U.S. in violation of Geneva convention?

[Jim Dixon]

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%.

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.

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.  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.

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.

The evidence points to deep ties between Russia, France, and Iraq that
goes back decades, plus somewhat weaker ties to China and Germany.
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.

--
Jim Dixon  jdd at dixons.org   tel +44 117 982 0786  mobile +44 797 373 7881
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