Posted on 03/15/2003 8:58:34 PM PST by sonsofliberty2000
I have a book I bought back in 1992 or 93 that was printed in 1991 detailing the, as the book says it, “The Secret history of Saddam’s War”
You can get it here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312065302/104-0173662-7278314?vi=glance
It’s been awhile since I picked it up but since in College Comp I class I have decided to do a report on Saddam Hussein I got it out and was looking through it. Well guess what picture I ran across? Since I don’t have a scanner I’ll write out the text under the picture:
“Former French Prime Minister Chirac with Saddam Hussein in 1974. France moved early into the Iraqi arms market.
Under that picture another:
“The Adnan-1, an early warning aircraft, was produced by Iraq with French assistance.”
Intrigued I went to the index and looked up Chirac and it led to page 117 (Just in case you look up the book) and found this paragraph:
“Whilst the Iraqis were making apparently steady progress towards their goal, there was increasing unease about Tammuz 17 elsewhere. In France there had been dissension over the nuclear co-operation agreement ever since its signing in 1975. However, Jacques Chirac, prime minister at the time, saw Iraq as the future leading power in the Middle East and as France’s principal supplier of oil. Fully realizing Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions, he decided to turn a blind eye to them and decreed that the deal to supply the reactors should be completed. When Andre Giraud, the head of the French nuclear energy committee, protested strongly, Chirac threatened to sack him if the deal was not completed according to the signed agreement. Indeed, the matter was considered to be of such importance that President Giscard d’Estaing took personal control of the affair to ensure its smooth passage. The Americans were also well aware of Iraq’s nuclear activities and of French support of them. Accordingly, Washington placed an embargo on any American-supplied uranium being transferred to Baghdad. Inevitably, however, the French circumvented this obstacle by supplying uranium from their own stocks.”
Well, here is some proof of the French’s reasons for helping Iraq. Hope it helps.
Saddam Hussein at a nuclear reactor in France in 1975. Jacques Chirac is at right in the glasses. Saddam wanted a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. France supplied its Osiris reactor which was named Osirak (Osiris + Iraq]. It was being erected when it was destroyed in a Sunday strike [June 7, 1981] by the Israelis, timed to save the lives of the French scientists helping with the construction.
as a recent New York Times article tells us: "A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program.
"The covert program was carried out at a time when President Reagan’s top aides, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci and Gen. Colin L. Powell, then the national security adviser, were publicly condemning Iraq for its use of poison gas, especially after Iraq attacked Kurds in Halabja in March 1988.
"Though senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly condemned Iraq’s employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other poisonous agents, the American military officers said President Reagan, Vice President George Bush and senior national security aides never withdrew their support for the highly classified program, in which more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq."
One of the companies is Inter national Military Services, a part of the Ministry of Defense, which sold rocket technology to Iraq. The companies were named by Iraq in a 12,000 page dossier submitted to the UN in December. The Security Council agreed to US requests to censor 8000 pages -- including sections naming western businesses which aided Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.
The five permanent members of the security council -- Britain, France, Russia, America and China -- are named as allowing companies to sell weapons technology to Iraq.
The dossier claims 24 US firms sold Iraq weapons. Hewlett-Packard sold nuclear and rocket technology; Dupont sold nuclear technology, and Eastman Kodak sold rocket capabilities. The dossier also says some '50 subsidiaries of foreign enterprises conducted their arms business with Iraq from the US'.
It claims the US ministries of Defense, energy, trade and agriculture, and the Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, supplied Iraq with WMD technology.
Germany, currently opposed to war, is shown to be Iraq's biggest arms-trading partner with 80 companies selling weapons technology, including Siemens. It sold medical machines with dual-purpose parts used to detonate nuclear bombs. The German government reportedly 'actively encouraged' weapons co-operation and assistance was allegedly given to Iraq in developing poison gas used against Kurds.
In China three companies traded weapons technology; in France eight and in Russia six. Other countries included Japan with five companies; Holland with three; Belgium with seven; Spain with three and Sweden with two, including Saab.
The UN claims publicly naming the companies would be counter-productive. Although most of the trade ended in 1991 on the outbreak of the Gulf War, at least two of the five permanent security council members -- Russia and China -- traded arms with Iraq in breach of UN resolutions after 1991. All trade in WMD technology has been outlawed for decades.
UNSCOM found documents showing preparations by the Russian firms Livinvest, Mars Rotor and Niikhism to supply parts for military helicopters in 1995. In April 1995, Mars Rotor and Niikhism sold parts used in long-range missiles to a Palestinian who transported them to Baghdad. In 2001 and 2002, the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies sent supplies to Iraqi air Defense
Foreign companies supplied Iraq's nuclear weapons program. with detonators, fissionable material and parts for a uranium enrichment plant. Foreign companies also provided Iraq's chemical and biological programmes with basic materials; helped with building labs; assisted the extension of missile ranges; provided technology to fit missiles with nuclear, biological and chemical warheads; and supplied Scud mobile launch-pads. Nearly all the weapons that were supplied have been destroyed, accounted for or immobilized, according to former weapons inspectors.
The Foreign Office said: 'The UK will investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute any UK company found to have been in breach of export control legislation.' The Department of Trade and Industry said details on export licenses, including information on weapons sold to Iraq, was unavailable.
A spokesman for one of the British companies named, Endshire Export Marketing, said it had sold a consignment of magnets to a German middle-man who sold them to Iraq. Responding to claims that magnets could be used in a nuclear program., the spokesman said: 'I've no idea if this is the case. I couldn't tell one end of a nuclear bomb from the other.' The company was included on a US boycott list in 1991.
He said the company considered the deal 'genuine business' at the time but that, with the 'benefit of hindsight', the firm would not have taken part in the deal. A spokesman for the MoD's International Military Services said he could not comment as no staff from 1991 were on the payroll and no documents from then existed.
Mick Napier of the Stop The War Coalition said: 'How can we support a government which says it's against mass murder when its record is one of supporting and supplying Iraq? This government depends on public mass amnesia.'
Tommy Sheridan, leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, said: 'The evidence of British armament companies, with central government support, arming the Butcher of Baghdad lays to rest the moral garbage spewed from the British government. It exposes the fact that Britain, along with America, France and Russia, armed Saddam to the teeth while he was butchering his own people.'
Labour MP Tam Dalyell said: 'What the Sunday Herald has printed is of huge significance. It exposes the hypocrisy of Blair and Bush. The chickenhawks who want war were up to their necks in arms deals. This drives a coach and horses through the moral case for war.'
UK firms that sold arms to Iraq
Key: A -- nuclear, B -- biological, C -- chemical, R -- rocket, K -- conventional
Euromac Ltd-UK (A)
C Plath-Nuclear (A)
Endshire Export Marketing (A)
International Computer Systems (A, R, K)
MEED International (A, C)
Walter Somers Ltd. (R)
International Computer Limited (A, K)
Matrix Churchill Corp. (A)
Ali Ashour Daghir (A)
International Military Services (R)
Sheffield Forgemasters (R)
Technology Development Group (R)
International Signal and Control (R)
Terex Corporation (R)
Inwako (A)
TMG Engineering (K)
XYY Options, Inc (A)
List Of US Firms That Armed Iraq
How did Iraq get its weapons? We sold them
It's going to cost us a lot to correct our miss-calculations of the past, but correct them we will.
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