This is the thread devoted to the debate that Thought Criminal and Sarah Maree have agreed to undertake after much discussion in this thread. The resolution to this debate is: The Iraq War and the Sanctions Regime Were Just and Ethical Actions Based on Solid Intelligence and Good Intentions.


The rules to the debate are as follows:

1. This is a civil debate - there will be no insult hurling.
2. This debate will last five rounds. Sarah will provide the opening post and Thought Criminal will rebut.
3. Unfamiliar terms will be defined upon request.
4. All sources will be cited properly.

Let me begin by thanking Sarah Maree for agreeing to participate in this discussion. I appreciate the opportunity to engage this subject with a worthy opponent and I sincerely hope this proves to be instructive to both of us and to any spectators.

The Iraq War, from it's origins in the original 1991 Gulf War, through the brutal sanctions regime of the 90's, and to the vicious counter-insurgency being fought today is a complex matter. There will no doubt be two major competing histories with respect to it, depending on one's ideological bent, namely the pro-war camp and the anti-war camp.

How do we judge which history is correct? Do we trust the government? Do we trust pundits like Michael Moore?

My hope is to try and illuminate a third history, one that navigates outside the highly polarized views of opposing ideologies, both of which have shown no shame in their bias, and find a narrative that gives us a more objective view of what actually happened.

To that end I want to state from the outset that I intend to ensure my source material in this debate reflects original sources, not obvious propoganda from either side. I intend to use State Department documents, UN documents and reports from credible and respected Non-Government Organizations like the International Red Cross. When news stories are employed I will give what I hope will be recognized as the most credible and objective news organizations in the world, and hopefully be able to amass several corroborative sources. You won't find me quoting Fox News or CommonDreams.org.

At any time if Sarah Maree is not satisfied with the credibility of one of my sources I would encourage her to say so in order that I may do what I can to find a superior source or abandon the line of inquiry. I doubt this problem will arise but I want her and everyone else to know I would consider it quite fair for her to do so. My motives for this are to ensure her satisfaction and hopefully the satisfaction of all who may be paying attention to this that I am presenting the case as I have intended, in as objective and credible a manner as possible.

Now, to get down to the matter of addressing Sarah's opening remarks. I am going to break down her claims by category and examine each in turn, but let me begin with her quote.

"Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations."
-- United States Senate and the House of Representatives stated the following in their joint resolution to authorize the use of U.S. military action towards Iraq, released March 20, 2003


I intend in the course of this debate to demonstrate the ultimate falsehood of this statement. I hope to demonstrate that calims about chemical and biological weapons were entirely unfounded and that this was largely known by the intelligence community. I intend to show that claims that Iraq was actively seeking nuclear capabilities were based on intelligence known at the time to be dodgy at best, outright fraudulent at worst and furthermore that claims regarding Iraqi collusion with terror organizations were also based on extremely poor intelligence, intelligence that even at the time could not have been considered credible enough to start a war over.


On the Imminence of the Iraqi Threat

Let me be clear.

Saddam Hussein was a brutal and vicious thug.

But was he much of a threat post Gulf War 1?

Leaving WMD's out of the picture for now and focusing on conventional forces, we can examine the military power of Iraq starting from the invasion on Kuwait.

Pre-Gulf War Iraq enjoyed the position of having the fifth largest standing army in the world, according to Jane's Defence and GlobalSecurity.org.

Iraq had nearly one million soldiers pre-Kuwait invasion. Technologically, these forces were not very advanced, relying mostly on older Soviet tank and aircraft models and some French designs as well.

In terms of military doctine, we have seen that Iraq drew mostly on a mixture of Soviet, French, American and British influences, with special attention paid to British doctrine, being that Britain was a former colonial power there. In fact, many of the manuals recovered after the 1991 war were Iraqi translations of British WWII handbooks.

Application of these doctrines were sufficeint in dealing sith forces similar in technology and order of battle to Iraq, but against a truly modern army they were nearly useless. Many of the doctrines employed by Iraqi military commanders were woefully misapplied and were frequently incompatible with overall strategic goals, according to analysis from the Center for Defense Information.

Doctrinal problems aside, we can review the Iraqi order of battle post-Gulf War and going into the 2003 invasion.

