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Banned
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Originally Posted by moosenose
That's odd, I could have sworn we invaded Afghanistan first. I also could have sworn that Saddam, beyond a shadow of a doubt, supported and sheltered terrorists who had attacked US assets and interests (remember Leon Klinghoffer?). Were they the actual 911 hijackers? Nope, but they were still terrorists, Saddam still was training terrorists, and he was still funding suicide bombers. As such, he had to go.
If you have a termite nest in your house, you don't just kill the one termite that got lost and wandered to where you could see him. You kill ALL of the termites.
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moosenose !!!......nice to see you.....I've made this offer before. Stop posting your weakly documented "reasons" that it was just and necessary for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and I won't have to post a strongly documented rebuttal.
Abu Nidal?......Please !.....................the last time that I observed a conservative trot out that tired old bogey man was when Ollie North used him as an excuse to deflect accusations that he had illegally accepted the gift of a security fence around his private home,
Quote:
http://www.senate.gov/reference/comm...er_North.shtml
his Internet hoax says that under questioning from an unidentified senator, Col. Oliver North said he had a home security system installed because a terrorist had threatened him and his family. When asked who this terrorist was, Col. North said it was Osama bin Laden.
The facts: Oliver North testified about a home security system during a July 7, 1987 joint Senate-House hearing on the Iran-Contra investigation. The questioner was not a senator, but committee counsel John Nields. Col. North testified the security system was installed because threats were made on his life by terrorist Abu Nidal.
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Quote:
http://www.janes.com/security/intern...0823_1_n.shtml
Abu Nidal murder trail leads directly to Iraqi regime 23 August 2002
By Mohammed Najib
It has now become very clear and much confirmed that the Iraqi regime headed by Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the assassination of the Palestinian terrorist Sabri al-Bana, known to the world as Abu Nidal.
A wide-ranging Jane’s investigation into the incident, gathering information from various official and non-official sources in Ramallah, Amman, Baghdad, London, Washington and Beirut, has confirmed the Iraqi regime’s involvement in the killing of Abu Nidal, whose death in a Baghdad apartment from gunshot wounds was announced last Friday (16 August).
So why has Saddam acted now? The best explanation is that the Iraqi dictator is now feeling the pressure from the ongoing US deliberations over a potential invasion to topple his regime. In any such adventure, the anti-Saddam elements within Iraq would most likely play an important role in turning the tide against Saddam. He has therefore moved to eradicate those dangerous elements, both as a pre-emptive measure to protect his position and as an example to other prospective internal enemies still at large.
Given Abu Nidal’s propensity to ‘go with the smart money’ to survive and his past treachery during the 1990-91 Gulf War (he sided with Kuwait), any suggestion of him plotting against the regime would have been enough to sign his death warrant.
Various Palestinian and Arab officials and sources contacted by Jane’s have confirmed the reports of Abu Nidal’s death in his Baghdad apartment under “mysterious circumstances”. It remains unclear, however, whether Iraqi agents killed him or whether he committed suicide. His body bore several gunshot wounds, according to Palestinian sources.
A senior Iraqi official said on 20 August that Abu Nidal, who had returned to Iraq several months earlier bearing a false Yemeni passport and was placed under house arrest, killed himself after Iraqi agents accused him of conspiring with anti-Iraqi forces, including Kuwait [and Saudi Arabia]. Iraqi intelligence had apparently confronted Abu Nidal with evidence of his involvement with foreign agents to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime, with an Iraqi senior official claiming that classified documents and plans concerning a US attack on Iraq were found in his house.......
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Quote:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/forme...s/2001/933.htm
Press Remarks with Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Cairo, Egypt (Ittihadiya Palace)
February 24, 2001
(lower paragraph of second Powell quote on the page)
.............but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.................
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Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...235395,00.html
May 05, 2002
.....Hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle strongly believe that after years of American sanctions and periodic air assaults, the Iraqi leader is weaker than most people believe. Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack — a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic — was discredited last week.......
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Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...235395,00.html
..............."We're Taking Him Out"
His war on Iraq may be delayed, but Bush still vows to remove Saddam. Here's a look at White House plans
By DANIEL EISENBERG
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Sunday, May. 05, 2002
Two months ago, a group of Republican and Democratic Senators went to the White House to meet with Condoleezza Rice, the President's National Security Adviser. Bush was not scheduled to attend but poked his head in anyway — and soon turned the discussion to Iraq. The President has strong feelings about Saddam Hussein (you might too if the man had tried to assassinate your father, which Saddam attempted to do when former President George Bush visited Kuwait in 1993) and did not try to hide them. He showed little interest in debating what to do about Saddam. Instead, he became notably animated, according to one person in the room, used a vulgar epithet to refer to Saddam and concluded with four words that left no one in doubt about Bush's intentions: "We're taking him out."
