Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot of the Sunday Herald report on How did Iraq get its weapons? We sold them:
Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs — which oversees American exports policy — reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.
Classified US Defence Dep-artment documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.
The Senate committee's reports on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis — the micro-organism that causes anthrax — were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.
Of course, now that I've posted this, I fully expect the comments section at Stand Down to fill up with folks saying that we shouldn't talk about it. They'll say we should oppose the war for some other reason and not mention this type of information, like several other posters have done with other arguments against the war. I'm getting a little tired of that nonsense.
I'm of the opinion that we should oppose the war on any grounds that wins over more people to our side. That requires diversity in tactics and approaches. Not everyone will be convinced by the same arguments, which necessitates the need for opposition on multiple fronts for multiple reasons. You can't influence everyone with the same argument and you damn sure won't alienate everyone with said arguments as well.
The enemy of my enemy can be my friend — at least in the really fragile, fair-weather opposition to going to war with Iraq sense of the word.
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This entry also posted at Stand Down.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family, James!
I’ve enjoyed your blog all this year and am looking forward to reading more of it next year!
I think stuff like this is important: it corrodes the moral righteous that lies at the base of some arguments for war. Well-intentioned and naive folk who believe we should go to war because (a) it’s the right thing to do and (b) we (the US)always do the right thing should understand that (b) is false, and that we have generally pursued a policy of short-sighted power politics in our dealings with others.
Posted by Curtiss Leung on December 24, 2002 09:06 AM
Read “With Friends Like These” by Bruce Jentleson. It makes a strong case against Saddam, but shows clearly that the U.S. armed him when it was very apparent that he was not a nice person. The idea of unilateralist war was not on the agenda when he wrote it, so I don’t know what he’d say, but it certainly tells us that we shouldn’t trust the Reagan-Bush team any.
Posted by david on December 24, 2002 05:48 PM
I’m convinced we gave Saddam his weapons, ironically, and I hope he knows how to use them against the evil American aggressors bent on destroying this peaceful, gentle leader and his wise rule of this lovely country. Hopefully, this will lead to full scale revolution in our country and we will then finally can build a workers paradise.
Posted by ashanti on December 26, 2002 01:22 AM
Ashanti
did you ever read Animal Farm? Guess which animal you are.
It, by the way, is satire. Your little efforts are hard to define, but here goes:
Tiresome, ignorant, conformist drivel.
Let the adults do the thinking, eh?
Posted by Glenn on December 26, 2002 08:30 PM
we give everybody their weapons. it’s the economy, stupid…follow the money trail.
Posted by inkgrrl on December 26, 2002 01:30 AM
us has always been interested in its own mony trails sidelining its social responsibility which in turn has stung it bitterly…..had it taken a more serious insight into the matters of islamic states dat sponsor terror in n trough the world n combating them with colation efforts it would not have faced the sept 11incidence or iraqi conflicts……………..its eco largely depends upon its market shares in other countries…..so its like united we stand …………….
Posted by pragyan on November 26, 2003 12:51 AM