The true Iraq appeasers - MUST READ!!!!

[wicket]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/08/31/the_true_iraq_appeasers/?p1=MEWell_Pos2

IN HIS MOST recent justification of his Pentagon stewardship, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reached back to the 1930s, comparing the Bush administration's critics to those who, like US Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, favored appeasing Adolf Hitler. Rumsfeld avoided a more recent comparison: the appeasement of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush administrations. The reasons for selectivity are obvious, since so many of Hussein's appeasers in the 1980s were principals in the 2003 Iraq war, including Rumsfeld.

In 1983, President Reagan initiated a strategic opening to Iraq, then in the third year of a war of attrition with neighboring Iran. Although Iraq had started the war with a blitzkrieg attack in 1980, the tide had turned by 1982 in favor of much larger Iran, and the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose. Reagan chose Rumsfeld as his emissary to Hussein, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984. Inconveniently, Iraq had begun to use chemical weapons against Iran in November 1983, the first sustained use of poison gas since a 1925 treaty banning that. Rumsfeld never mentioned this blatant violation of international law to Hussein, instead focusing on shared hostility toward Iran and an oil pipeline through Jordan. Rumsfeld apparently did mention it to Tariq Aziz, Iraq's foreign minister, but by not raising the issue with the paramount leader he signaled that good relations were more important to the United States than the use of poison gas.

This message was reinforced by US conduct after the Rumsfeld missions. The Reagan administration offered Hussein financial credits that eventually made Iraq the third-largest recipient of US assistance. It normalized diplomatic relations and, most significantly, began providing Iraq with battlefield intelligence. Iraq used this information to target Iranian troops with chemical weapons. And when Iraq turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988, killing 5,000 in the town of Halabja, the Reagan administration sought to obscure responsibility by falsely suggesting Iran was also responsible.

On Aug. 25, 1988 -- five days after the Iran-Iraq War ended -- Iraq attacked 48 Kurdish villages more than 100 miles from Iran. Within days, the US Senate passed legislation, sponsored by Claiborne Pell, Democrat of Rhode Island, to end US financial support for Hussein and to impose trade sanctions. To enhance the prospects that Reagan would sign his legislation, Pell sent me to Eastern Turkey to interview Kurdish survivors who had fled across the border. As it turned out, the Reagan administration agreed that Iraq had gassed the Kurds, but strongly opposed sanctions, or even cutting off financial assistance. Colin Powell, then the national security adviser, coordinated the Reagan administration's opposition.

More at link.

[jpak]

1. and what about the $5 billion in loans to Saddam???

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920428g.htm

<snip>

BNL was the largest participant in the Commodity Credit Corporation program that Iraq used to purchase about $5 billion in United States agricultural commodities between 1983 and 1990. Had the USDA ever inspected the publicly available financial statements of BNL, they would have most likely uncovered the scandal years earlier.

The remaining $2 billion plus in BNL loans to Iraq went to Iraqi Government entities involved in running a secret Iraqi military technology procurement network. The procurement network, which operated through front companies situated in Europe and the United States, used the BNL loans to supply Iraqi missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs with industrial goods such as computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods.

A number of the procurement network's imports from the United States were guaranteed by the Export-Import Bank. In fact, BNL was also a major participant in the Export-Import Bank program for Iraq. In total, the Eximbank program helped to finance the sale of over $300 million in industrial goods to various Iraqi Government entities.

It is truly amazing that the BNL scandal went on as long as it did. Various agencies within our Government knew of BNL's role in bankrolling Iraq--yet they supposedly did not know that the loans were unauthorized or not properly reported. How is this possible? The committee is still investigating the extent to which the U.S. Government had knowledge of the BNL scandal.

<much more>

Appeasers?

Yup and Co-conspirators too...

[Spazito]

2. Interesting read, thanks for posting it

Yet again, the bush cabal is practicing projection but, this time, I think it will be classified as a "no sale" proposition to most of the US public.

[LSK]

3. K&R

[Richard Steele]

4. He mentions Kennedy, Hitler 'appeaser', but forgets Prescott BUSH...

...who was actually SELLING the Nazis FUEL during the war.

What a quirky memory that guy has!

[wicket]

5. Prescott Bush was a vile, disgusting man

:grr: :grr:

[wicket]

6. kick

:kick:

[leftchick]

7. that is a must read!

Damn!

<snip>

The Reagan and first Bush administrations believed that Hussein could be a strategic partner to the United States, a counterweight to Iran, a force for moderation in the region, and possibly help in the Arab-Israel peace process. That was, of course, an illusion. A ruthless dictator who launched an attack on his neighbor, Iran, who used chemical weapons, and who committed genocide against his own Kurds was never likely to be a reliable American ally. Hussein, having watched the United States gloss over his crimes in the Iran war and at home, concluded he could get away with invading Kuwait.

It was a costly error for him, for his country, and eventually for the United States, which now has the largest part of its military bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire. Meanwhile the architects of the earlier appeasement policy now maintain the illusion that they have a path to victory, if only their critics would shut up.

...If only someone on the 'tv news' would bring this up.

[fooj]

8. The master of projection...