Dick Cheney carried the same message to Capitol Hill in late March. The Vice President dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East — the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. As everyone in the room well knew, his mission had been thrown off course by the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.<b> But Cheney hadn't lost focus. Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils.</b> Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when....................
....................A front-page story in the New York Times on April 28 claimed that Bush had all but settled on a full-scale ground invasion of Iraq early next year with between 70,000 and 250,000 U.S. troops. But military and civilian officials insist that there is no finalized battle plan or timetable — and that Bush has not even been presented with a formal list of options. Instead, the Times story, with its vision of a large-scale troop deployment, seems to have been the latest volley in the bureaucratic war at home, leaked by uniformed officers who think some of their civilian overseers have been downplaying the size and difficulty of an attack...................
.................Still, planning for some kind of military action is clearly under way. Earlier this year, Bush signed a supersecret intelligence "finding" that authorized further action to prepare for Saddam's ouster. Mindful of widespread concern that a post-Saddam Iraq could quickly be torn apart by ethnic violence and regional meddling, the White House is increasing its efforts to devise a workable replacement government.........................
....................Invasion is not the only alternative being considered, but it is the most likely. Taking the Afghanistan campaign as their model, many proponents of action, including Senator John McCain, still believe that before the U.S. commits to a full-scale invasion, it's worth trying to overthrow Saddam in a proxy war with the help of a local opposition force much like the Northern Alliance, aided by American special forces and air power.......................
.............Hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle strongly believe that after years of American sanctions and periodic air assaults, the Iraqi leader is weaker than most people believe. Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack — a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic — was discredited last week...................
.................f that sounds like another potential Somalia, it's easy to understand why the President, for all his tough talk, is not about to rush into anything. "Bush cannot embark on a mission that fails," says Geoffrey Kemp, a former member of President Reagan's National Security Council now at the Nixon Center in Washington. "Given what happened to his father and the hype in this Administration, it would be the end." And for Saddam, yet another new beginning.
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Quote:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../29/le.00.html
...........KING: Still a menace, still a problem. But the administration failed, principally because of objections from Russia and China, to get the new sanctions policy through the United Nations Security Council. Now what? Do we do this for another 10 years?
RICE: Well, in fact, John, we have made progress on the sanctions. We, in fact, had four of the five, of the permanent five, ready to go along with smart sanctions.
We'll work with the Russians. I'm sure that we'll come to some resolution there, because it is important to restructure these sanctions to something that work.
But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.
This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we're going to go about doing that..............
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061100723.html
Memo: U.S. Lacked Full Postwar Iraq Plan
Advisers to Blair Predicted Instability
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 12, 2005; Page A01
...........The Bush administration's failure to plan adequately for the postwar period has been well documented. The Pentagon, for example, ignored extensive State Department studies of how to achieve stability after an invasion, administer a postwar government and rebuild the country. And administration officials have acknowledged the mistake of dismantling the Iraqi army and canceling pensions to its veteran officers -- which many say hindered security, enhanced anti-U.S. feeling and aided what would later become a violent insurgency.
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," adding, "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years." As of May, the Congressional Research Service estimated that Congress has approved $208 billion for the war in Iraq since 2003..............
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I presented a well documented argument that details the complicity, support, and by the continuing relationship, (with no protest from the executive branch of the infamous gassing of the Kurds), the tacit approval of Saddam's regime by the Reagan and the Bush '41 administrations, until late 1990.
See:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=30
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=32
The argument that Saddam was supported by the U.S. for reasons having to do with a strategy of supporting Iraq to blunt the larger threat of Iran, rings hollow and empty when one counts the anti-tank missles delivered at the direction of U.S. to Iran during the same period, in direct contravention of the President's publicly stated prohibition of negotiating or supporting terrorist states, and Iran in particular, and in spite of vehement advice to desist by close advisors to President Reagan. See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/...e/index_5.html A reader can also observe in the timeline at the above link that other military support was provided by the U.S. to Iran in it's war with Iraq at the same time that the policy of aiding Saddam was justified as a way to counter Iran!
Quote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...4314%2C00.html
When US turned a blind eye to poison gas
America knew Baghdad was using chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988. So why, asks Dilip Hiro , has it taken 14 years to muster its outrage?
Sunday September 1, 2002
The Observer
When it comes to demonising Saddam Hussein, nothing captures the popular imagination in America better than the statement that 'he gassed his own people'. This is an allusion to the deployment of chemical weapons by Iraq's military in the Iraqi Kurdistan town of Halabja in March 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war, and then in the territory administered by the Tehran-backed Kurdish rebels after the ceasefire five months later.
