why the Bush administration is so hellbent on going to
war with Iraq, if he ever nails down a cease-fire and settlement in
Israel. As friends of President George W. Bush, you should encourage him
to take a look at the past, as he was probably not paying much attention,
totally involved that fall in helping his father win the presidential
election. Earlier in 1988, it was conventional wisdom that Iran would beat
Iraq, which had fought a defensive war. The United States had given
support to Iraq in the war; Israel, which in 1981 had blown up Iraq's
nuclear power plant a few months after the Iran-Iraq war broke out, sided
with Iran, fully expecting Iraq would lose and be crippled thereafter. The
U.S. foreign policy establishment gave every sign of cheering the killing
on both sides, as only Muslims were involved. I urged President Ronald
Reagan to undertake a peace initiative, but he told me he was helpless in
this situation.
In March 1988, the tide turned as Iraq decided to
go all out on the offensive. It borrowed another several billion dollars
from Arab friends and European banks to buy war materials from the West,
had a successful call-up of young men, and by September broke the depleted
and demoralized Iranis. We ran a report two weeks ago by Dr.
Stephen Pelletiere, who studied the action with two colleagues of the Army
War College, concluding that Iraq's decisive victory at Halabja on the
Iraq side of the border did not involve use of poison gas against its own
people. Pelletiere, who was an intelligence officer for the CIA during the
Iran-Iraq war, argued the hundreds of civilians who died in the crossfire
were felled by the kind of gas Iranians used. Iranians, though, insisted
it was Iraqi gas that killed the Iraqi civilians. Their claim got better
play in the U.S. press, which to this day refers to it as fact. The War
College report also argued that Iraqi use of gas against the Iranians was
not decisive, but that Iraq had successfully engineered Scud missiles to
travel far enough to hit the distant Iranian capital and the Iranian
people begged the Ayatollah to sue for peace. In his 2001 book, "Iraq
and the International Oil System," Dr. Pelletiere picks up the story
post-Halabja. The headline refers to Reagan's Secretary of State, George
Shultz.
* * * * *
SHULTZ'S MOVE
We go forward
now to the period immediately after the end of the [Iran-Iraq] war, when
the Iranians had agreed to cease fighting and when the two sides remained
at odds over how to bring the war to a close. As stated earlier, the
Iraqis were reluctant to call off their attack, given that they did not
trust the Iranians to make concessions. Hence, even though by August 20
Saddam had been pressured into agreeing to enter into negotiations, the
Iraqi army remained poised to resume the offensive. UN delegations went
out to the area; talks were set up in Geneva. There was a plan to shift
the venue of the talks to New York -- but all this was like pulling teeth,
since the Iraqis fought every move to advance the process.
Then, on
September 7, 1988, America's secretary of state George Shultz invited
Iraq's junior foreign minister, Sadoun Hammadi, to Foggy Bottom,
ostensibly to discuss how the negotiations could be speeded up. Hammadi
appeared on September 8, unaware that he was about to be ambushed. For, in
a routine press briefing before television cameras, Shultz, without
warning, leveled the charge that, once again (as at Halabja) Iraq was
using gas against its Kurdish citizens.
In fact, the Iraqis were
at the moment carrying out operations to recapture the north from rebel
Kurds (concentrated in an area called Amadiyah, close to the Turkish
border). However, the Iraqi minister denied, vehemently, that gas was
being used. He demanded that Shultz reveal his evidence, and Shultz said
that he was not at liberty to do that, as this would compromise
intelligence sources.
Well, then, said Hammadi, where are the
victims? Here was a problem. Where were the victims? Rebel Kurds
were pouring across the borders into Turkey and Iran, desperate to escape
the Iraqi onslaught. Pesh mergas were everywhere in evidence, but
reporters who rushed to interview them all reported they were seemingly
fit; there was not a sign of gassing.
Indeed, Turkish doctors asked
by the reporters to confirm that Kurds had been victimized denied this to
be the case, or at least they said that they could not confirm that any
such attacks had occurred because they had not seen any gassing victims.
The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which also had
representatives in the area, confirmed this view, as did the Red Cross and
the Red Crescent Societies and a doctor from Medicins du
Monde.
Momentarily, it appeared that the Iraqis were exonerated. It
was not to be, however, because of what happened next.
