In a message dated 4/14/06 5:34:12 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> In a message dated 4/14/06 1:58:33 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
> > jflanegi@ writes:
> >
> > Then after
the Iranian revolution, we cozied up to Saddam and
gave
> > him
whatever he wanted militarily, including poison gas, to use
>
> against Iran.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Please, go into detail on this. I like the whatever he wanted
> militarily,
> > including poison gas part
best.
> >
>
> Yes, I'd like to hear that one
too!
>
I've excerpted the info below from a George Washigton
University
website. The source material comes from declassified NSA
documents.
Although there is no direct evidence of the USA providing
Iraq with
chemical agents to use against Iran, we appear to be pretty
friendly
about it, or at best, talking out of both sides of our mouth.
===================================================
From:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
Shaking Hands with Saddam
Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
National Security
Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82
Edited by Joyce
Battle
February 25, 2003
9/22/80 Iraq invades
Iran.
1983-The White House and State Department pressured the
Export-
Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit
standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international
financial institutions.
12/83 Rumsfeld as US special envoy visits
Saddam in Baghdad.
The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in
November 1984, but
the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide
it with
intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this
country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives
from President Ronald Reagan. These were prepared pursuant to his
March 1982 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 4-82) asking for
a
review of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
Although official U.S.
policy still barred the export of U.S.
military equipment to Iraq, some
was evidently provided on a "don't
ask - don't tell" basis. In April 1984,
the Baghdad interests
section asked to be kept apprised of Bell Helicopter
Textron's
negotiations to sell helicopters to Iraq, which were not to be
"in
any way configured for military use". The purchaser was the Iraqi
Ministry of Defense. In December 1982, Bell Textron's Italian
subsidiary had informed the U.S. embassy in Rome that it turned down
a
request from Iraq to militarize recently purchased Hughes
helicopters. An
allied government, South Korea, informed the State
Department that it had
received a similar request in June 1983 (when
a congressional aide asked
in March 1983 whether heavy trucks
recently sold to Iraq were intended for
military purposes, a State
Department official replied "we presumed that
this was Iraq's
intention, and had not asked.")
Iran had submitted
a draft resolution asking the U.N. to condemn
Iraq's chemical weapons use.
The U.S. delegate to the U.N. was
instructed to lobby friendly delegations
in order to obtain a
general motion of "no decision" on the resolution. If
this was not
achievable, the U.S. delegate was to abstain on the issue.
Iraq's
ambassador met with the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane
Kirkpatrick, and asked for "restraint" in responding to the issue -
as
did the representatives of both France and Britain.
1988- Ceasefire
signed between Iraq and Iran.
I see nothing about the sale of military equipment,
especially "whatever Saddam wanted", maybe some trucks and some helicopters that
were not fitted with military equipment. I don't see anything about the sale of
poison gases here, just a very vague innuendo at best. What we do know was
given to Saddam was military intelligence about Iranian troop movements that
maintained the status quo and kept one side form defeating the other. Those
Iranians and Iraqis sure had to pump and sell a lot of oil to keep their little
war going which kept OPEC prices down.
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