U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?

Michael Kalus mkalus at thedarkerside.to
Thu Dec 18 12:42:37 PST 2003


Jim Dixon wrote:

>On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, James A. Donald wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On 17 Dec 2003 at 22:54, Michael Kalus wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>No, but it is very interresting that all of this didn't
>>>matter while Saddam was the "good guy" for our causes (and by
>>>that I mean the Western world general).
>>>      
>>>
>>You are making up your own history.  When Saddam came to power,
>>he seized western property and murdered westerners, especially
>>Americans, and you lot cheered him to an echo. Saddam was
>>always an enemy of the west, he was never a good guy.  He was
>>at times an ally, in the sense that Stalin and Pol Pot were at
>>times temporary allies, yet somehow I never see you fans of
>>slavery and mass murder criticizing the west for allying with
>>Stalin.
>>    
>>
>
>Relevant numbers from the Times today, quoting Air Force Monthly, January
>2003:  from 1980 to 1990 Iraq imported 28.9 billion pounds worth of
>weapons.  19% by value were from France; 57% from the Soviet Union (ie
>Russia), East Germany, and Czechoslovakia; 8% from China.  Sales from the
>United States were inconsequential and did not make the list.  From
>earlier articles in other publications I believe that in fact US sales
>were a small fraction of 1%.
>  
>
 From the same site I linked to before:

[...]

By January 1984, /The Washington Post/ was reporting that the United 
States had told friendly nations in the Persian Gulf that the defeat of 
Iraq would "be contrary to U.S. interests." That sent the message that 
America would not object to U.S. allies offering military aid to Iraq. 
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait sent howitzers, bombs and other 
weapons to Iraq. And later that year the U.S. government pushed through 
sales of helicopters to Hussein's government.

But that was just the beginning of Reagan's pro-Iraq campaign. The 
United States sold the Iraqis military jeeps and Lockheed L-100 
transports. And, according to a recent report in /The New York Times/, 
as many as 60 American intelligence officers provided Iraq with 
"critical battle planning assistance," lending detailed information on 
Iranian deployments, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments. 
The /Times/ story further reported that this intelligence assistance was 
offered even though American officers knew the Iraqi commanders would 
probably use chemical weapons against the Iranians.

The military aid helped Iraq hold off the Iranians, and the war dragged 
on until 1988. That year the U.S. Senate passed the Prevention of 
Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions against Hussein's 
regime. But the Reagan White House opposed the bill, calling it 
premature. When it eventually passed, the White House made little effort 
to enforce it.

[...]

Just because they didn't sell the weapons directly doesn't mean they 
didn't sell them. It is an age old practice to sell weapons to a middle 
man in order to get them where they are not supposed to be.

And in regards to arms sales:

[...]

    * U.S. arms exports in 1995 amounted to $15.6 billion, three times
      that of the next supplier and 49 percent of the world's. Over the
      1993-1995 period, U.S. exports went equally to developed and
      developing countries.
    * The six next largest suppliers, with over $0.5 billion each and
      together accounting for 42 percent of the world total, were:

U.K. 	$5.2 billion 	Germany 	1.2
Russia 	3.3 	Israel 	0.8
France 	2.2 	China, Mainland 	0.6

    * The Middle East imported over 30 percent of the total number of
      major weapons in trade over the last 12 years (1984-1995). In
      1993-1995, Western Europe became the main importing region with 32
      percent.

[...]

http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/acda/factshee/conwpn/wmeatfs.htm





>It is not coincidental that the Security Council members opposed to
>taking any action on Iraq's repeated violations were France, Russia,
>Germany, and China: Iraq's weapons suppliers.
>  
>

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1991/C231.html

[...]

*Kroft. *And other arms dealers and countries did. Brazil provided 
thousands of armored vehicles. China and the Soviet Union sent tanks, 
missiles and munitions. German companies sold Saddam poison gas 
technology, and France, not only approved the sale of artillery to Iraq, 
but [also sold] armed helicopters and antiaircraft missile systems.

This Chilean arms manufacturer [shown on screen] sold Saddam deadly 
cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, 
and the United States allowed American computer technology to go to Iraq 
as well. It allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. 
government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be 
used for civilian purposes. Sarkis told us that the helicopters were 
used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

*Sarkis. *I did it with the knowledge of U.S. authorities, policy 
makers--and also they have delivered weapons that are equally weapons as 
I did. I do not have anything on my conscience. I did not sell the 
weapons to kill the American boys.

*Kroft. *Which agencies of the U.S. government knew about Sarkis and his 
deals with Iraq? Well, according to Sarkis, almost all of them. And 
federal court documents show that Sarkis Soghanalian had a relationship 
with U.S. intelligence agencies for decades, and has performed work on 
their behalf.

Not all of Sarkis's deals with Iraq involve weapons. He arranged the 
sale of $280 million in uniforms to the Iraqi army. And Sarkis's 
partners in the deal included former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a 
former Attorney General, Colonel Jack Brennan.

The partners used their influence to get ex-President Nixon to provide 
them with these letters of introduction [shown on screen] to heads of 
state around the world.

[To Sarkis] Do you think there was anything unusual about a former Vice 
President and a former Attorney General and a former Chief of Staff for 
the President of the United Stateas to want to be selling military 
uniforms to the Iraqis?

*Sarkis. *They were not only in the uniform business. They would sell 
their mothers if they could, just to make the money.

[...]


>These repeated claims that Saddam was somehow the US's boy in the Middle
>East are puzzling.  The US did not supply any significant number of
>weapons or other military aid to Iraq. 
>

The word "directly" is missing here.

> They did give limited support to
>Iraq in its war against Iran, a direct consequence of the Irani occupation
>of the US embassy in Teheran and kidnapping of its staff.  If you look at
>the tactics and weapons used by Saddam in the invasion of Kuwait and in
>the resulting Gulf War, they were Soviet.
>
>  
>

That may be, but they also had Hughes Helicopters (see quote above) as 
well as other weapons that clearly came from the US. The US was very 
well aware of what Saddam had because if they didn't sell it to him 
directly they at least acted as facilitator. And so did pretty much 
Western Europe.

>Chirac's personal relations with Saddam go back to at least 1975, the year
>that France signed an agreement to sell two nuclear reactors to Iraq.
>There have been rumors for a long time that Saddam provided financial
>support to Chirac in various election campaigns.
>
>  
>

 From the TLC page again:

[...]

In December 1983, President Reagan sent to Baghdad none other than 
Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy to the Middle East and today one of 
Hussein's harshest critics as U.S. secretary of defense. Rumsfeld's 
visit opened up America's relations with Iraq for the first time since 
the Arab-Israeli war in 1967. Later, Rumsfeld said that "it struck us as 
useful to have a relationship" and revealed that Hussein had indicated 
he wasn't interested in causing problems in the world.

[...]

So was apparantly Rumsfeld.

>The evidence points to deep ties between Russia, France, and Iraq that
>goes back decades, plus somewhat weaker ties to China and Germany.
>  
>
And the US was just drawn into it by accident?


>Relations between the US and Baath-controlled Iraq were bad from the
>beginning; American bodies dangling from ropes in Baghdad were not
>the beginning of a great romance.
>
>  
>
No Government ever cared about the individual if greater gains could be 
amassed. Be it the US or any other country in the world.

BTW, can you provide me with a reference for the "dangling bodies'? 
Because I was unable to find anything on this so far.

Michael





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