Juan Cole: Possible Blackmail-Shredding Of Evidence & The War Crime of the Century

[kpete]

Look at Friday, Sept. 28th post and for the paragraph about the transcripts.

Writing the introduction to the transcripts, Juan Cole delineates to major issues discussed in the conversation: Bush's willingness to invade with or without UN approval and Saddam's offer to go into exile.

I found the second reason most extraordinary:

The second claim that I made was that Bush was aware of, and rejected, an offer by Saddam Hussein to flee Iraq, probably for Saudi Arabia, presuming he could take out with him a billion dollars and some documents on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Both provisions were intended by Saddam to protect him from later retaliation. The money would buy him protection from extradition, and the documents presumably showed that the Reagan and Bush senior administrations had secretly authorized his chemical and biological weapons programs. With these documents in his possession, it was unlikely that Bush would come after him, since he could ruin the reputation of the Bush family if he did. The destruction of these documents was presumably Bush's goal when he had Rumsfeld order US military personnel not to interfere with the looting and burning of government offices after the fall of Saddam. The looting, which set off the guerrilla war, also functioned as a vast shredding party, destroying incriminating evidence about the complicity of the Bushes and Rumsfeld in Iraq's war crimes.

Saddam purportedly had documents that showed both both Reagan and Bush SR. had secretly authorized the chemical and biological weapons programs. There must have been names, dates, order forms, and smuggling links in these documents.

On that one reason alone, Cole shows us an underlying motive for the invasion of Iraq and the complete destruction of Saddam and what must have been a "blackmail" scheme.

Bush, for no other reason, wanted those records destroyed and the man who was willing to ruin his family's reputation.

http://www.juancole.com/2007/09/bush-aznar-transcript-war-crime-of.html
via:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/29/14296/6688

[babylonsister]

1. Criminy, if even half the truth regarding these criminals was to ever surface,

I'd be a happy woman.

[mwb970]

50. 10% would be enough to have them convicted of war crimes.

Too bad they'll all be long gone by the time the truth comes out.

[Poiuyt]

2. If this were true, then wouldn't Bush I have wanted to go into Baghdad and take out Saddam?

Why didn't he just keep going when he invaded?

[merh]

3. Because Gulf War I was about kicking Saddam out of Kuwait

not invading Iraq. That was accomplished and that had the blessings of the international community.

An invasion then, like the invasion of 2003, would have violated international law and would not have been supported by the UN Security Council.

.

[Swamp Rat]

6. Right. He was Poppy Bushler's puppet to be used against the Iranians.

Poppy held Rumsferatu and Darth Cheney at bay, something his stupid son could not do:

[Mr Rabble]

25. I hope you are kidding.

That sounds like a state department official memo, and is totally divorced from reality.

Gulf War 1 was about many things, none of them being our intention to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.

As an amazing side effect of that war, Iraqi oil was held off the market, dramatically increasing profit for the Saudi's.

But I'm sure that was unintentional...

[merh]

35. Oh, so Saddam wasn't kicked out of Kuwait?

The other you mention was why the USofA was the lead nation in the coalition, but that is not why the UN authorized the military action.

[eridani]

46. No. The reality is that he was prevented from leaving Kuwait--

--so that Bush I could have his war and cause as much damage to Iraq's military and its infrastructure as possible. 95% of electricity generation and water purification facilities were taken out in what amounted to a deliberate war crime. The Iraqi educated class managed to mostly restore electricity in about 18 months. (I rather suspect that Iraqis remember that and are making very unfavorable comparisons to the likes of Halliburton.) Rebuilding water treatment plants didn't do them much good as chlorine was regarded as dual use, and Iraq was prevented from buying under the sanctions.

The Russians had negotiated an exit plan which the US refused to allow to be implemented.

[merh]

51. Please explain to me what you mean by "he was prevented from leaving"

Is there some source I can read to better understand your source?

.

[eridani]

62. See the following timetable

February 21, 1991 - Russia announces that Iraq has agreed to full and unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait. U.S rejects plan and says that if Iraq not out of Kuwait by noon February 23 a ground attack will proceed.

