By Michael Krieger: But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely
unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives
in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former
intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United
States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They
show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the
scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official
American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical
weapons attacks ever launched.- From Foreign Policy’s excellent article: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran
Remember all of the propaganda ahead of the USA’s “democracy unleashing” invasion of Iraq in 2003. It went something like this: “We have evidence that Saddam Hussein has stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and even worse he has a histroy of using them, even against his own people!”
Well unsurprisingly, Mr. Hussein had a little help from his friends. The United States of America.
Let’s bear this in mind as our Noble Peace Prize winning President attempts to involve us in another unconstitutional war based on the fact that chemical weapons have been used.
Let’s be adults here and recognize that every single thing we have been told about Syria has been a lie. Let’s also admit that the “rebels” that we are allies with have al-Qaeda elements to them, and that Saddam Hussein was a close ally in the 1980′s before we decided he was the most evil dictator on the planet 20 years later for engaging in chemical attacks we were actually a party to.
Please spread this far and wide, since I believe we can avoid this useless war if enough people get the joke. From Foreign Policy:
The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.
Next you’re going to tell me Santa Claus isn’t real.
The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.
U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.
“The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew,” he told Foreign Policy.
According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength and Not Commenting is Transparency.
In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.
But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.
Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian troops and possibly civilians.
The declassified CIA documents show that Casey and other top officials were repeatedly informed about Iraq’s chemical attacks and its plans for launching more. “If the Iraqis produce or acquire large new supplies of mustard agent, they almost certainly would use it against Iranian troops and towns near the border,” the CIA said in a top secret document.
But it was the express policy of Reagan to ensure an Iraqi victory in the war, whatever the cost.
By 1988, U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein’s military. That March, Iraq launched a nerve gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq.
In Liberty,
Mike
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