Above, Donald Rumsfeld shakes hands with Saddam Hussein. In 1975,
the US signed on to an international treaty banning the production, use, and
stockpiling of biological weapons. Ditto for chemical weapons, in 1993. Another
treaty.
The article below never mentions the U.S. gave chemical weapons to Iraq during their war with Iran. The article states that Iraq developed these weapons. Below is the link to the article about the Iran Iraq War.
Here's a
quote from the Washington Post (9/4/13, "When the US looked the other
way on chemical weapons"): "...The administrations of Ronald Reagan
and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items...including
poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague..."
Between
1985 and 1989, a US 501C3 firm, American Type Culture Collection, sent
Iraq up to 70 shipments of various biowar agents, including 21 strains of
anthrax.
Between
1984 and 1989, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control!) sent Iraq at least 80
different biowar agents, including botulinum toxoid, dengue virus, and West
Nile antigen and antibody.
This
information on the American Type Culture Collection and the CDC comes from a
report, "Iraq's Biological Weapons Program," prepared by the James
Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).
Then we
have a comprehensive article by William Blum (one of the good investigators in
this whole story) in the April 1998 Progressive called "Anthrax for
Export." Blum cites a 1994 Senate report confirming that, in this
1985-1989 time period, US shipments of anthrax and other biowar agents to Iraq
were licensed by...drum roll, cymbal crash...the US Dept. of Commerce.
Blum
quotes from the Senate report: "These biological materials were not
attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction. It was later learned
that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those
the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological
warfare program."
This 1994
Senate report also indicates that the US exported to Iraq the precursors for
chemwar agents, actual plans for chemical and biowar production facilities, and
chemical-warhead filling equipment. The exports continued until at least
November 28, 1989.
Blum
lists a few other biowar agents the US shipped to Iraq. Histoplasma Capsulatum,
Brucella Melitensis, Clostridium Perfringens, Clostridium tetani---as well as
E. coli, various genetic materials, human and bacterial DNA.
Blum also
points out that a 1994 Pentagon report dismissed any connection between all
these biowar agents and Gulf War Illness. But the researcher who headed up that
study, Joshua Lederberg, was actually a director of the US firm that had
provided the most biowar material to Iraq in the 1980s: the American Type
Culture Collection.
Newsday
revealed that the CEO of the American Type Culture Collection was a member of
the US Dept. of Commerce's Technical Advisory Committee. See, the Dept. of
Commerce had to license and approve all those exports of biowar agents carried
out by the American Type Culture Collection. Get the picture?
Above, dead Iranian soldiers during the Iran Iraq war
Now, as
to other US companies which dealt biowar or chemwar agents to Iraq---all such
sales having been approved by the US government---the names of these companies
are contained in records of the 1992 Senate hearings, "United States
Export Policy Toward Iraq Prior to Iraq's Invasion of Kuwait," Senate
Report 102-996, Senate Committee on Banking Housing and Urban Affairs, 102d
Congress, Second Session (October 27, 1992):
Mouse
Master (Georgia), Sullaire Corp (Charlotte, North Carolina), Pure Aire
(Charlotte, North Carolina), Posi Seal (Conn.), Union Carbide (Conn.), Evapco
(Maryland), BDM Corp (Virginia), Spectra Physics (Calif.).
There are
about a dozen more.
This also
from the Blum article: "A larger number of American firms supplied Iraq
with the specialized computers, lasers, testing and analyzing equipment, and
other instruments and hardware vital to the manufacture of nuclear weapons,
missiles, and delivery systems. Computers, in particular, play a key role in
nuclear weapons development. Advanced computers make it feasible to avoid
carrying out nuclear test explosions, thus preserving the program's secrecy.
The 1992 Senate hearings implicated [Hewlett Packard, Palo Alto, CA - among
others]."
Hewlett
Packard said that the recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was some sort of
school in Iraq. But in 1990, the Wall St. Journal stated that Saad 16 was a
"heavily fortified, state-of-the-art [Iraqi] complex for aircraft
construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons
research."
If you
review and think about all these WMD shipments from the US to Iraq, you
understand there were many US officials and corporate employees who knew about
them. Knew about them then, in the 1980s, and knew about them later, during 2
US wars in Iraq, when American soldiers were sent to Iraq, and could have been
exposed to the bio/chem weapons.
And these
officials and employees said nothing.
Officials
at the CDC and the Dept. of Commerce said nothing. People at the American Type
Culture Collection said nothing. People at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSA
said nothing. Presidents said nothing. Employees of the corporations who
supplied germs and chemicals said nothing.
---Now
imagine the NY Times and the Washington Post releasing their hounds to dig
deeper into this boggling story. Interviews with the players. Investigations
into the role of the CDC. The cover-ups. After a year of relentless probing and
publishing, this would have built into an unstoppable tidal wave. The whole
country (and the world) would have been agog. Prosecutions would have followed.
But it
didn't happen.
Instead,
the story dissolved and went away.
The
history that could have been made...
Wasn't
made.
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