February 23, 1991 - ground assault begins

February 26, 1991 -- Iraq announces its troops are withdrawing from Kuwait. U.S bombs road that would be used to retreat and kills thousands from air including civilians in "turkey shoot".

http://www.scn.org/wwfor/iraqhist.html

The US refused to allow Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait, and then blocked the only exit option. They then slaughtered the retreating Iraqis.

http://www.intellnet.org/resources/american_terrorism/HighwayofDeath.html
http://newsmine.org/archive/coldwar-imperialism/iraqgate/highway-of-death.txt

Iraq accepted UN Resolution 660 and offered to withdraw from Kuwait through Soviet mediation on February 21, 1991. A statement made by George Bush on February 27, 1991, that no quarter would be given to remaining Iraqi soldiers violates even the U.S. Field Manual of 1956. The 1907 Hague Convention governing land warfare also makes it illegal to declare that no quarter will be given to withdrawing soldiers. On February 26,199 I, the following dispatch was filed from the deck of the U.S.S. Ranger, under the byline of Randall Richard of the Providence Journal:

Air strikes against Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait were being launched so feverishly from this carrier today that pilots said they took whatever bombs happened to be closest to the flight deck. The crews, working to the strains of the Lone Ranger theme, often passed up the projectile of choice . . . because it took too long to load.

New York Times reporter Maureen Dowd wrote, "With the Iraqi leader facing military defeat, Mr. Bush decided that he would rather gamble on a violent and potentially unpopular ground war than risk the alternative: an imperfect settlement hammered out by the Soviets and Iraqis that world opinion might accept as tolerable." In short, rather than accept the offer of Iraq to surrender and leave the field of battle, Bush and the U.S. military strategists decided simply to kill as many Iraqis as they possibly could while the chance lasted. A Newsweek article on Norman Schwarzkopt, titled "A Soldier of Conscience" (March 11,1991), remarked that before the ground war the general was only worried about "How long the world would stand by and watch the United States pound the living hell out of Iraq without saying, 'Wait a minute - enough is enough.' He itched to send ground troops to finish the job." The pretext for massive extermination of Iraqi soldiers was the desire of the U.S. to destroy Iraqi equipment.

[merh]

63. I had no idea ...

That may explain why someone I was involved with who fought in the first Gulf War has had such issues.

thank you for the information, I have much reading to do.

Are there any books you would recommend?

[eridani]

65. I've gotten most of what I know from the Internet

Some other links--

http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/gulfwar/gulfwar.html

http://cryptome.org/mccaffrey-sh.htm

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/gulfwarrevisited.htm

An extensive bibliography--
http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/pgwar/pergul8.htm

[merh]

66. thank you again

:hi:

[Vincardog]

5. This is the SECOND gulf war. The first time Saddam invaded Kuwait he thought he had Dubya's Daddy's

OK to do it. This blackmail threat was to insure Saddam's survival if he left Iraq on jr's watch.

[Exultant Democracy]

4. Nothing cleans up a mess like a shit ton of bombs.

[ClintonTyree]

7. ...."ruin his family's reputation".

:rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray: :rofl: :spray:

[calimary]

57. I noticed that, too.

It's already a ruinous reputation. They've already done it to themselves.

[earth mom]

61. Yeah, that's a good one!

:rofl:

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. that's dumb

saddam would have just released the docs at the UN during the run-up if that was the case. everybody knew the invasion was on, so the notion that saddam would get leverage out of them is silly. besides, he had two weeks after the initial invasion to publicize these docs...why not do it then? this is a dumb conspiracy theory - as dumb as the right wing assertion that the wmd's were moved to syria - and the fact that these supposed docs are missing is just perfect, because it makes the claim both unprovable and unfalsifiable...perfect conspiracy theory fare, in other words.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Spies, Lies & Sneaky Guys: Espionage and Intelligence"

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/07/268817.shtml

PRESIDENT BUSH'S FAMILY LINKS WERE UNDER INVESTIGATION BY TOP U.S. SPY CATCHER

by
Gordon Thomas


Business links - involving "the mobilisation of trillions of dollars" - by President Bush's father and his brother Neil, were under investigation by America's top spy catcher, Paul Redmond, when he resigned.

A well-placed Washington intelligence source said that Redmond quit after a White House meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

They are known as "The Enforcers" - ensuring there is no taint on the reputation of the increasingly embattled President with the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Already, said the Washington source, the two men have ensured Bush distances himself from Tony Blair's claims that the weapons will be found.

But equally Downing Street will want to stay clear of the allegation that the President's family were doing business with Saddam from 1989 up to months before the outbreak of the first Gulf War.

