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Thursday, May 13, 2004
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SLEEPING WITH SADDAM?
In the last fourteen years, I've had innumerable conversations with people regarding Iraq and the wars the United States has engaged it in since 1990. Almost inevitably, someone will say, "Well, the U.S created Saddam, after all. They should deal with him."
This is disturbing as it is almost wholly inaccurate.The Ba'ath Party of Iraq came to power in a coup against the sitting military government in 1969. The United States had nothing to do with the coup and, indeed, were surprised by it. Upon the sitting of the new government, Saddam Hussein was named vice-president. Almost immediately, the government of Iraq began financing and offering refuge to Palestinean terror groups, such as the Abu Nidal Organization (which prior to the rise of al-Qaeda was the most effective terror group in the Middle East.) Iraq had cut off diplomatic relations with the United States following U.S support of Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.
Then, in 1979, the friendly government of Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran was overthrown by Islamist fundamentalists and the U.S embassy was seized by student radicals. Iran was, at the time considered to be a vital strategic interest in the Cold War. With the turmoil there, the Carter and Regan administrations looked for a counterbalancing force that would a)keep Iran in check and b)prevent the Soviets from moving forces into the region (the Soviets, preoccupied as they were in Afghanistan were as leary of the Iranian revolution as the Americans.) Also, in 1979 Saddam Hussein ascended to the Iraqi presidency and initiated a blood purge amongst the upper reaches of the Ba'ath party. During this entire period, the United States had no official contact with the Iraqi government. (NOTE: There were, in fact, back channel between the Ford administration and the Ba'ath regime that ended Iranian support for the armed Kurdish rebellion ad led to the slaughter of thousands.)
When Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, the United States saw an opportunity to contain both Iraq and Iran and stop Soviet political insurgency by prolonging the war. This seemed to follow a doctrine of "stability through instability." Under this theory, neither nation could become powerful enough to gain the position of "regional policeman" that Iran had held from the early 1950's through the late 1970's.
To further that policy the Reagan administration restored unofficial relations with Iraq in 1982. What the United States did after February 1982 is a matter of some controversey. All sources cited hereafter are declassified American documents obtained through the National Security Archive's Saddam Hussein Handbook. (NOTE: The documents themselves are PDF files and may only be viewed with Adode Acrobat.)
The administration in a National Security Decision Directive (#114) declared the policy of the United States government vis-a-vis the Iran/Iraq war to be
"Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic."
This included "regional military co-operation" and later the U.S flagging of Kuwaiti tankers in the Persian Gulf.
The extent of the Reagan administrations early efforts on behalf of Iraq appeared to begin and end with credit guaruntees from the Department of Agriculture. This relieved Iraqi finacial pressures to import food and freed up money that it used to buy military goods, including the precursors to chemical weapons, mostly from western European companies.The United States also maintained diplomatic silence when Iraq used Chemical weapons on Iranian troops.
Much has been made of current (and then former) Secretary of Denfese, Donald Rumsfld's trips to Baghdad in 1983 and 84. What is rarely pointed out, and the record makes clear, is that Rumsfeld specifically cited Iraq's use of WMD as a pretext to deny Iraq greater military aid.
Rumsfeld also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, and the two agreed, "the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests." Rumsfeld affirmed the Reagan administration's "willingness to do more" regarding the Iran-Iraq war, but "made clear that our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us, citing the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights." He then moved on to other U.S. concerns . Later, Rumsfeld was assured by the U.S. interests section that Iraq's leadership had been "extremely pleased" with the visit, and that "Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a person".
Through 1984, the U.S government not only condemned Iraq's use of chemical weapons, it tightened controls on their export to Iraq. To this time, there is no serious allegation that the United States or any American corporation sold WMD materials to Iraq.
Of course, the growing Iran/Contra scandal completely obliterated the early policy toward Iraq. In the later stages of the war, the United States did provide satellite intelligence to Iraq as it sold TOW missles to Iran through Israel. This is where the canard of "the U.S creating Saddam" comes from. However, there is no evidence to suggest that the United States government provided Iraq a sugnificant amount of military or WMD materials. That was done almost entirely done by Italian, French and West German companies.
Every fact I cited above can be documented here. I did not link directly to the actual U.S government documents as the PDFs take forever to download. The summary is instructive though, and the National Security Archive is not know for being overly friendly toward the U.S government.
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