THE
SENATE STAFFERS
If the ambush interview arranged by Shultz
caused controversy, what followed certainly augmented it. Within 24 hours
after Shultz's public accusation of Iraq, the Senate voted sanctions on
the basis of his charges. The vote was nearly unanimous, and, as the
Washington Post reported, it put a heavy burden on the Iraqis,
since they would now have enormous difficulties trying to roll over their
$69 billion debt (more about that later).
To be sure, the Senate's
action was not the final word on the matter; the House had yet to act. But
in the meantime, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent two of its
staffers to the region to report personally on what might have
occurred.
Within a week the two were back, claiming that the Iraqis
had gassed not only the rebel guerrillas but some hundreds of thousands of
other Kurds, killing in the process possibly as many as a
100,000.
The Iraqis were naturally upset by this allegation. When
newsmen confronted their defense minister, he denied that this had
occurred and further claimed that Iraq had no need of gas. Indeed, in that
terrain, he said, gas would have been a liability. [In pursuit of the
smaller Iranian force, the Iraqi army would have been spraying gas in its
own path.]
This essentially is correct. Gas is an extremely tricky
weapon to use and, except under certain circumstances, is not particularly
lethal. It is interesting that although this feature of chemical warfare
is well known throughout the military community, no one in the Western
media (to the author's knowledge) ever confirmed it .
As the
controversy escalated, the Iraqis became as incensed as the Americans.
They demanded that the Arab League take a stand, and the league did,
branding the outcry against Iraq as contrived. Like the Iraqis, the league
asserted that the Americans lacked proof of their allegations.
The
Senate staffers claimed to have "overwhelming" proof that the attacks had
occurred. However, this turned out to be anecdotal evidence -- the Kurds
told them that they had been gassed. The staffers also claimed to
have seen obvious gassing victims and to have taken photographs of them.
But no photographs were ever produced, and the alleged victims never were
identified. As for the claim of 100,000 dead, this would appear to have
been speculation. At the same time, however, it was quite a serious
charge, implying "genocide."
The whole affair is disturbing, in as
much as 10 years after the event no victims of the alleged attack have
ever been produced, and the United States has never revealed what led it
to claim that the attack occurred. Either this was a rush to judgment --
that is, that the U.S. State Department and Senate moved in haste and made
charges that could not be supported later on -- or the whole thing was
deliberately contrived.
In the former case, one would have supposed
that the claimants would later have set the record straight. Instead, the
matter has been left hanging, as it were.
Shultz leveled his
charges at the tail end of the Reagan administration. Perhaps awareness
that power soon would change hands (since Reagan could not serve another
four years) caused the affair to subside, because it did for a time die
down.
Also helping to avert a crisis was the fact that, when the
Congress attempted to get its sanctions proposal enacted into law, it
failed on a technicality. In the meantime, some sectors of the nation,
which rather looked forward to improved commercial relations with Iraq,
had begun to mobilize against the sanctions, speaking out against them...
[The story died out in the next year and a half, revived after Iraq
invaded Kuwait, with the "Saddam gassed his own people story" employed by
those Americans who were eager to go to war with Iraq.]
Ten years
after the end of the Gulf War, [Pelletiere wrote last year] the US State
Department continues to devise policy toward Iraq as if it were a criminal
society, which now we can see that it is not. It is time for the United
States, in effect, to put up. If it has evidence that Saddam Hussein
gassed his own people, then it should present it to the world. If, as the
author believes, the famous gassing incident was all a hoax - or perhaps
we should say a nonevent - then it should admit it and lift the sanctions,
as there is no justification to keep on with this harsh
punishment.
The fact that the discredited policy is maintained
against reason raises the possibility that self-delusion, far from
being something to be abjured, is being cultivated.
Is the
leadership in the United States deliberately perpetuating this sham of an
irremediably vicious Iraq because it serves its purpose so to do? Since
the deception has been going on for almost 10 years now, it would appear
to be the case.
* * * * *
Because it does not appear his
staff is going to provide him with this kind of alternative view from an
authoritative source, the President will continue to believe the Jeffrey
Goldberg New Yorker account that he mentioned in a press
conference three weeks ago. It should make a difference that Goldberg
served in the Israeli army and is a citizen of Israel. But even if he were
an Irish Catholic from Boston, it would be hard to buy into his
man-in-the-street reporting of present-day Kurds, who remember gassings
back in 1988. Pelletiere may be wrong, of course, but there is still no
answer to the question he posed in the 1990 report: "Where are the
bodies?" If there were 100,000 Kurds killed by poison gas in an open
field, in a few days, the bodies should have turned up over 13 years. What
is more likely is that when Iraq won the war, the surprised Israeli
supporters in the United States decided Saddam was no longer the ally, but
the victorious power in the region, a man who would be a threat to its
survival. If you, as friends, want the President to understand why the
rest of the world is so hostile to going war with Iraq now, this is most
likely the reason. He gets a better press in the rest of the world than he
does here.