In a document obtained by the respected London-based International Currency Review, it was claimed that after a year long investigation, it had uncovered evidence "of the mobilisation of trillions of dollars in 1989-91".

The document names a number of banks it alleges were "supervised by the Bush Sr White House" in the alleged transactions.

The banks identified in the document include the British Royal Family bankers, Coutts; Morgan Guaranty Trust and Chase Manhattan, New York; Banco Exterior de Espana, Spain; First International Bank of Denver in the United States.

Christopher Story, the publisher of the specialist Currency Review said the documents relating to the Bush family are "taken from a portfolio of papers" which was made available to the Review last July.

"What will cause astonishment is the provenance of some of these compromising documents. For many months we considered carefully whether they could be forgeries, and whether it could be credible that an intelligence organisation or a private gang of blackmailers and counterfeiters could replicate the precise behaviour of an obsolescent IBM computer to produce output identical to those images shown with this analysis. We checked these possibilities repeatedly with experts and also consulted banking sources to see whether these documents could possibly be fraudulent. The outcome of these investigations was unequivocally that the documentation is genuine."

A set of the documents reached Washington soon after Redmond began his investigation.

Both President Bush's father and his brother, Neil, are known to have a close involvement in the Texas oil industry.

Story claimed that the documents were leaked by the Iraqis to "discredit President Bush Sr" as Saddam began to realise that George Bush was preparing for war against Iraq.



http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/08/275901.html


CIA Accused Of Bank Heist
Gordon Thomas | 21.08.2003 00:26 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Repression | World

Shortly before U.S. forces began streaming across the Iraqi border, commencing Persian Gulf War II, the CIA and the Department of Defense, with a little help from Israel and some Europeans, pulled off a massive bank heist in Iraq to the tune of several billion dollars.

The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) are accused by International Currency Review, the London-based journal, of mounting a joint ultra-secret operation to electronically remove an estimated $10 billion out of the Iraqi Central Bank hours before the start of Persian Gulf War II. The whereabouts of the money is not known.

"We believe it is in a secret CIA fund which will be used to mount further special services operations, such as tracking down Saddam Hussein," said the Review’s publisher, Christopher Story.

Story is a former financial advisor to Lady Thatcher when she was Britain’s prime minister. In the past 10 years, he has testified before several congressional committees dealing with financial scandals.

DIA coordinates all intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is headquartered in the Pentagon.

The report is titled "The Great Robbery of the Central Bank of Iraq." It has been sent to finance ministers of leading nations, the World Bank, the Bank of England and heads of all other major banks.

The report is bound to cause huge embarrassment to President Bush after he signed an executive order on March 23, ordering a worldwide hunt for the hidden assets of Saddam Hussein and his family.

The Review claims that using skilled hackers recruited by the DIA and key Iraqi bank officials who had been bribed to provide secret access codes to the Central Bank’s accounts for Saddam Hussein and his family, the money was transferred out of the bank in a high-tech operation.

According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative agency of Congress, Saddam was estimated to have accumulated "$6.6 billion between 1997 and 2000 from illegal oil smuggling and from illicit deals connected with the United Nations oil for food program."

But a substantial portion of that money may have been lifted by the secret CIA/DIA operation.

The operation, claims the Review, was masterminded by the CIA/DIA out of a military facility, Redstone Arsenal, in Alabama. It is the base for U.S. Special Ser vices.

"The money was laundered through a number of CIA controlled accounts, including some held in the Discount Bank of Israel, Credit Suisse in Switzerland and the Dresdner Bank in Germany," said Story.

He confirmed that Germany’s secret service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) is checking with the major German banks on electronic transfers, which could match the $10 billion.

The Review states in its 25-page report that it had questioned a key member of the operation. She is identified as "Nelda Rogers, a debriefing officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency."

"She was in Germany last year when American intelligence officials were devising covert operations ahead of the long-planned conflict. She has revealed that a covert operation targeting the Central Bank of Iraq took place prior to and during the war. The operatives involved were military ‘black operations’ personnel brought into service for this purpose," said Story.

The Review claims that Rogers and a team of ten DIA operatives were financed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They were supported by CIA agents in Iraq.

"In all, 100 people were involved in the operation," says the report. "The Department of Agriculture has been consistently used to hide payments for U.S. covert operations," claimed Story, whose headquarters are close to Whitehall.

The Review states: "The U.S. Department of Agriculture is used as a paymaster for certain DIA ‘black operations’ because it has traditionally remained unscrutinized."