As Iraq's use of poison gases in war and in peace was public knowledge, the question arises: what did the United States administration do about it then? Absolutely nothing. Indeed, so powerful was the grip of the pro-Baghdad lobby on the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan that it got the White House to foil the Senate's attempt to penalise Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons to which it was a signatory.....
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Quote:
http://www.ithaca.edu/politics/gagnon/talks/us-iraq.htm
Our History with Iraq*
Chip Gagnon, Assistant Prof., Dept of Politics, Ithaca College
Visiting Research Fellow, Peace Studies Program, Cornell University
Talk given at Teach-in on Iraq, Cornell University, October 22, 2002
2pm Willard Straight Hall
...............Ronald Reagan takes office in Jan 1981.
1982:
Spring of 1982 marked the beginning of tilt toward Iraq by Reagan. This tilt was formalized in a secret National Security Decision Directive issued in June 1982. While the US was officially neutral, this NSDD declared that the US would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing its war against Iran.
Apparently without consulting Congress, Reagan also removed Iraq from the State Dept. list of terrorist sponors. This meant that Iraq was now eligible for US dual-use and military technology.
This shift marked the beginning of a very close relationship between the Reagan and Bush administrations and Saddam Hussein. The US over following years actively supported Iraq, supplying billions of dollars of credits, US military intelligence and advice, and ensuring that necessary weaponry got to Iraq.
1983:
The State Dept. once again reported that Iraq was continuing to support terrorist groups
- Iraq had also been using chemical weapons against Iranian troops since 1982; this use of chemical weapons increased in 1983. The State Dept. and the National Security Council were well aware of this.
- Overriding NSC concerns, the Secretaries of Commerce and State pressured the NSC to approve the sale to Iraq of Bell helicopters "for crop dusting" (these same helicopters were used to gas Iraqi Kurds in 1988).
In late 1983, Reagan secretly allowed Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, to transfer US weapons to Iraq; Reagan also asked the Italian prime minister to channel arms to Iraq
December 1983 was a particularly interesting month; it was the month that Donald Rumsfeld -- currently US Secretary of Defense and one of the most vocal proponents of attacking Iraq -- paid a visit to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad as Reagan's envoy.
Rumsfeld claims now that the meeting was about terrorism in Lebanon.
But State Dept. documents show that in fact, Rumsfeld was carrying a message from Reagan expressing his desire to have a closer and better relationship with Saddam Hussein.
Just a few months before Rumsfeld's visit, Iraq had used poison gas against Iranian troops. This fact was known to the US. Also known was that Iraq was building a chemical weapons infrastructure.
NBC and The New York Times have recently reported that Rumsfeld was a key player in the Reagan administration's strong support for Iraq, despite knowing of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. This relationship became so close that both Reagan and VP Bush personally delivered military advice to Saddam Hussein. [1]
1984
In March, the State Dept. reported that Iraq was using chemical weapons and nerve gas in the war against Iran; these facts were confirmed by European doctors who examined Iranian soldiers
The Washington Post (in an article in Dec.1986 by Bob Woodward) reported that in 1984 the CIA began secretly giving information to Iraqi intelligence to help them "calibrate" poison gas attacks against Iranian troops.
1985
The CIA established direct intelligence links with Baghdad, and began giving Iraq "data from sensitive US satellite reconnaissance photography" to help in the war.
This same year, the US House of Representatives passed a bill to put Iraq back on State Dept. supporters of terrorism list.
The Reagan administration -- in the person of Secretary of State George Schultz -- pressured the bill's sponsor to drop it the bill. The bill is dropped, and Iraq remains off the terrorist list.
Iraq labs send a letter to the Commerce Dept with details showing that Iraq was developing ballistic missiles.
Between 1985-1990 the Commerce Dept. approved the sale of many computers to Iraq's weapons lab. (The UN inspectors in 1991 found that: 40% of the equipment in Iraq's weapons lab were of US origin)
1985 is also a key year because the Reagan administration approved the export to Iraq of biological cultures that are precursors to bioweapons: anthrax, botulism, etc.; these cultures were "not attenuated or weakened, and were capable of reproduction."
There were over 70 shipments of such cultures between 1985-1988.
The Bush administration also authorized an additional 8 shipments of biological cultures that the Center for Disease Control classified as "having biological warfare significance."
This information comes from the Senate Banking Committee's report from 1994. The report stated that "these microorganisms exported by the US were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."
Senator Riegle, who headed the committee, noted that: "They seemed to give him anything he wanted. It's right out of a science fiction movie as to why we would send this kind of stuff to anybody." [2]
1988
The Reagan administration's Commerce Dept. approved exports to Iraq's SCUD missile program; it was these exports that allowed the extension of the SCUDs' range so that in 1991 they were able to reach Israel and US bases in Saudi Arabia.
