On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 1:51 PM, John Sessoms <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Sandy Harris >> >> On 2/27/10, Subash <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> > elsewhere all along, and i would just like to say that both al qaeda >>> > and saddam were creations of the US in their proxy wars against the >>> > former USSR and Iran respectively. one has to be really naive to play >>> > a >>> > politics of convenience and not expect it to boomerang badly sometime >>> > or the other... >> >> I agree with the basic notion that many of America's difficulties are >> brought on by their own policies. If you'd called Taliban a creation of >> the CIA and Pakistani intelligence, I'd have agreed with that, too. >> >> However, I think you are overstating the case; the examples you >> give seem wrong to me. >> >> Certainly Al Qaeda had a role in the Soviet vs Afghan war, and were >> heavily backed by the US ally (some would say puppet) Saudi Arabia, >> almost certainly with US approval. For all I know, they may have had >> US aid as well. However, that is rather different from being a >> "creation of the US". >> >> As for Saddam, he was vice president and a key player in the >> Iraqi gov't from about 1970, back when the Shah was still in >> power in Iran and a close US ally. You cannot blame the US >> for creating Saddam's regime either. > > Actually you can. Saddam came to power in Iraq through a CIA backed coup. We > were backing Iraq at the time as a counterfoil to USSR who were backing > Syria.
Umm, nope. At the time the USSR was backing Iraq as a counterfoil to US support for Iran under the Shah (who was actually put in power by a CIA-backed Coup engineered in part by BP of all people). Iraq and Syria were close allies during the entire period of Ba'ath Party rule in Iraq (the Ba'ath Party rules Syria to this day). Iraq and the USSR never got along as well as Syria and the USSR did though, due to Saddam's persecution of the local Communist groups (which he directed while still VP, Saddam was the power behind the throne in Iraq for years before he decided to step up to the Big Seat, his Coup was no such thing, he just got rid of his figurehead). Ironically, Saddam was actually involved in a CIA-backed coup in 1959, It failed. The CIA was not significantly involved in the later 1968 coup which succeeded and there was a second military coup between the two which also succeeded with some Ba'ath involvement. Note Saddam always was an anti-communist, something which complicated his relationship with the USSR and is why Iraq under the Ba'ath never got the support that Syria did. > > Still Iraq was pretty much a nothing happening backwater until their 1980s > war with revolutionary Iran. Ever wonder where Saddam GOT the chemical > weapons he used in that war (on both Iran's forces and his own people)? > The Germans here, who sold Iraq most of the equipment it was made in. Note said equipment is VERY much dual-use, any Pesticide factory is in fact also a chemical weapons factory (Most pesticides are actually low-concentration nerve gas, Iraq pawned off much of its chemical weapons stocks after the 1st Gulf War as Pesticides, some of which even got used by farmers). Saddam was also friends with Jaques Chirac during the 70's and 80's and the latter was involved in the Osirak deal among other things. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTldYbqlJc8 > > Ronald Reagan's & Bechtel Corporation's personal representative. > > Some curious numbers: > > In 1980 Iraq had 2700 tanks, Iran had 1740 - > by 1987 Iraq had 4500 tanks, Iran had 1000 And exactly zero were US tanks. The primary weapons suppliers to Iraq were France, Germany and the USSR, the only armoured vehicles the US sold Iraq were M113 APC's and pretty much everybody not actually behind the iron curtain ended up with those. Iraq's tank force was mostly T72's. Iran's were American. > > In 1980 Iraq had 332 fighters, Iran had 445 - > by 1987 Iraq had 500+ fighters, Iran had 65 Real nice collection of MiG's and Mirages btw, Iran's were US (F-14's, F-5's and F-4's). for the most part, he drop was because the US stopped selling them parts along with combat losses. Iran actually had a lot of airframes but not many were flying due to a lack of parts. > > In 1980 Iraq had 40 helicopters, Iran had 500 - > by 1987 Iraq had 150 helicopters, Iran had 60 And the only US helicopters included were military conversions of civil types (Bell 206's mostly). Otherwise it was once again France and the USSR (or are you suggesting the US sold Iraq' Mil-24 Hinds's?). Once again, the low number of Iranian aircraft was due to the parts embargo, Iran owned a large number of Bell 214A's, for which parts were only available from the US (the type was nearly unique to Iran and used different engines than the civilian 214B) > > In 1980 Iraq had 1000 artillery, Iran had 1000+ - > by 1987 Iraq had 4000+ artillery, Iran had 1000+ Iraq's stuff was a mix, South African and French The US was not a major weapons supplier to Iraq prior to the post-Ba'ath government. They sold some basic systems during the Iran-Iraq war, but nothing the Iranians didn't already have from the US. Here's a handy graph of arms sales numbers for the 1973-1990 period. The US ranks behind Libya. http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