"Like the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Treasury’s secret Exchange Stabilization Fund, the Department of Agriculture is yet another federal agency which benefits from a special exemption from rigorous auditing by the General Accounting Office."

The Review also states it has testimony from Rogers that the operation was designed to "purloin the Iraq Central Bank’s assets ahead of the arrival of U.S. troops in Baghdad. This suggests that the operation was designed for a nefarious purpose, rather than to help use it for the rebuilding of Iraq."

After interviewing Rogers and "a number of U.S. intelligence operatives," Story confirmed he received three warnings to stop his investigation.

"I was told that 19 people are very dead as a result of trying to cover what you are exposing," Story wrote in an editorial in the Review.


http://www.udel.edu/global/agenda/2003/gallery.html

Spies, Lies & Sneaky Guys: Espionage and Intelligence"

Paul Redmond is an internationally recognized authority on security, counterespionage, and counterintelligence, with hands-on experience throughout Western and Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the Former Soviet Union.

Mr. Redmond is a member of the Technical Advisory Group to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and a Consultant to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Crime and Loss Prevention Institute, Northeastern University College of Criminal Justice.

During his thirty-year tenure at the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Redmond managed the CIA’s extensive counterintelligence organization, and counseled three succeeding Directors of Central Intelligence on highly sensitive counterintelligence matters, including technical and personnel security concerns. He established and built productive working relationships with NATO and with foreign intelligence and security chiefs worldwide. Redmond oversaw the counterintelligence aspects of personnel, computer systems and physical plants in the U.S. and abroad, and supervised the support provided by the CIA to the private sector relating to commercial counterespionage. He was instrumental in the apprehension of Aldrich Ames.
http://www.sabatiergroup.com/redmond.html



Paul Redmond, who headed counterintelligence for the CIA, was appointed to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after meeting UD students in the Global Agenda series.

[L. Coyote]

24. "I was told that 19 people are very dead as a result of trying to cover what you are exposing,"

said the Review’s publisher, Christopher Story.

[flyarm]

31. IS THIS THE SAME NELDA ROGERS??????????

Is this the same Nelda Rogers....in your article ......as one i posted here about a long time ago????????..i think it is..IN FACT I AM SURE IT IS...

from an old thread of mine on du ..that i had had in my files ..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5404231&mesg_id=5404344

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/flyarm/169

whistleblower is afraid..she knew of the planting of wmd in iraq!
Posted by flyarm in General Discussion (Through 2005)
Sat Nov 19th 2005, 09:53 AM
check out the date of this piece!! i kept it in my files!!

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/06/Whistleb...

Real History and the Iraq War

Posted Saturday, June 28, 2003



snip:

June 20, 2003


A DOD whistleblower reportedly details an attempt by a covert U.S. team to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The team was said to have been later killed by friendly fire due to CIA incompetence.

Pentagon Whistleblower Reveals CIA/ DoD Fiascos

IN a world exclusive, Al Martin Raw.com has published a news story about a Department of Defense whistleblower who has revealed that a US covert operations team had planted "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMDs) in Iraq -- then "lost" them when the team was killed by so-called "friendly fire."

The Pentagon whistleblower, Nelda Rogers, is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the Defense Department. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq.

According to Al Martin Raw.com, "Ms.Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.

snip:

"According to Ms. Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq," reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides "Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence."

Al Martin is a retired Lt. Commander (US Navy), the author of a memoir called The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider, and he is considered one of America's foremost experts on corporate and government fraud.

Ms. Rogers reports that this particular covert operation team was manned by ex-military personnel and that "the unit was paid through the Department of Agriculture in order to hide it, which is also very commonplace."
According to Al Martin Raw.com, "the Ag Department has often been used as a paymaster on behalf of the CIA, DIA, and NSA and others."

According to the Al Martin Raw.com story, another aspect of Ms. Rogers' report concerns a covert operation which was to locate the assets of Saddam Hussein and his family, including cash, gold bullion, jewelry and assorted valuable antiquities.

The problem became evident when "the operation in Iraq involved 100 people, all of whom apparently are now dead, having succumbed to so-called 'friendly fire.' The scope of this operation included the penetration of the Central Bank of Iraq, other large commercial banks in Baghdad, the Iraqi National Museum and certain presidential palaces where monies and bullion were secreted."

"They identified about $2 billion of cash in US dollars, another $150 million in Euros, in physical banknotes, and about another $100 million in sundry foreign currencies ranging from Yen to British Pounds," reports Al Martin.

