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There is a wonderful photograph
floating around the Internet these days. It is not a fake; it is
not doctored; it is real. It shows the smiling face of a much
younger Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with the Butcher of
Baghdad.
This
photo was taken December 20, 1983, when Rumsfeld was sent to
Iraq as a special envoy of Ronald Reagan. It has come to light
recently as part of a series of documents that have been
declassified and that tell the tale of an obnoxious US policy
that was every bit as indefensible as the present US policy.
During the 1980s, US policy embraced Saddam Hussein. Diplomatic
relations with Iraq had been suspended since 1967 (Arab-Israeli
conflict) but the United States wanted to renew ties and to
provide assistance to Iraq. During the period where the US moved
to establish this good rapport with Iraq, the American interest
was in ensuring that Iraq was not defeated by Iran in a war that
was ongoing between the two nations. Iran, you will remember,
had done a nasty thing to America by taking over the US embassy
in Tehran and holding several dozen Americans hostage for over a
year. Even though that situation was resolved by the time the US
renewed its relationship with Baghdad, memories of hatred for
Iran died slowly.
During
the 1980s, US policy embraced Saddam Hussein. |
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And
during this period of renewed friendship, it was well known to
the US that Saddam Hussein had invaded Iran and had long-range
nuclear aspirations that probably included an eventual nuclear
weapon capability. It was also known that terrorists were being
harbored in Baghdad, that the human rights of Iraqi citizens
were being abused, that Saddam possessed chemical weapons and
had probably used them on his own people as well as on the
Iranians.
The
declassified documents include a lot of material that reports on
two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, on Iraq's use of the chemical
weapons, and decision directives signed by President Reagan that
reveal the specific US policies for the region: preserving oil
access, expanding US ability to exert military influence in the
area.
They
also include a US cable recording the conversation between
Rumsfeld and Saddam on the day this photo was taken. Rumsfeld
apparently told CNN during an interview on September 21, 2002
that he had cautioned Saddam about the use of chemical weapons
during this meeting but the transcript shows this is not the
case.
There
is also a National Security Decision Directive dated April 5,
1984, which calls for an “unambiguous” condemnation of the
use of chemical weapons, although it does not mention Iraq. What
it does state, though, is a stress on protecting Iraq from
Iran's “ruthless and inhumane tactics” and ensuring a plan
of action to avert an Iraqi collapse.
In
1984, the United States and Iraq consulted about a resolution
proposed to the United Nations by Iran, in regard to Iraq's
chemical weapons. The Iranian resolution was presented to the
Security Council and called for a condemnation of Iraq's use of
these weapons. Iraq conveyed to the United States that it wanted
a lower-level response that did not name any country in regard
to the chemical warfare; the US supported this request.
Astoundingly,
there is also a US document that publicly condemns the use of
chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war, without naming names.
Ayatollah Khomeini had refused to end hostilities until Saddam
Hussein was ejected from power. The written and public US
response was: “The United States finds the present Iranian
regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed
objective of eliminating the legitimate government of
neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of
behavior among nations.” Well, pardon me. Did I miss the point
where the legitimate government of Iraq became the illegitimate
government? Did I miss the memo that said eliminating
governments is acceptable for the United States but no one else?
The
current US administration uses against Iraq exactly what a
former US administration gave to Iraq. |
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The
United States claimed to be officially neutral during the
Iraq-Iran war and claimed that it provided arms to neither side.
Well, not directly maybe. Arms were shipped to Iran via Israel
and various countries in Europe, Asia, and South America.
Initially, the Iraqis started with a Soviet-supplied arsenal but
needed more as the war raged. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the
defensive and the United States decided that an Iranian victory
would not be in US interests. So they accelerated contact with
Baghdad, removed Iraq's name from a State Department list of
nations supporting terrorism, pressured the Export-Import Bank
to provide Iraq with financing and to enhance its credit
standing to allow it to obtain loans from other international
financial institutions. The United States Agriculture Department
provided taxpayer guaranteed loans to Iraq for the purchase of
American commodities.
Although
formal relations with Iraq were not established until November
1984, the US had begun several years earlier to provide Iraq
with intelligence and military support (in secret, and contrary
to official US neutrality policies) on direct order of Ronald
Reagan. And about this time, the US began to funnel weaponry and
military equipment to Iraq. It came either through intermediary
nations or by deliberately turning a blind eye to the obvious;
for instance, in April 1984 the State Department willingly
accepted the declaration of Bell Helicopter Textron that the
helicopters they were selling to Iraq's Ministry of Defense were
not in any way configured for military use. No doubt they were
for covering the morning traffic reports for Radio Baghdad.
During
the spring of 1984, the US reconsidered its policy of selling
nuclear-related equipment and knowledge to Iraq. The documents
reveal the US was certain that even after the conflict with Iran
was ended, Iraq would continue to develop its nuclear program up
to the point of possessing nuclear weapons. Although Iraq
resides in a dangerous part of the world, no one had blinked
when Israel stockpiled a large cache of nuclear weaponry because
proliferation was not a priority for Reagan's administration.
Throughout the earlier part of the 1980s, the Reagan White House
had downplayed Pakistan's nuclear program in order to avoid
congressionally mandated sanctions against Pakistan. This was to
ensure that the US could continue to provide massive military
assistance to Pakistan in return for its support of the Afghanis
who were fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
What
makes this whole matter so perverted is that the current US
administration uses against Iraq exactly what a former US
administration gave to Iraq. Bush and Rumsfeld describe Iraq in
stark, moralistic terms to persuade a skeptical world that a
premeditated and pre-emptive attack on Iraq is just. They claim
that this all arises because Saddam has nasty weapons, although
the US administration, partly with the assistance of Rumsfeld,
looked the other way during the time that Saddam may actually
have been using those nasty weapons. In Reagan's days in office,
chemical warfare conducted by a country with which the US wanted
to be friendly was a potential embarrassment but they found a
way around that obstacle. Now, a past history of chemical
warfare is enough reason for the Bush government to wipe away
the former position of the United States that the “objective
of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq
[is] inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among
nations.”
At
least now we can all see clearly that the morals of the United
States are only those of convenience.
*This
article was originally published in YellowTimes.Org
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