The chemicals were sold to Iraq in order to fight the Iranians, not to kill their own people and somehow I think you know that.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/31/world/main534798.shtml But former U.S. ambassador to Baghdad David Newton contended in a Post interview, "Fundamentally, the policy was justified. We were concerned that Iraq should not lose the war with Iran, because that would have threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Our long-term hope was that Hussein's government would become less repressive and more responsible." The U.S. removed Iraq from its list of states that sponsor terrorism in 1982, and as Iran made gains on the battlefield, the Reagan administration decided to pass intelligence to Iraq. The policy to do this was captured in a November 1983 National Security Directive that is still classified, but apparently stated that U.S. policy was to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to stop Iran from winning. At the same time, there were multiple reports Iraq was using chemical weapons to repulse the Iranian advance; one State Department official told Secretary of State George Shultz that Iraq was engaging in "almost daily use of (chemical weapons)" against Iranian troops. John Harvey -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Leafe Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 9:31 PM To: ProFox Email List Subject: Re: [OT] Chaves warms to Obama after character reference from Castro On Jan 25, 2009, at 9:20 PM, John wrote: > It' not about an election. You step back a second and consider that a > dictator is gassing hundreds of thousands of his own people (remember > Hussein). Do you think we should just stand by and let it happen? Wow, great change of subject. We were talking about Chavez now and Diem 50-some years ago. So yeah, it's about elections. As far as gassing goes, we sold him the chemicals for that, and looked the other way because he was our ally then. Yet you want to act as though we are somehow morally superior? -- Ed Leafe [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/030001c97f68$05420970$0fc61c...@[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