* * * * *
Today's Related
Links:
Free Memo on the Margin delivery |
|
|
Latest Newsletter
April
2002
The Efficient
Market Can't be Wrong... Today
We advised our clients last month to "hold their
horses" in anticipation of a weaker equity market just ahead. Except
for selective sectors that benefit from the welcome move in gold to
the $300 level, horses should still be held. We are now into the
season we have been waiting for since December, the time when the
efficient market finally sees that the recovery from recession will
be weak and that corporate earnings will be even weaker -- courtesy
of the deflationary drag.
[Read
the Full Report -- PDF only]
Have Something to Say?
Join
TalkShop
Inside TalkShop...
(Free Public forum -
authentication
required to post.)
Church
& State
"On 4/25/2002 9:12:00 AM,
Terje Petersen wrote:
I never really expected to
change your beliefs ..." -Dick
Fox
More
on Small Country Currency Standards
"Let me take a crack at it,
without being too specific ..." -Robert P.
Churchill
Great
description of Monetary Inflation
"I didn't say that Terje:
but people do prefer current $1 of consumption over future $1 of
consumption even if there is perfect price stability
..."
-Jim
Bradley
Gold
"On
4/25/2002 11:34:00 AM, Jim Bradley wrote:
>The dollar, Ed
..."
-Ed
Rombach
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Henry, I'd prefer the term
"Bubble Rotation" as it seems more apt -- in any case I am
worried about the rotation now into real estate; Glad to see
FNMA and FHLMC on the hot seat ..." -Jim
Bradley
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Jim,
We might want
to look at investment rotation, if there is such a term
..."
-Henry Meers
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Ed, Given the complexities,
I think the only viable policy for the Fed is a price-target
mechanism, but with assets (and stocks and real estate) included
in the mix of measurement ..." -Jim
Bradley
Post-election
violence in Zimbabwe...
"Interesting that you should
have those thoughts about CNN from your point of view
..."
-Robert P.
Churchill
Another
(more skeptical) look at March CPI
"Art, Gold not stable as a
measure of asset-inflation and that's the problem ..." -Jim
Bradley
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"You're right Henry -- the
Fed can set Fed Funds too low or too high; but what's happening
now is the effects of a collapse from setting them too low in
1998 and having to tighten ..." -Jim
Bradley
Gold
"The dollar, Ed ..." -Jim
Bradley
Another
(more skeptical) look at March CPI
"I understand what you are
saying Dick and I agree in part: gold's primary demand is a
hedge, since it's use value is so small compared to the
available stock ..." -Jim
Bradley
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Jim,
Although we
have discussed it in the past, the Fed defending its choice of
interest rates is very important ..." -Henry
Meers
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Jim,
Your last post
makes a lot of sense to me and I think you an I are more or less
in agreement on these points, although we may express it in
different ways ..." -Ed
Rombach
Tax
Reform Bush Opportunity
"On 4/23/2002 6:49:00 PM,
Jim Bradley wrote:
> ..." -Bruce
Winson
Another
(more skeptical) look at March CPI
"The production issue should
probably be split out from this thread ..." -Art
Patten
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Ed, The Fed supplies as
much or as little money, and can sometimes be forced to withdraw
money, to hold the market at their 'target rate of interest' --
the problem of course is if that target rate creates money
faster than people are going to willingly save it ..." -Jim
Bradley
Another
(more skeptical) look at March CPI
"Don,
You can make
the deflation argument on the return to the gold standard from
the Greenback, but there were real improvements on the farm
..."
-Henry Meers
Another
(more skeptical) look at March CPI
"Henry -
It also
created the agricultural machinery which raised productivity to
overcome falling farm prices ..." -Don
Lloyd
US$
deflation seen from A$ perspective
"Terje,
The common
"textbook" understanding of the money multiplier effect has it
backwards ..." -Ed
Rombach | |
|
greydot.gif