Almost 500 US soldiers have died in Iraq. The number
of those killed and wounded has doubled over last four
months. Ten US soldiers died over the "Christmas
Holidays." For what?
Robert Scheer: "...the release of official documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that detail how the U.S. government under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush nurtured and supported Saddam Hussein despite his repeated use of chemical weapons. "
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Robert Scheer
Creators Syndicate
12.30.03
The U.S. winked at Hussein's evil: National Security Archive FOIA requests expose American complicity
Sometimes democracy works. Though the wheels of
accountability often grind slowly, they also can grind
fine, if lubricated by the hard work of free-thinking
citizens. The latest example: the release of official
documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information
Act, that detail how the U.S. government under
presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush nurtured
and supported Saddam Hussein despite his repeated use
of chemical weapons.
The work of the National Security Archive, a dogged
organization fighting for government transparency, has
cast light on the trove of documents that depict in
damning detail how the United States, working with
U.S. corporations including Bechtel, cynically and
secretly allied itself with Hussein's dictatorship.
The evidence undermines the unctuous moral superiority
with which the current American president, media and
public now judge Hussein, a monster the U.S. actively
helped create.
The documents make it clear that were the trial of
Hussein to be held by an impartial world court, it
would prove an embarrassing two-edged sword for the
White House, calling into question the motives of U.S.
foreign policy. If there were a complete investigation
into those who aided and abetted Hussein's crimes
against humanity, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
and former Secretary of State George Shultz would
probably end up as material witnesses.
It was Rumsfeld and Shultz who told Hussein and his
emissaries that U.S. statements generally condemning
the use of chemical weapons would not interfere with
relations between secular Iraq and the Reagan
administration, which took Iraq off the
terrorist-nations list and embraced Hussein as a
bulwark against fundamentalist Iran. Ironically, the
U.S supported Iraq when it possessed and used weapons
of mass destruction and invaded it when it didn't.
It was 20 years ago when Shultz dropped in on a State
Department meeting between his top aide and a
high-ranking Hussein emissary. Back then the Iraqis,
who were fighting a war with Iran, were our new best
friends in the Mideast. Shultz wanted to make it
crystal clear that U.S. criticism of the use of
chemical weapons was just pablum for public
consumption, meant as a restatement of a
"long-standing policy, and not as a
pro-Iranian/anti-Iraqi gesture," as State's Lawrence
S. Eagleburger told Hussein's emissary. "Our desire
and our actions to prevent an Iranian victory and to
continue the progress of our bilateral relations
remain undiminished," Eagleburger continued, according
to the then highly classified transcript of the
meeting.
The Shultz/Eagleburger meeting took place between two
crucial visits by Rumsfeld, acting as a Reagan
emissary, to Hussein to offer unconditional support
for the Iraqi leader in his war with Iran. In the
first meeting, in December 1983, Rumsfeld told Hussein
that the United States would assist in building an oil
pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba, Jordan. He made no
mention of chemical weapons, even though U.S.
intelligence only months earlier had confirmed that
Iraq was using such illegal weapons almost daily
against Iranians and Kurds.
That administration's eye was not on the carnage from
chemical weapons but rather the profit to be obtained
from the flow of oil. In a later meeting with an Iraqi
representative, as recorded in the minutes,
"Eagleburger explained that because of the
participation of Bechtel in the Aqaba pipeline, the
Secretary of State [Shultz] is keeping completely
isolated from the issue. Iraq should understand that
this does not imply a lack of high-level [U.S.
government] interest." (Shultz had been chief
executive of Bechtel before joining the Reagan
administration and is currently a director of the
company, which is signing contracts for work in Iraq
as fast as U.S. taxes can be allocated.)
Minutes of that meeting and others in which the United
States ignored Hussein's use of banned weapons while
extending support to the dictator mock the moral high
ground assumed by George W. Bush in defense of his
invasion. If, as Bush II says, Hussein acted as a
"Hitler" while "gassing his own people," during the
1980s, we were fully aware and implicitly approving,
via economic and military aid, of his most nefarious
deeds.
Hussein's crimes were committed on our watch, when he
was a U.S. ally, and we knowingly looked the other
way. But don't take my word for it; check out
www.nsarchive.org . For more, please see the Robert
Scheer archive.
Ironically, the U.S supported Iraq when it possessed
and used weapons of mass destruction and invaded it
when it didn't.
(c) 2003 Creators Syndicate
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