"These people died, mostly in the same place in Baghdad, supposedly from a stray cruise missile or a combination of missiles and bombs that went astray," Martin continues. "There were supposedly 76 who died there and the other 24 died through a variety of 'friendly fire,' 'mistaken identity,' and some of them -- their whereabouts are simply unknown."


futher proof of this is as follows ..from my files:

fly

AND MORE BACKUP..
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/... ...

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20040420Ba...



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x894299#895372

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/06/Whistleblower.html

June 20, 2003



A DOD whistleblower reportedly details an attempt by a covert U.S. team to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The team was said to have been later killed by friendly fire due to CIA incompetence.

Pentagon Whistleblower Reveals CIA/ DoD Fiascos

IN a world exclusive, Al Martin Raw.com has published a news story about a Department of Defense whistleblower who has revealed that a US covert operations team had planted "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMDs) in Iraq -- then "lost" them when the team was killed by so-called "friendly fire."

The Pentagon whistleblower, Nelda Rogers, is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the Defense Department. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq.

According to Al Martin Raw.com, "Ms.Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.

The information that is being leaked out is information "obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the Department of Defense and/or the Central Intelligence Agency.

"According to Ms. Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq," reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides "Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence."

Al Martin is a retired Lt. Commander (US Navy), the author of a memoir called The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider, and he is considered one of America's foremost experts on corporate and government fraud.



and this:

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20040420Baker.html


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



CIA and DoD Attempted To Plant WMDs in Iraq -- and Failed
July 2, 2003
Pentagon Whistleblower Reveals CIA/DoD Fiascos

According to a stunning report posted by a retired Navy Lt. Commander and 28-year veteran of the Defense Department, the Bush administration's assurance about finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was based on a CIA plan to "plant" WMDs inside the country. Nelda Rogers, the Pentagon whistleblower, claims the plan failed when the secret mission was mistakenly taken out by "friendly fire."

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/266752.shtml

A DoD whistleblower details an attempt by a covert US team to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The team was later killed by friendly fire due to CIA incompetence.

In a world exclusive, Al Martin Raw.com (http://www.almartinraw.com/)has published a news story about a Department of Defense whistleblower who has revealed that a US covert-operations team had planted "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMDs) in Iraq, then "lost" them when the team was killed by so-called "friendly fire."

The Pentagon whistleblower, Nelda Rogers, is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the Defense Department. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq.

According to Al Martin Raw.com, "Ms. Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense."

The information that is being leaked out is information "obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the Department of Defense and/or the Central Intelligence Agency.

"According to Ms. Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq," reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides "Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence."

[seemslikeadream]

36. Fri Dec-29-06

:hi:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2995319

[flyarm]

42. WE HAVE BEEN ONTO THIS A LONG TIME LADY!!..i remember hearing about

Nelda early july 2003..and i kept her info in my files then..

amazing how we could find this info back then but MSM just ignored it all..and still does!!

hi lady!!:hi: :hug: :hug: :hug:

fly

[Joanne98]

56. Al Martin. I haven't heard that name in awhile.

[Didereaux]

10. this is old wrong news....again

just do a simple search on the net, and you will find some pdfs of the orders to transfer biological cultures(bad types) to Iraq in the late 80's, also the shipments of the chemical canisters that were used first on the Iranians(which were their approved use target and later the Kurds) all of these were authorized from the Whitehouse via the Def Dept and signed by Rumsfeld and several other rather recognsable foks. These docs were obtained 2-3 yrears ago under FOIA if I remember right.


So NO their were NO secret documents to be destroyed, let alone to go to war over in Bagdad.


The point is folks, you haven't been paying attention.

[seemslikeadream]

11. Yea Juan's not paying attention

:rofl:

[Raster]

17. First of all, Juan Cole is one of the top authorities on the Middle East NOT...

on the BFEE/neoCon payroll. His track record is impeccable. Cole was one of the few "experts" that did not jump on the sycophant express and had the courage to call the cheney*/bush* bullshit early on in the game just what it was, bullshit. Saddam Hussein was America's Middle East bitch for years, in favor one year, out the next. Hussein ultimately was not a stupid man. Ruthless, cruel and a despot, but not stupid. I have no doubt he kept his own "cover my ass" files. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that he had information that was able to implicate Poppy in some fashion. Perhaps documentation concerning the Iran hostage situation. The Net chatter I take with a grain of salt. Anything by Juan Cole, I pay close attention.

on edit: I completely agree with you.