The first Gulf War very neatly decimated conventional Iraqi forces and we find that from pre-war sterngths of nearly 950, 000 troops, 5000 battle tanks (and twice as many assorted armored combat vehicles), and almost 4000 pieces of artillery, only one year later Iraq was reduced to troop strengths estimated at 382, 000.

Losses in vehicles and equipment were even more prodigious, especially among the most modern of Iraq's armory which were deployed against Kuwait.

As late as 2002 we can see an Iraqi strength estimate at about 389, 000, with local factories turning out spare parts to barely keep remaining combat vehicles marginally operational. Barred from purchasing new weapon systems and with inconsistent domestic production of new equipment and spare parts, mush of Iraq's conventional military simply had not revocered very much from the Gulf War.

Divsional strengths, with authorized divisions normally defined as 10, 000 troops to be considered at "strength", can be found at 80% authorized levels in over half of all Iraqi Divisions with the other half at 70% or less. Many critical vacancies existed in the Iraqi military and many divisions were heavily dependent on conscripts as opposed to professional solders.

Additionally, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that all Iraqi divisions were operating at no more than 50% combat effectiveness with half of all the army lacking any spare parts.

IISS also rated the Iraqi Air Force, a marginal fleet at best, at about 55% serviceability with critical shortages of spare parts. Helicopter wings were rated as "poor" in terms of serviceability due to similar problems. Iraqi pilots were also found to be critically lacking in flight time, with many junior pilots having less than 20 hours per year.

Adding sanctions, US bombing campaigns over a decade, and frequent purges of the officer classes by Saddam himself and we find that the Iraq military was in a shambles pre-invasion.

Further complicating the matter was the experience of Iraqi military, which was more accustomed to perfomring internal security than carrying out actual warfare. At both the strategic and tactical level, manouvers were based on memorized patterns and typically not on dynamic battlefield intelligence. They were inflexible for the most part and often failed to reflect the operational realities of the battle.

Command structure in the Iraqi military is also worth noting here, with special attention paid to the culture of the Iraqi military and Arab culture in general and the Soviet influence on Iraqi doctrine.

According to Norvell B. De Atkine's article "Why Arabs Lose Wars: Fighting As You Train, and the Impact of Culture on Arab Military Effectiveness.", who in his capacity as a US Army Colonel spent significant time training Arab militaries, 'in Arab militaries generally, information is viewed as power, U.S trainers noting that much of the knowledge they imparted did not percolate through the ranks. Often, individuals refuse to pass on what they have learned lest their own value and importance diminish. Open competition is also shunned to avoid the prospect of losing parties feeling humiliated, particularly when mixed ranks are involved, with education heavily dependant on memorization techniques and therefore discouraging "thinking outside the box."'

Reflecting the Soviet command style, the Iraqi officer class has also been described as having extremely poor relations with lower ranks and in an atmosphere of paranoia and secrecy very little information found it's way to those who actually needed it.

Effectively, this meant that the command ability, in terms of authority and availability of relevent battlefield data, of the average Iraqi Colonel, was about equivalent to that of a US Seargent.

What does all this add up to?

Does this armed force deserve to be considered a threat to the region, if not the globe?

In short, not even close. It has been said by a few great Generals that amateurs talk about strategy and real soldiers discuss logistics. It is within this context that it is fully demonstrated how impotent Iraq was in terms of force projection.

In order to successfully project force, one must not only have a standing army, but one must have highly organized systems for disseminating information, traffic control, refuel and repair facilities, sufficient parts and supplies to carry out sustained operations and so on.

Modern military equipment is far more delicate than one might imgaine. Many vehicles, even the most modern in the US arsenal require significant maintenance to combat ratios. In order to maintain a mechanized force in a sustained conflict, sufficient spare parts and mobile facilities are required. Vehicle breakdown has been decisive factor in the history of mechanized warfare since it's modern inception in WWII and harsh lessons were learned by the masters of the craft, the German Panzergruppens.

Lacking in these areas of logistics in a very potent manner leaves the Iraqi military incapable of sustaining armed conflict for any serious length of time. Althogh I lack hard figures on the matter, the consensus of many experts is that Iraq would not be able to sustain more than a few weeks of protracted conflict in any kind of force projection scenario.

