"Jim -" wrote in message
news:Hb_8b.445493$uu5.78735@sccrnsc04...

"Mark Browne" wrote in message
news:cLZ8b.445300$uu5.78581@sccrnsc04...

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
ink.net...
What is really scary, other than your IQ, is that no WMD's were found!
Where did they go? IS a known fact he had them, even your beloved
Clinton
believed the fact, especially the proven fact he used them on his own
people
as well as Iranians. Which country is the holder of the weapons now?
They
scary fact is that zero has been found. Means that there was a very
complete transfer out of the country.
Bill
snip

Used them - like - all up; there is nothing left to find.

Mark Browne



ROTFLMAO!!!! Hey Mark, I have some nice swamp land for you to buy.

BTW, where and when did he use them all up?


Have you been sleeping throught the last twenty or so years? I am not
normally a fan of clip and paste politics, but your question does not merit
the work of personally answering:

Hypocrisy Seen in U.S. Stand on Iraqi Arms
Mideast: Officials say American intelligence aided Baghdad's use of
chemical weapons against Iran in '80s.
By ROBIN WRIGHT, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON--A decade before the current showdown
over weapons of mass destruction, the United States turned
a blind eye when Iraq used American intelligence for operations
against Iran that made rampant use of chemical weapons and
ballistic missiles, according to senior administration and former
intelligence officials.

The attacks against civilian and military targets during the
Iran-Iraq War included some of the most pervasive uses of
chemical weapons anywhere since World War I.
The combination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and
American intelligence eventually helped turn the tide of the
eight-year war in Baghdad's favor. The collaboration reached a
peak shortly after a secret U.S. estimate projected for the first time
that Iran could win one of the century's bloodiest wars.
"We knew [the Iraqis] used chemicals in any major campaign,"
said a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with the American
role. "Although we publicly opposed the use of chemical weapons
anywhere in the world, we knew the intelligence we gave the Iraqis
would be used to develop their own operational plans for chemical
weapons."

Now, 10 years later, the United States is trying to rally world
support for the use of military strikes to destroy the same kinds of
Iraqi weapons-on the grounds that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein should not be allowed to use them in the future.
As the U.S. struggles to assemble a new coalition to force Iraq
to give up such weapons, Clinton administration officials
acknowledge the apparent hypocrisy in U.S. policy. The United
States, under President Reagan, "virtually encouraged" the use of
chemical weapons a decade ago, noted a frustrated senior Clinton
administration official.

But the shift also reflects changes in the political landscape, U.S.
officials now argue. In the 1980s, "Saddam Hussein was the great
white hope" holding back what was then viewed as a militant
Islamic tide from Iran, the administration official said. "They built this
guy up and let him do whatever it took to win. And that included the
use of chemical weapons and ballistic missiles."
The climax of the relationship was the 1988 Iraqi counterattack
at the Faw Peninsula, a swampy but strategic southern oil port
captured by Iran in 1986. Iraq lost the peninsula in part because
U.S. intelligence misread an Iranian military buildup.
To help regain the peninsula, U.S. intelligence sources provided
data on Iran's equipment and troop strength that guided the Iraqi
military in designing and staging a dress rehearsal of the offensive,
the sources say. Washington had an "additional incentive" to
provide detailed data because of its role in the loss of Faw, a
former U.S. diplomat said.

Iraq's 1988 counterattack was a rapid success. And the
casualties were among the grisliest of the war. Thousands of Iranian
troops were killed, many because gas masks did not fit snugly
enough over their beards and thus allowed seepage of lethal toxins.
Empty syringes, some of which had contained a faulty antidote,
were found beside hundreds of bodies, the sources said.
The Reagan administration never actively encouraged Iraq's use
of chemical weapons or missiles. And officially, it was neutral in the
Iran-Iraq War.

But Washington was well aware that Iraq began using chemical
weapons in 1983 and intensified their use in 1986, creating a
pattern that made it virtually impossible not to know that Iraq
intended to use chemical weapons on the Faw Peninsula, former
intelligence officials said.

"By 1986, Iraq had proven itself better at the use of chemical
weapons than any fighting force in the world," said a former senior
U.S. diplomat involved in Iraq. By 1988, Iraq's use of gases had
also repeatedly been documented by U.N. specialists.
"It was all done with a wink and a nod," said a former U.S.
intelligence official. "We knew exactly where this stuff was going,
although we bent over backwards to look the other way."
Washington knew Iraq was "dumping boatloads" of chemical
weapons on Iranian positions, he added.
Missiles were also pivotal in turning the war in Iraq's favor,
especially when Iraq fired Russian-made Scuds on Iranian civilian
areas and major cities, including Tehran. The "war of the cities,"
during which Iran also targeted Iraq, eventually gave
better-equipped Iraq a strong psychological edge in the conflict.
Today, Reagan administration officials contend that they could
not have prevented Hussein's use of weapons of mass destruction.
"Get real. We couldn't have stopped him," (my note: so they provided him
with
assistance and intelligence instead?) said a former
National Security Councilstaffer. "The Iraqis were fighting for survival."
(my
note: they were the invadeders!)

Policy at the time, said another former Reagan official,
recognized that "Hussein is a *******. But at the time, he was our
*******."

Ironically, the most difficult task initially was persuading the
Iraqis to believe U.S. intelligence data.
"We gave them so much help with intelligence in the conduct of
overall campaigns-showing them where Iran was moving troops,
where it was most vulnerable, and projecting how to exploit both to
their advantage," the former intelligence official said.
At first, Iraq ignored or discarded much of the American data.
"It took a long time for them to trust us and listen to us," the official
said. "Eventually, it sunk in that we were telling them what they
needed to know."

The Faw operation was the high point of a blooming relationship
between Baghdad and Washington that was founded on a common
fear of and deep enmity toward Iran. It overcame more fundamental
differences over Israel that led Iraq to sever relations with the U.S.
in 1967.

After relations resumed in 1984, U.S. intelligence agents began
to provide data about Iran's military operations, largely from satellite
photography. The goal at one stage was to provide a counterweight
to the supply of arms and intelligence the Reagan administration was
providing to Iran as part of the 1985-86 arms-for-hostages swap,
according to Reagan administration officials.
But in 1986, as the Iran-Iraq War began to turn decisively in
Iran's favor, the pace of U.S. intelligence information escalated as
part of a bid to at least restore Iraq's edge.
The United States was not alone. In advance of the Faw
counteroffensive, France, Egypt and Jordan provided help in
reorganizing and retraining the weary Iraqi military, Reagan
administration officials point out.
And the very countries now most threatened by Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction helped pay for them, according to U.S. officials.
Of the $100 billion Iraq spent on arms during the 1980s, up to $40
billion was provided by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab
Emirates, either in cash or in free oil.

Copyright Los Angeles Times