[seemslikeadream]

18. I thought for sure folks would know I was being sarcastic

[Raster]

19. I knew you were. I amended my post to say so... my bad

[Octafish]

20. I hate conspiracy theory.

So I do all I can to provide evidence of conspiracy.

How the US Armed Iraq - In the Loop: Poppy's Secret Mission (Waas & Unger)

You, 'dreamy, I love.

[seemslikeadream]

21. Thanks for your unending support

[Octafish]

23. A Short History of Conspiracy Theory

A Short History of Conspiracy Theory

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4086438

[Kaleko]

33. "Conspiracy theory" is a label conspirators slap on any

and all investigations into their illegal activities.

[flyarm]

43. nixon and watergate started out a conspiracy theory..

one must have a theory generally before exposing a real conspiracy..

most criminal trials start out a theory ..and then the case is built ..

i have no problem with conspuracy theory's..i believe anyone with intelligence looks at theories and builds a case to expose a conspiracy.

how many conspirators..come right out and say..we have a conspiracy.....thats silly..one must have a theory early on in exposing a conspiracy.

fly

[Octafish]

47. The reason I hate conspiracy theories...

...is that I hate treason, warm profiteering, mass murderers, organized crime and other forms of conspiracy.

And I agree with you 100-percent, flyarm.

[Octafish]

48. The CIA made the denigration of critics a plan...

From the good people at JFKLancer.com ...

Countering Criticism of the Warren Report

The tactic seems to have gained in popularity.

PS: A most hearty welcome to DU, Kaleko!

[Emit]

37. I recall reading about that

I posted it on another discussion board in '05: http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?topic_view=threads&p=211574&t=28993

But, that doesn't necessarily negate the possibility that Bush wanted additional documents destroyed -- it is feasible that what was released in the public record was not entirely the whole story.

Published on Sunday, September 8, 2002 by the Sunday Herald (Scotland)
How Did Iraq Get Its Weapons? We Sold Them
by Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot

THE US and Britain sold Saddam Hussein the technology and materials Iraq needed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. ... Reports by the US Senate's committee on banking, housing and urban affairs -- which oversees American exports policy -- reveal that the US, under the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr, sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992, as well as germs similar to tuberculosis and pneumonia. Other bacteria sold included brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene.

~snip~

The Senate committee's reports on 'US Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual-Use Exports to Iraq', undertaken in 1992 in the wake of the Gulf war, give the date and destination of all US exports. The reports show, for example, that on May 2, 1986, two batches of bacillus anthracis -- the micro-organism that causes anthrax -- were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985 and Officers' City, a military complex in Baghdad, in March and April 1986.

The shipments to Iraq went on even after Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, in which at least 5000 men, women and children died. The atrocity, which shocked the world, took place in March 1988, but a month later the components and materials of weapons of mass destruction were continuing to arrive in Baghdad from the US.

~snip~

Donald Riegle, then chairman of the committee, said: 'UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs.'

Riegle added that, between January 1985 and August 1990, the 'executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record'. ... It is thought the information contained in the Senate committee reports is likely to make up much of the 'evidence of proof' that Bush and Blair will reveal in the coming days to justify the US and Britain going to war with Iraq. It is unlikely, however, that the two leaders will admit it was the Western powers that armed Saddam with these weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.sundayherald.com/27572

[Mnpaul]

44. I ran across this the other night

Lots of goodies here
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920921g.htm

I haven't had a chance to go through the rest http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/ but Baker sure looks guilty as hell

[Emit]

64. Thanks for posting this -- very interesting! Here's a snip for other's to see

~snip~

Now, that raid by the FBI on August 4, 1989, led to the unraveling not only of one of the biggest banking scandals of all time, it also laid bare that the United States was carrying on a strange, secretive, clandestine relationship with Iraq, which was at that time and still is today one of the most notorious governments in the world. It was Iraq, after all, that had used chemical weapons not just against its Iranian enemies but against its own Kurdish minority.

But let me say here it ill behooves the West to try to single out Iraq and Saddam Hussein. They were the first ones to use poison gas in that area and against what the RAF or the British, in asking Winston Churchill permission to use poison gas against what they called rebellious or recalcitrant Arabs, it was in Iraq, what we call Iraq in the 1920's, 1921-23.