Other military powers in the region are hardly what one might call daunting, but the sate of the Iraqi military was such that even a minimal force, strategically fighting a moving battle could have worn out Iraqi logistical capabilities in short time, rendering any gains made by Iraqi forces incapable of being held.

In short, in conventional terms, Iraq posed no serious threat to anyone in the region post-Gulf War. I apologize for the length of this response, but I felt in order to convincingly rebut this notion a fairly serious analysis of the situation was in order. It must also be kept in mind that this represents the conventional threat Iraq may have posed and does not address the threat of WMD or terrorist activities.

Allow me to end this lengthy and dry segment with some notable quotations of my own:

We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...

- Secretary of State Colin Powell in a press conference in Cairo, Egypt, 2001

The official State Department website has actually deleted the page which transcribes this press conference. It has been preserved in web archives, such as the Memory Hole. I will refrain from making any assumptions about this omission.



Senator Bennett: Mr. Secretary, the U.N. sanctions on Iraq expire the beginning of June. We've had bombs dropped, we've had threats made, we've had all kinds of activity vis-a-vis Iraq in the previous administration. Now we're coming to the end. What's our level of concern about the progress of Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programs?

Secretary Powell: The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10 years ago.

So containment, using this arms control sanctions regime, I think has been reasonably successful. We have not been able to get the inspectors back in, though, to verify that, and we have not been able to get the inspectors in to pull up anything that might be left there. So we have to continue to view this regime with the greatest suspicion, attribute to them the most negative motives, which is quite well-deserved with this particular regime, and roll the sanctions over, and roll them over in a way where the arms control sanctions really go after their intended targets -- weapons of mass destruction -- and not go after civilian goods or civilian commodities that we really shouldn't be going after, just let that go to the Iraqi people. That wasn't the purpose of the oil-for-food program. And by reconfiguring them in that way, I think we can gain support for this regime once again.

When we came into office on the 20th of January, the whole sanctions regime was collapsing in front of our eyes. Nations were bailing out on it. We lost the consensus for this kind of regime because the Iraqi regime had successfully painted us as the ones causing the suffering of the Iraqi people, when it was the regime that was causing the suffering. They had more than enough money; they just weren't spending it in the proper way. And we were getting the blame for it. So reconfiguring the sanctions, I think, helps us and continues to contain the Iraqi regime.


- Transcript of Colin Powells testimony before the Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, May 15, 2001. Available through Lexis-Nexis.



But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

- National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice on CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer, 29 July 2001 with guest host John King.

Many more examples of this posture are available, upon request.




Iraq and Terror

This is perhaps one of the single greatest misconceptions about the justification for war.

Let me begin by sharing the findings of the 9/11 comission:

But the report of the commission's staff, based on its access to all relevant classified information, said that there had been contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but no cooperation. In yesterday's hearing of the panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a senior FBI official and a senior CIA analyst concurred with the finding.

The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

- Source: Washington Post, June 17 2004


With that out of the way we can discuss some other issues around the matter.

One important thing to recall is that Saddam Hussein was a fairly secular leader. He was hardly a radical Muslim theocrat and he views and rule would hardly be endorsed by Al-Qaeda. That may be specualtive, but the rest is not.

Where did this idea come from, this notion of Iraqi support for Al-Qaeda and global terror?

Pre-war, it was the word of pretty much one man: Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a close confidant of Osama Bin Laden who was captured in Pakistan a few months after 9/11.

Uncorroborated and under duress in secret detention centers, he talked about Iraq providing training to Al-Qaeda operatives in the handling of chemical and biological weapons.

Now, we could spend some time talking about the problems assocaited with uncorroborated informant testimony, especially given al-Libi's no doubt strong desire to find a way out of his predicament, but I'll leave that for another time.

What is significant about al-Libi's testimony now is not that he has recanted it now, but the fact that in reports from the Defense Intelligence Agency in February of 2002 expressed extreme skepticism about al-Libi's claims.

From declassified paragraphs of the report, published first in the New York Times November 5 2005:

This is the first report from Ibn al-Shaykh in which he claims Iraq assisted al-Qaida's CBRN efforts. However, he lacks specific details on the Iraqi's [stet] involved, the CBRN materials associated with the assistance, and the location where training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may describing [stet] scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.

Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.

Furthermore, a CIA report in 2003 arrived at the same conclusions and noted al-Libi was "not in a position to know if any training had taken place."

Here is a link to a .pdf version of the letter from the DIA regarding the declassification of the relevent paragraphs of the report and includes the now declassified paragraphs.

Link to the New York Times article, which requires registration with New York Times website.

Link to a Newsweek article, provided by MSNBC, which details the NYT report. No registration required.

It should be noted that this information was available to the administration in advance of the invasion of Iraq.

Was there any other intelligence on the matter?

Secretary Powell spoke fairly extensively about Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in his presentation to the UN Security council. He brings up medical visits to Baghdad and asserts that Zarqawi had ties with both Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

These "facts" have been shown to be outright false or highly exaggerated.

Also interesting is the assertion Powell makes regarding a teror training camp run by Zarqawi in Iraq.

From his address to the UN Security Council:

When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqaqi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.

Those helping to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most senior levels of the radical organization, Ansar al-Islam, that controls this corner of Iraq. In 2000 this agent offered Al Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept Al Qaida from Afghanistan, some of its members accepted this safe haven. They remain their today.

Then he displayed this slide:



It is important to note very carefully where he says the camp is located, namely Northern Kurdish areas outside of Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. Or in other words, in the No -Fly zone controlled by US forces. Why did they not act on this intelligence and bomb the camp? Or raid it with special forces? The territory in question was dominated by US forces for over a decade, so what prevented them?

Next came this slide:



The unnamed "Detained Al-Qaeda Operative" was none other than Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, already determined by the DIA and CIA to NOT be credible in his claims.

We'll be returning to Powells UN report several times during this discussion.

In any case, where there other intelligence claims? Not until after the invasion when all kinds of detainees claimed to have documents showing links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, none of which were found to be credible by the CIA, all of which are considered fabrications.

So once again, we can see that there is no credible evidence to support this claim, but more importantly that this was known in advance of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.






I think this might be a suitable place to take a brief rest and end this very long response.

If there is no objection, I would like to pick up the rest of the claims made in Sarah Marees opening in another post later this morning as I do have some work to attend to.

Before I begin I too should apologize for taking so long in getting back into this discussion. Work has been busy lately and I just haven't had the time required to truly do justice to this issue and maintain what I think has been a very high quality level of discourse here.

In any case, let's get down to business.


I will heartily agree with Sarah that two nations with similarly antiquated and poorly deported forces stand a good chance of fighting one another, but let's make a few disticntions that perhaps someone without a strategic military background might miss.

First of all, we can recall that from my last post I spoke about strategy and logistics. Let's give this further consideration and find out what is really meant here and why this is an important distinction and a very important reason we would not likely see aggressive force projection from Iraqi forces.

Let's assume Iraq and Iran (or Syria if you prefer) are having a disagreement. Let's furhter assume they are just about equal in numeric terms and in terms of order of battle (this would include technology). This isn't much of a stretch considering Iran has about the same size conventional forces as Iraq with a slightly higher dependence on conscripts, but advantages in terms of domestic production of Main Battle Tanks (putting Iran in a regional club with Egypt as the only other member) and a superior air force.

So assuming the forces are about equal, Iraq invades Iran. What is going to make the difference? Is it superior strategy and tactics that will win the day? Will the cunning of battlefield commanders decide who is victorious?

Yes and no.

We know from my previous post that a major criticism of the Iraqi military was it's critical lack of spare parts for it's vehicles. This too is a problem for Iran, but to a much lesser degree for two reasons: One, Iran is relatively unrestricted in the purchase of said parts and Two Iran is fighting on it's home soil and has much of the support infrastructure in place already. They have the advantage of being at home.

Iraq, on the other hand must now set up supply lines and battlefield repair facilities and countless other logistical considerations and they must do so with a very meager supply of parts and equipment. They must be able to efficiently get the parts to the forward battle areas and distrubute them. Furthermore they are faced with the challenge of deciding how a very limited supply of spares SHOULD be distributed in the first place. What gets priority? Something MUST be given priority because there isn't enough to go around, however this is now a dynamic battlefield situation and at any one time the Iraqi's may be fighting on several major fronts, depending on how they execute their attack. So who gets the bulk of the parts? Or are they split up fairly uniformly throughout the ranks, with everyone getting a tiny ration?

