Rumsfeld and his hypocrite attitude

[zamboe]

More about US hypocrite, now is the turn of Secretary of Defense : Rumsfeld. This is not really new news, but some details are just not very well know as are explained here, so take a look and figure it out what kind of person he is.

Source : Columbia University.

Rumsfeld and Saddam

Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'

Declassified papers leave the White House hawk

exposed over his role during the Iran-Iraq war

Julian Borger in Washington

Tuesday December 31, 2002

The Guardian

The Reagan administration and its special Middle East envoy,

Donald Rumsfeld, did little to stop Iraq developing weapons of

mass destruction in the 1980s, even though they knew Saddam

Hussein was using chemical weapons "almost daily" against

Iran, it was reported yesterday.

US

support for Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war as a bulwark

against Shi'ite militancy has been well known for some time, but

using declassified government documents, the Washington Post

provided new details yesterday about Mr Rumsfeld's role, and

about the extent of the Reagan administration's knowledge of

the use of chemical weapons.

The details will embarrass Mr Rumsfeld, who as defence

secretary in the Bush administration is one of the leading hawks

on

Iraq, frequently denouncing it for its past use of such

weapons.

The US provided less conventional military equipment than

British or German companies but it did allow the export of

biological agents, including anthrax; vital ingredients for

chemical weapons; and cluster bombs sold by a CIA front

organisation in Chile, the report says.

Intelligence on Iranian troop movements was provided, despite

detailed knowledge of Iraq's use of nerve gas.

Rick Francona, an ex-army intelligence lieutenant-colonel who

served in the US embassy in Baghdad in 1987 and 1988, told

the Guardian: "We believed the Iraqis were using mustard gas

all through the war, but that was not as sinister as nerve gas.

"They started using tabun [a nerve gas] as early as '83 or '84,

but in a very limited way. They were probably figuring out how to

use it. And in '88, they developed sarin."

On

November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz,

was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW

[chemical weapons]" by Iraq.

However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order

instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary

and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war.

In

December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve

as

a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in

Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime

and restore full diplomatic relations.

Mr

Rumsfeld has said that he "cautioned" the Iraqi leader

against using banned weapons. But there was no mention of

such a warning in state department notes of the meeting.

Howard Teicher, an Iraq specialist in the Reagan White House,

testified in a 1995 affidavit that the then CIA director, William

Casey, used a Chilean firm, Cardoen, to send cluster bombs to

use against Iran's "human wave" attacks.

A

1994 congressional inquiry also found that dozens of

biological agents, including various strains of anthrax, had been

shipped to Iraq by US companies, under licence from the

commerce department.

Furthermore, in 1988, the Dow Chemical company sold

$1.5m-worth (£930,000) of pesticides to Iraq despite suspicions

they would be used for chemical warfare.

The only occasion that Iraq's use of banned weapons seems to

have worried the Reagan administration came in 1988, after Lt

Col Francona toured the battlefield on the al-Faw peninsula in

southern Iraq and reported signs of sarin gas.

"When I was walking around I saw atropine injectors lying

around. We saw decontamination fluid on vehicles, there were

no

insects," said Mr Francona, who has written a book on

shifting US policy to Iraq titled Ally to Adversary. "There was a

very quick response from Washington saying, 'Let's stop our

cooperation' but it didn't last long - just weeks."

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cssn/cssn-list/2003/02/00141.html

Well, i am on my way home, I should be posting some replies in a few hours.

[Anathema]

I also remember an article in wich he said he wasn't aware that Iraq imported chemical and biological agents from the US, and that he "severely doubts it".

[Gobalopper]

Well this article gives a different view on the situation:

http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry.asp

I will agree that the US may have looked the other way but that was a different time and culture and we've already gone over that in other threads. And it still does not give Iraq the right to not comply to the UN resolutions.

[SurlyPIG]

Ditto to Gob. Furthermore, where did these weapons go? They can't ALL have been used against Iran. Saddam claims Iraq HAS no weapons. ::)

[zamboe]

They can't ALL have been used against Iran.

Proof ?, or is that another of your speculations ?

[SurlyPIG]

Yep, as specified by USDoD. Inventories of weapons supplied to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war were not all used but Saddam refused to give them back.

[Caid Ivik]

Oh, please... It isn't so hard to make a killing gas, they don't need US for it. Military support for Iraq from USA was minimal.