So, when we start trying to get goodie-goodie about poison gas, remember it was our great Western culture in World War I that used that horrible weapon, poison gas, to the destruction of many human lives on both sides of the contending forces.

Since then, even in the Iraq-Iran war it was charged that not only Iraq but Iran made use of that. Lord only knows. The only thing I do know is that we were aware and so were our intelligence, so-called, experts aware.

The Government of Iraq was and still is notorious for its abuse of human rights, its support of terrorism, its soaring military ambitions, and its aim to become the dominant military power in the Middle East. And that is based on a more complicated and complex line of events, which is not my interest to go into. That is over in another area of committee responsibility.

Madam Speaker, I have maintained and I have subscribed and I have adhered to one single-minded purpose, and that is the determination to eventually provide for the United States through the legislation that must be forthcoming from the Banking Committee, which I have the great honor to chair, the proper defense or protection against a continuation of these malpractices that are still going on in far vaster activities than even BNL or the so-called BCCI scandal.

Despite all this, the United States allowed Iraq to become the biggest customer of the Commodity Credit Corporation, a guaranteed program. Guaranteed by whom? The Taxpayers, of course. That was financed largely through loans made by the BNL Atlanta office. Not only that, Iraq operated an extensive secret military procurement network in this country and in Europe which was also financed through the BNL Atlanta, not through CCC guarantees but through commercial loans.
~snip~

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920921g.htm

[Richard Steele]

59. Obviously, those aren't the documents Mr. Cole is referring to.

nm

[spirit of wine]

12. As A Monty Python Line Might Say

The Holy Grail is Hidden in the Castle Arrrrrrrrrgh....

[Cleita]

13. Too bad Saddam didn't smuggle those records to a neutral

third party country first before he asked to go into exile, just in case.

[tekisui]

14. Maybe he did. These things may take years to see the light of day.

[Octafish]

15. Bush-Reagan crooks denied Teicher Affidavit...

...which chronicled the arming of Iraq and Saddam.

Iraqgate: Confession and Cover-Up

By Robert Parry
FAIR Extra! May/June 1995

While the O.J. Simpson trial gobbled up endless TV hours and countless news pages, a concurrent criminal trial in Miami went almost unnoticed by the national media, even though it called into question the judgment of three U.S. presidents.

President Clinton's Justice Department had put on trial Teledyne Industries, a major military contractor, and two of its mid-level employees, on charges of selling cluster-bomb parts to a Chilean arms manufacturer, Carlos Cardoen. Cardoen, in turn, allegedly shipped finished bombs to Iraq.

Defense attorneys for the Teledyne employees argued that the CIA, as part of a secret operation that has come to be known as "Iraqgate," had authorized the shipments--a claim that the Reagan/Bush administration had long denied. Since taking office in 1993, the Clinton team has continued that GOP position, stating as recently as Jan. 16 that the administration "did not find evidence that U.S. agencies or officials illegally armed Iraq."

But on Jan. 31, this bipartisan dike finally sprang a leak. Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, "authorized, approved and assisted" delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In These Times, 3/6/95).

Teicher also described a still-secret National Security Decision Directive signed by President Reagan in June 1982 that set forth a U.S. policy of preventing Iraq from losing its war with Iran. "CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war," Teicher stated.

Clinton's Justice Department reacted angrily to the new disclosures. Federal prosecutors attacked Teicher's affidavit as a lie--and then classified it as a state secret. They then succeeded in convincing the trial judge to block Teicher's testimony as irrelevant to the trial of the two Teledyne employees.

CONTINUED...

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1291

It's no wonder one of the first things Junior Doc Bush did was to order past-presidential records sealed.

BTW: In the late 1980s and early 90s, people called out Teicher and called him a "conspiracy theorist."
Today, we see people coming out to shoot down Juan Cole as a "conspiracy theorist."
There must be something magical about that phrase.

[flyarm]

32. all the more reason i have fear of Hillary..and the cover up that would occur

under her occupation of the white house..i want all this stuff to see the light of day..we as a nation can not go forward without truth..

and for anyone today call any of this shit a conspiracy theory..they have to be ignorant to facts..or have an agenda..there is no grey ..it is black and white..

and Hillary would shed no light on any of the crimes committed by pissy pants and "the family"....period..

hell bill covered up so much..he had to know about..he had no choice but to know..he was not a stupid man ..he was brilliant and read everything..unlike dip shit in the white house now..but dip shit has peple around him with shredding machines running 24/7

we can not call ourselves a republic democracy..unless we hold those in our own government accoubtable for crimes..

that is the be all and end all..

fly

[Jeroen]

16. What? No USB sticks and Swiss bank accounts?

Heck, even a barbershop in Cairo will do.
As if the Iraqis would keep such important evidence only in one place, presumably the cellars of Baghdad.
Stories like these makes you wonder how credible Cole's other work is.