Given what we know about the command structure and effectivness of the Iraqi military, can we expect any real efficiency out of them logistically?

As you can see, very strict and serious logistical controls are required to ensure proper supply chain management and thus ensure that the forces that need the supplies get them. In fact, they may not have much of a choice to begin with, given that what supplies they have will probably dictate their order of battle. No commander with a brain in his head would field a piece of equipment he lacks the ability to properly supply and repair in an extended force projection scenario, so we can probably eliminate most of Iraq's "modern" weapon systems as being combat ineffective.

How can we do that? Simple. Even the most modern armoured vehicles require extensive maintenance to stay combat effective. This usually represents DAILY work to be done on the vehicle to keep it effective. In combat conditions it can be expected that any given vehicle may be down for hours due to maintenance and this number only compunds as the intensity of the conflict heats up.

In order to stay combat effective these systems require the supplies and logistics support to make this maintenance possible. Without the supplies needed for routine daily maintenance even an M1 Abrams becomes an expensive hunk of metal and a burden on the force attempting to deploy it.

Getting back to the point about our hypothetical conflict, we can see that Iran faces many of the same issues but they have the advantage of having their infrastructure in place on home turf. They have the advantage of prepared positions, of familiarity with the terrain resulting in superior efficiency in terms of traffic control (a massively overlooked aspect of warfare). They are also building supply lines in their own territory, territory that is not hostile to them.

What other advantages does Iran have in this scenario? Well, they have space. Iran isn't a huge country by any stretch, but they do have space they can trade for time and better positioning in terms of terrain and supply concerns. Employing a strategy of "soft" lines between a few "hardpoints", one can resist while resistance is effective and then fade out and withdraw, forcing the enemy to move further in and further extend and expose their rear flank and more crucially their supply lines. If a commander is smart about it as well as a little bit lucky, he can time it very effectively and make each spot of resistance extremely costly before making each advance even more costly in terms of supplies.

Does this actually work? Just ask Napolean and Hitler when they tried to take Russia. Hitler's case is most instructive in terms of modern war. The terrain just ate up the vastly superior Nazi forces and Russian resistance would strike and move back. Granted, Russia is a huge country with vastly different terrain, but the principles apply here on a much smaller scale.

The Russians let forces like the 6th Army lead by General Paulus right in and then shut the door on them and cut them to pieces. Overextended supply lines were snipped off with relative ease and German formations were encircled and slaughtered, in some cases to the very last man.

So let's get back to our conflict. We've talked about the importance of logistics, but what about strategy?

Well, if I'm the commander of the Iranian forces my job is pretty simple. Set up battle lines with prepared axes of withdrawal and a series of "softpoints" one may withdraw to, fight from and then withdraw back to a new "softpoint". By being the ones to choose when and where battles will occur, the Iranian forces would be able to engage from positions of greatest advantage. Once Iraqi supply lines are properly extended, small unit strikes and air power should be concentrated on their supplies thus exacerbating their already tenuous supply position.

If Iraqi forces can only sustain a few weeks of protracted force projection, imagine the damage that taking out even ONE truckload of parts or supplies would do to that projection. Any ground lost in the strategic withdrawals could easily be regained once Iraqi supplies were exhausted and their forces operating at near zero combat effectiveness.

This of course, depends on the Iraqi forces not overwhelming the Iranians in very short order, but if we assume comparable strengths (and we can) there is no reason to expect that kind of outcome barring some kind of horrific errors in command or a Saladin-like commander for the Iraqi forces.

Provided the Iranian forces could sustain a stick and move strategy, they would have to endure 2 weeks of siege before Iraqi combat effectiveness dropped like a stone. However, this figure can be cut dramatically if successful raids against Iraqi supply lines can be achieved and further compounded by disruption of all Iraqi logistics, such as traffic control.

