FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
10 Sept. 2002
Contact Person: Gary Treece
U.S. SUPPLIES,
CALIBRATES AND ENDORSES
USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ
As the Bush administration works to gain world
support to conduct a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, new disturbing information
has surfaced with regard to U.S. involvement in the development of Iraq’s
chemical and biological weapons program.
The pre-emptive strike is based upon President Bush
and Vice-President Cheney’s beliefs that there must be an invasion of Iraq
because Saddam Hussein:
possesses weapons of mass destruction and the potential for nuclear
weapons,
used these weapons on his own people (Kurds) and the Iranians,
has a history of lying to the world.
According to information obtained by the AGWVA,
there is irrefutable evidence to show that the United States government provided
and encouraged Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. The United States Department of
Commerce and The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) provided at least 80
shipments of biological agents that were not attenuated (or weakened) and were
capable of reproduction. These shipments included such virulent agents as
Anthrax, West Nile Virus and Clostridium botulinum (S.R.103-900, May 25, 1994,
pg. 264).
The AGWVA also found it very disturbing to learn
that on December 19, 1983, the Middle Eastern envoy who carried a handwritten
note from President Reagan to Saddam Hussein,
to “resume our diplomatic relations with Iraq” was none other
than our present Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
According to “U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial
Relationships with Iraq”, 1980-August 2, 2000,
(www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html),
Nathaniel Hurd states:
“Iraq
reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and
significantly increased CW use in 1983… Shortly after removing Iraq from the
terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60
Hughes helicopters. Analysts recognized that “civilian” helicopters can be
weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of
giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.”
Mark Phythian, in his book Arming Iraq: How the
U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine” (Northeastern
University Press, 1997) stated:
“
…the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz)
lobbied the NSC (National Security Council) advisor into agreeing to the sale to
Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters, officially for crop spraying. It is believed that
US-supplied choppers were used in the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish
village Halabja, which killed 5000 people.”
In his own book Turmoil and Triumph: My
Years as Secretary of State, George Shultz refers to a
declassified CIA report which notes Iraq’s use of mustard gas in August 1983,
giving further credence to the suggestion that the State Department and/or the
National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq’s use of chemical
weapons at this time. If the use of chemical weapons was known in August
of 1983, and Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq in December of 1983, he was on notice
that this country was using and was going to continue to use weapons of mass
destruction. Why, then, did
the United States move to de-list Iraq from those considered to be terrorist
nations?
On March 23, 1984, Iran accused Iraq of poisoning
600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas. Donald Rumsfeld
returned to Baghdad on March 24, 1984. On that same day, the UPI wire service
reported that a team of UN experts had concluded that:
“Mustard
gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers. Meanwhile,
Donald Rumsfeld held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz.”
Probably the most critical piece of information is
that according to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, in a December 15,
1986 article, the CIA began to secretly supply Iraq with intelligence in
1984 that was used to “calibrate” mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops.
It is public record that the U.S. not only armed
Iraq from 1983 thru August 1, 1990, but that they also provided the money to
Iraq to purchase the weapons via the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro (BNL), George Bush, Sr., and the Export-Import Bank. Iraq received
$5 Billion dollars funneled through the Commercial Credit Corporation ostensibly
for food credits. It is also public information that at least $2 Billion
dollars from the defaulted loan was repaid by the U.S. citizen taxpayers.
Joyce Riley, spokesperson for the American Gulf War
Veterans Association has for seven years been shining the light of
accountability on the Department of Defense for having armed our “enemy”
with weapons of mass destruction, exposing our military to these weapons and
then denying not only their culpability but the very existence of the mystery
diseases. She often quotes Senator Donald Riegle (D-MI) who stated in Senate
Report 103-900, “Our troops are not just sick, they are dying.”
Riley, a former Captain in the United States Air
Force Reserve and Flight Nurse states: “If it wasn’t bad enough to
watch our troops become ill from our own weapons… the Department of Defense
labeled our sick men and women as “mental cases.” These proud men and women
have been abandoned, are now sick and must fight the battle alone. These
needless illnesses and deaths now lie at the feet of the Pentagon and
Veterans’ Administration Hospitals.”