[flyarm]

34. do you honestly believe saddam didn't give papers to anyone to prove the * family complicity in his

weapons??????

how do we know who pissy pants and darth vader have renditioned???????

do you know who??????

no one else seems to know..

and i know, i alone have lists and lists of (????)suicides surrounding this admins...and i am just a mere citizen..how many do we not know of?????????

could anyone not possibly see, that saddam would not have had info stashed away for the future????????
the man was too slick..and too smart to not have had documents planted somewhere with someone he thought was a safe haven.

But if you were holding such info..would you come out from under a rock with little lord pissypants and darth vader? or would you wait till they are out of power to come forward??????

just a thought..

fly

[alcibiades_mystery]

39. Unfalsifiable

The conspiracy theorists dream. A truly unfalsifiable (and, incidentally, unprovable) claim. The more unfalsifiable, the more fables we can create around it.

[alcibiades_mystery]

38. It's so utterly preposterous a theory that DU's IQ diminshes drastically

even by entertaining it. Only a complete fucking idiot would believe that Saddam had a bunch of secret files that would upend the Bushies and that he never revealed them, and that the looting of Baghdad was a pretext for destroying them. You have to be seriously stupid to believe that. And yet dozens of DUers chime in here as if the thing were established fact. It's shameful and embarrassing.

[Wiley50]

54. And what's your agenda?

If you didn't see it on Faux Snooze it didn't happen?

[alcibiades_mystery]

60. Oh stop it

Don't be so petulant. It's childish and embarrassing.

[hootinholler]

22. That's an interesting hypothesis!

Quite plausible.

-Hoot

[Disturbed]

26. Ahmed Chalabi & his team arrived in Baghdad & loaded up

12 Tons of Documents. Those have never been found. He was accused of being a spy for Iran & counterfeiting Iraqi money. His offices & home were raided & turned up nothing.
He is still an Oil Minister.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

27. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark

was involved in an investigation of War Crimes during Desert Storm. I have no idea how accurate these charges are but I am providing this link so you can judge for yourself. Some of the information I found questionable, but then again I had other things going on in my life at that time.

International War Crimes Tribunal
http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrime.htm

[alcibiades_mystery]

40. Ramsey Clark is a propagandist and nothing more

Preposterous.

[5X]

28. It is fun to be able to K and R for the truth when it is finally exposed.

Thanks, Kpete.

[defendandprotect]

29. Thought it was common knowledge that WE gave Saddam chemical + biological weapons--????

And -- see April Glaspie -- winked at him re his plans to invade Kuwait --

[spag68]

30. Saddam

I remember reading at the time that Saddam had a deal on the table to get out, but bushco rejected it.

[Baby Snooks]

41. Their reputation?

The family reputation has hardly been such that it would take much to ruin it. Beginning with Samuel Bush who ingratiated himself with the Rockefellers and promoted their ideal of eugenics along with his own ideal of fascism that would then be promoted by his son Prescott and then by his grandson and then by his great-grandson. Hopefully never to be promoted again by any of the great-great grandsons.

The problem with the Bushes is that the sins of the father that are visited upon the son are also visited upon everyone else as well.

[Disturbed]

45. Will the next Pres. let all this slide as Bill Clinton did with

Iran/Contra that got America most of the same Assholes that were involved
with that Treason?

[Jackpine Radical]

52. Depends.

Will the next President be named Clinton?

Iran/Contra, BCCI...I mean, Hell, I'm starting to rethink those old Mena, AR stories.

[burythehatchet]

49. WHy is this news to anyone?

[Bonobo]

53. Here's my favorite quote:

"
By refusing to allow Saddam to flee with guarantees, Bush ensured that a land war would have to be fought. This is one of the greatest crimes any US president ever committed, and it is all the more contemptible for being rooted in mere pride and petulance."

[Joanne98]

55. I'll never understand why he just didn't put the documents on the internet.

I hope he gave copies to his daughters!

[dickbearton]

58. K&R.