So in our armchair Iran/Iraq war, we can see that Iraq stands only a very very tenuous chance of winning. Any commander worthy of their stripes could recognize this and this is precisely why we would not expect to see Iraq invading ANYONE with their forces in the shape they are currently. Even assuming a weaker neighbour, like Kuwait if the same principles are applied by skilled commanders one stands a chance of achieving victory. Recall that Soviet forces on the Eastern Front fought against vastly superior German forces, with great numerical advantages and superior weapon systems. Still, the Russians fought hard enough to grind the Nazi's to a halt and then gained the numbers and technology to drive them back.

Simply put, Iraq stands little chance of successfully engaging in a conventional conflict involving force projection. It simply is not sustainable and any military commander would know this all too well. The Iraqi's aren't stupid people by any stretch, and professional soliders are not by and large suicidal.

I hope we can put this aside for now and move on to more important matters.


I'm glad you have decided to bring up the subject of Iraq's past use of chemical weapons. This to me is a fascinating look at how the world really works and it's not pretty at all.

You quite rightly point out that Iraq employed chemical weapons in their war with Iran. You also quite rightly point out that the precursors for those chemical weapons were supplied by companies in the West, including several in the US.

So let's take a minute and explore the level of support Saddam Hussein enjoyed during this period and just how he managed to get his hands on these CW precursors as well as billions of dollars in conventional arms and dual-use technologies.

After spending some time on this, the true irony of the entire history of conflict between the US and Iraq will be painfully apparent, much as it is in Afghanistan.



A History of International and US Support for Iraq


It must be understood from the outset that the conflict between Iran and Iraq was carried out with very little conern from the international community at large, and as we will see many cases of active support for one side or in some cases both sides.

This holds especially true for the United States.

To understand how this works, one must grasp the realpolitik of the situation. Iraq was considered the lesser of two evils, essentially and thus overt and covert support for Iraqi aggression was granted by the US administration.

What is really interesting to note though, and this is not really material to our debate but provides another interesting look at the results of US interventionism in the region, is that the armed forces deployed by Iran were largey using weapons systems and training provided by the US while Iran was a client state under the Shah. This is something we see over and over in the history of interventionism, today's enemy was yesterday's ally and his power is largely the result of being armed by us.

In any case, shortly after the war began (1982), President Reagan had Iraq removed form a list of rogue states and known terrorist countries. This is despite that fact that Abu Nidal was operating out of Iraq at the time.

At the same time the sale of several Boeing jetliners to Iraq was approved as well as about 400 million in credit guarantees for US exports to Iraq.

This was largely justified by pointing to the threat of Iranian destabilization of the whole Gulf Region as they were beating the Iraqi army back as far as Basra and defeat looked imminent for Iraq.

So then we see things like Hughes aircraft shipping 60 combat helicopters to Iraq in 1982 (Doing Business: The Arming of Iraq by Daniel Robichear), the DIA supplying the Iraqi military with extensive intelligence data on Iranian troop deployment, tactical planning, targeting assistance for bombings (including chemical attacks) and damage assessment.

Keep in mind this was all happening when the US was supposed to be "neutral" on the matter.

Next came the US permitting Jordan, Saudi Arabia Kuwait, and Egypt to begin the clandestine transfer of US built weapons systems to Iraq. This includes bombs, field artillery and Huey helicopters. These acts are in clear violation of the Arms Export Control Act. (Bush's Secret Mission The New Yorker Magazine November 2, 1992).

By late 1983 it is reported that intelligence reports have made their way to then Secretary of State George Schultz that the Iraqi army is using chemical weapons daily against Iran.

Here is a fascinating State Department memo on the subject.

Another fascinating look inside the minds of the times.

So it was well known that these weapons were being deployed in 1983. This is important for what comes later. Also important is to note that these memos are seeking some kind of condemnation in order to be congruent with US policy on chemical weapons. This is also important for later.

In response, the Administration puts forth National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114. Nowhere in the document does it mention chemical weapons or addressing the problem of Iraqi use of them. It does talk a hell of a lot about maintaining the security of oil supplies in the region and protecting international shipping and commerce.






This is a fairly famous/notorious picture by now. It shows Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein in December of 1983 as per a State Department telegram.

Chemcial weapons are never discussed, according to detailed notes on the meeting. However, they are mentioned briefly in a meeting with Tariq Aziz where Rumsfeld warns about their use.