In March, the Financial Times of London reported that Saddam had recently used chemical weapons against Kurds in Halabja, using US helicopters bought in 1983.
Two months later, an Asst. Secretary of State pushed for more US-Iraq economic cooperation.
In September of that year, Reagan prevented the Senate from putting sanctions on Iraq for its violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons.
The US also voted against a UN Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons. [3]
1989
In March, the CIA director reported to Congress that Iraq was the largest chemical weapons producer in the world.
The State Dept reported that Iraq continued to develop chemical and biological weapons, as well as new missiles
The Bush administration that year approved dozens of export licenses for sophisticated dual-use equipment to Iraq's weapons ministry.
In October, international banks cut off all loans to Iraq. The Bush administration responded by issuing National Security Directive 26, which mandated closer links with Iraq, and included a $1 billion loan guarantee.
This loan guarantee freed up cash for Iraq to buy and develop WMDs.
This directive was suspended only on August 2, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait.
One US firm reportedly contacted the Commerce Dept. two times, concerned that its product could be used for nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Bush's Commerce Dept requested and received written guarantees from Iraq that the equipment was only for civilian use.
1990
Between July 18 and August 1 (the day before the invasion), the Bush Administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales to Iraq's weapons ministry and to weapons labs that were known to have worked on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
So when US ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam the US did not have an official position on disputes between Arab countries, is it any wonder that he thought the US would look the other way when he invaded Kuwait? After this close and very supportive relationship with the Republican administrations throughout the 1980s?
We all know about the Gulf War. But I want to bring in one more piece of history here, from after the Gulf War.
Dick Cheney, before becoming Vice President, was CEO of Halliburton Corp. from 1995 until August 2000, when he retired with a $34 million retirement package.
According to the Financial Times of London, Halliburton in that time period sold $23.8 million of oil industry equipment and services to Iraq, to help rebuild its war-damaged oil production infrastructure. For political reasons, Halliburton used subsidiaries to hide this. [4]
More recently, the Washington Post on June 23, 2001, reported that figure was actually $73 million.
The head of the subsidiary said he is certain Cheney knew about these sales.
Halliburton did more business with Saddam Hussein than any other US company.
Asked about this by journalists by ABC News in August 2000, Cheney lied and said "I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq, even arrangements that were supposedly legal." [5]
The US media never followed up on this. ..................
.............A story of men so obsessed with Iran that they made numerous incredibly bad judgements, consistently, time and time again, over the course of eight years.
What can we learn from that history?
I want to add to that history some things we are seeing now.
We're seeing more of this now in the ways in which the Administration is lying to us to try to convince us to go to war.
Back to 1990: Before the Gulf War, President Bush claimed that satellite photos showed 250,000 Iraqi troops massing on Iraq's border with Saudi Arabia, with 1500 tanks. The Christian Science Monitor reported on 9/6/02 that was not true. [6]
As the journalist who broke this story pointed out: "That Iraqi buildup was the whole justification for Bush sending in troops and it just didn't exist."
Now to the present again. George W. Bush in early September 2002, as part of his argument for the need to immediately attack Iraq, claimed that the International Atomic Energy Agency had issued a report in 1998 saying Iraq was 6 months from having nuclear weapons. The IAEA denied this, saying they had never issued any such report. The Bush White House then said that they had mispoken, and that the report was actually issued in 1991. Again, the IAEA denied this. [7]
A second such example of deception are Bush's claims of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
French intelligence agencies have been investigating these possible links for years (after an Algerian group carried out bombings in Paris in 1995). Again, the Financial Times reported earlier this month that this French investigation has produced zero evidence of any such link, not a trace. [8]
Finally, I will cite a report in the Houston Chronicle earlier this month, which reported that:
"A growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in [Bush's] own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.
These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses... They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the US that pre-emptive military action is necessary.
'Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books,' said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews. No one who was interviewed disagreed. ... [9]
So the history is one of lies, deception, and incredibly bad judgement that continues to this day.
Over the course of the 1980s, two Republican administrations, and individuals who are once again running US foreign policy, supplied Saddam Hussein with the means to wage brutal warfare against his neighbors and his own citizens; supplied him with the means to make nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, with the means to build missile technology. (All of these weapons, as well as the facilities, research and otherwise, were destroyed or dismantled before UNSCOM was pulled out of Iraq in 1998.)
Where was their concern about Saddam Hussein then? Why are Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney only now suddenly worried about Saddam Hussein, when as recently as a couple of years ago the company Cheney headed was doing deals with him?
Based on this history, there is absolutely no reason to take this administration's word on anything related to Iraq. .................
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