Posted on 12/07/2004 4:20:15 AM PST by OXENinFLA
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) Prosecutors said on Tuesday they will charge a Dutch chemicals dealer as an accomplice to genocide for supplying Saddam Hussein with lethal chemicals used in the 1988 chemical attack on a Kurdish town that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians.
Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office said the suspect, who was arrested in Amsterdam on Monday, will face charges ''for violating the laws of war and involvement in genocide.''
Prosecutors said Frans van Anraat, a 62-year-old chemicals dealer, had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the U.S. government. But he was later released and fled to Iraq, where he remained until 2003. After the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, he returned to the Netherlands via Syria.
''The man is suspected of delivering thousands of tons of raw materials for chemical weapons to the former regime in Baghdad between 1984 and 1988,'' prosecutors said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Dutch national involved with weaponsprogram Iraq (delivering chemicals to produce musterdgas)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/838644/posts
Ping to the photos
Ping
''This was not my main business, this was something I did in passing."
"It was just a hobby. I shouldn't be held responsible."
Skip the trial. Hand him to Zarqawi instead. Then we can be assured of justice.
It is strange to see Russia, France and China grouped like that. It makes you wonder if there are any other U.N.known connections...
Facts don't matter, just better stories- the leftist way
Van Anraat getting caught in Milan, Italy is interesting in that it's a hub for the Ansar al Islam group that's been such a pain in the arse in Iraq. Zarqawi's tied with Milan and he's also notorious for being al Qaeda's chemical specialist.
In the Spotlight: The New Red Brigades/Communist Combatant Party
Financing/Aid: Weapons obtained from abroad and the PLO. Financing possibly through armed robberies.
according to Jackson, "throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, and more extreme Palestinian elements, put considerable effort into attempting to recruit microbiologists, purchasing bacteriological experimentation equipment, and dabbling in sending toxins including anthrax through the post to potential victims" (1992: 520)44
44) See also the remarks of Harvey J. McGeorge: "There is ample recent and ongoing use of biological or toxin agents by terrorist groups with international connections" (Roosevelt 1986: 39).
a report in the Cairo newspaper Al-Ahbar during the Gulf War that Iraq maintained a "network of secret agents in Europe prepared to use chemical and bacteriological bombs in addition to ordinary explosive in the capitals of the European countries." According to the report, cited in the 25 January 1991 Komsomolskaya Pravda of Moscow, "Their targets have been defined: airports and airline offices, plants, schools, trains and railroads, oil refineries and even hospitals in which the wounded will be undergoing treatment. The world's largest oil refinery, in Rotterdam, has allegedly been identified as one of the most important targets. Nor will the terrorists overlook the mass media in Europe. There have already been threats from Baghdad against the BBC" (Shumilin 1991)
I would highly doubt that. The crux of Hussein's chemical weapon's system was based of his agricultural industry. Iraq played into its large agricultural base considering the desert region, and made a large showing of its exports. U.S. companies did supply chemicals for industrial insecticides, which can be used for a chemical weapon system. Remember that these sales were approved only by U.S. Customs, and their approval only amounted to the fact that all export duties were paid. It was good loophole that Hussein played into. Also remember the huge caches of Industrial Insecticides found during the Iraq war that were falsely identified as WMD's.
Looking at the methodology of the SIPRI study, even the 1% figure is high. Much of the "weapons" were actually civillian platforms that were later modified, as one poster pointed out, the Bell helicopters designed for VIP transport that were weaponized after the sale. Theoretically, any platform can be weaponized after the sale.
I have exhuastively tried to find actual documented weapons sold to Iraq by the U.S. government, and so far all I have ever found was off-handed refrencing to a Cluster Bomb shipment transported via Chile, by i have never seen anything actually documented.
It very well could be 0%. Depending on what you call a weapon system. Keep in mind, SIPRI is a left wing organization.
Thanks for that info
according to Jackson, "throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, and more extreme Palestinian elements, put considerable effort into attempting to recruit microbiologists, purchasing bacteriological experimentation equipment, and dabbling in sending toxins including anthrax through the post to potential victims" (1992: 520)44
A most interesting find; thanks for the ping, piasa.
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