It wasn't until March 5 of 1984 that the US publically condemned the Iraqi use of chemical weapons against Iran, at a time when they could no longer just sweep it under the rug. A State Department memo here shows how Machiavellian the process really is. Amazingly, the use of chemical weapons seems to be treated more like an embarassing public relations problem and not what it really is, the illegal and vicious slaughter of innocents.

Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad on March 24 1984 and found somewhat chillier receptions due to the public condemnation. However, the trip was considered a success and diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US were all but fully restored.

The very same day the UN released a report about Iraqi use of mustard gas and tabun gas on Iranian troops.

After this, a steady flow of technologies intended for use in WMD and other military applications started. This included mainframe computers (from Hewlett-Packard no less), armoured ambulances, helicopters and of course chemicals.


During this time, the CIA also supplied satellite intelligence in order to calibrate missile attacks against Iran. Many of these attacks use mustard gas and otehr agents. (Bob Woodward. "CIA Aiding Iraq in Gulf War; Target Data From U.S. Satellites Supplied for Nearly 2 Years, " Washington Post, December, 15 1986 available through Lexis-Nexis)

Around this time propbably the single greatest controversy of the whole affair arose.
It was revealed that an Atlanta branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, relying partially on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989. In August 1989, when FBI agents finally raided the Atlanta branch of BNL, the branch manager, Christopher Drogoul, was charged with making unauthorized, clandestine, and illegal loans to Iraqsome of which, according to his indictment, were used to purchase arms and weapons technology.

Read that over again and pay particular attention to the US taxpayer guaranteed part. That's right, your tax dollars were hard at work making sure Saddam had chemical and conventional weapons right up until 2 years before the first Gulf War.

US troops in that war fought against and were killed by arms that were in all probability bought with money from these loans.

But was this the work of some crazed mercenary bank manager?

Three months after the indictment, the executive branch approved another 1 billion in loan guarantees to Iraq.

When the investigation kicked off it was a true feat of cover-upmanship and incomptence. Investigators were barred from following up leads in Rome and Istanbul by the Attorney General and when it was revealed that staffers in the commerce department were altering Iraqi export licenses to hide the exported materials' military function before sending the documents on to Congress. Congress, of course, was investigating the whole mess and was doing so based on forged documents.

History would show that many people in the US administration knew about the loans, as did the British government and the Italian government. It is a shocking story of abuse of power and ultimately about the corruption and Machiavellian nature of politics. You can find a fairly comprehensive overview here.

In addition to all of this, when the UN decided to issue a resolution condemning the use of chemical and biologcial weapons and calling for total cessation of their use (referring to Iraqi use without naming Iraq), we would expect the US to go along with it, right? I mean, they just issued a public condemnation and surely they don't approve of that kind of thing?

Wrong.

The US veotoed the resolution, the only country to object. Previous efforts in the Security Council were blocked by the US and Britain.

During this time, many chemical weapons precursors are being shipped to Iraq through US companies and many export licenses were granted for shipping these products to Iraq.

We see a really ugly pattern emerging of horrific chemical massacares and then approved export licenses for mustard gas precursors a few months later. Frankly it's shocking.


What does all this mean? Am I not helping Sarah make here argument with this stuff?

Yes and no. Like I said, I want to try and tell the third history. The one few people talk about and I'm trying to do that honestly. What this all protrays to me is the indifference of the US with respect to the use of chemical weapons and WMD in general when used against it's official enemies by one of it's clients.

Is this cynical? Sure it is. It also happens to be backed by the historical evidence. How terrible did we consider Saddam to be when he was actually carrying out his crimes? The ones we agonized and cried about leading up the the invasion?

Not even enough to support an UN resolution condemning them. Certainly not enough to stop taxpayer supported loans from reaching Iraq and not enough to to stop issuing export licenses for dangerous chemical precursors and other related equipment Not enough to prevent normalizing diplomatic relations even.

I've been at this for hours now, so I hope there are no objections to me taking a break and posting this beast.

When I return I will be visiting the issue of Iraq's declaration, and examining the CIA reports and the British intelligence that led to the UN report given by Colin Powell.