Iraq's Tortured Children

by ThiChi 73 Replies latest social current

• 

  Simon

  Now I know you don't read the articles ThiChi ...

  When I met von Sponeck in Baghdad last October, the anger building behind his measured, self-effacing exterior was evident. Like Halliday before him, his job was to administer the Oil for Food Programme, which since 1996 has allowed Iraq to sell a fraction of its oil for money that goes straight to the Security Council. Almost a third pays the UN's "expenses", reparations to Kuwait and compensation claims. Iraq then tenders on the international market for food and medical supplies and other humanitarian supplies. Every contract must be approved by the Sanctions Committee in New York. "What it comes down to," he said, "is that we can spend only $180 per person over six months. It is a pitiful picture. Whatever the arguments about Iraq, they should not be conducted on the backs of the civilian population."

  In January, last year, George Robertson, then defence secretary, said, "Saddam Hussein has in warehouses $275 million worth of medicines and medical supplies which he refuses to distribute." The British government knew this was false, because UN humanitarian officials had made clear the problem of drugs and equipment coming sporadically into Iraq - such as machines without a crucial part, IV fluids and syringes arriving separately - as well as the difficulties of transport and the need for a substantial buffer stock. "The goods that come into this country are distributed to where they belong," said Hans von Sponeck. "Our most recent stock analysis shows that 88.8% of all humanitarian supplies have been distributed." The representatives of Unicef, the World Food Programme and the Food and Agricultural Organisation confirmed this. If Saddam Hussein believed he could draw an advantage from obstructing humanitarian aid, he would no doubt do so. However, according to a FAO study: "The government of Iraq introduced a public food rationing system with effect from within a month of the imposition of the embargo. It provides basic foods at 1990 prices, which means they are now virtually free. This has a life-saving nutritional benefit . . . and has prevented catastrophe for the Iraqi people."

  Damn ... that doesn't fit in with the picture we want to paint in the medai does it?!
• 

  expatbrit

  It also doesn't fit with the picture given by UNICEF, WHO and Amnesty International, whose studies have shown that, far from a humanitarian disaster being prevented, one has been going on for twelve years, caused by UN sanctions.

  By the way, you've just quoted two articles to try and support your position that flatly contradict each other.

  Expatbrit
• 

  Satanus

  There was a glaspie/hussein meeting wasn't in question from me.

  ------

  But with Iraq massing troops on Kuwait's border, U.S. ambassador April Glaspie met on July 25, 1990 with Saddam Hussein. Iraq subsequently released a transcript of the meeting, the authenticity of which the State Department didn't challenge. Hussein explicitly warned Glaspie that he would take whatever actions he deemed necessary to stop Kuwait from continuing its "economic war" against Iraq. In response, Glaspie praised Hussein's "extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country;" and, on instructions from Secretary of State James Baker, she told him: "I have direct instructions from the President to seek better relations with Iraq…We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreements with Kuwait." Washington Post, September. 13, 1990

  Some info on US aide to saddam during it's iran war.

  C.I.A. officials supported the program to assist Iraq, though they were not involved. Separately, the C.I.A. provided Iraq with satellite photography of the war front.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/18/international/middleeast/18CHEM.html

  From the congressional record @
  http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/s092002.html

  on US aide to saddam during iran war.

  Having cozied up to Saddam, Washington found it hard to break away--even after going to war with him in 1991. Through years of both tacit and overt support, the West helped create the Saddam of today, giving him time to build deadly arsenals and dominate his people. Successive administrations always worried that if Saddam fell, chaos would follow, rippling through the region and possibly igniting another Middle East war. At times it seemed that Washington was transfixed by Saddam.

  The Bush administration wants to finally break the spell. If the administration's true believers are right, Baghdad, after Saddam falls will look something like Paris after the Germans fled in August 1944. American troops will be cheered as liberators, and democracy will spread forth and push Middle Eastern despotism back into the shadows. Yet if the gloomy predictions of the administration's many critics come true, the Arab street, inflamed by Yankee imperialism, will rise up and replace the shaky but friendly autocrats in the region with Islamic fanatics.

  While the Middle East is unlikely to become a democratic nirvana, the worst-case scenarios, always a staple of the press, are probably also wrong or exaggerated. Assuming that a cornered and doomed Saddam does not kill thousands of Americans in some kind of horrific Gotterdammerung--a scary possibility, one that deeply worries administration officials--the greatest risk of his fall is that one strongman may simply be replaced by another. Saddam's successor may not be a paranoid sadist. But there is no assurance that he will be America's friend or forswear the development of weapons of mass destruction. American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath--

  Get that.

  American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the title of president in 1979 was to videotape a session of his party's congress, during which he personally ordered several members executed on the spot.

  Let me repeat that:

  American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath ever since he became the country's de facto ruler in the early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the title of president in 1979 was to videotape--

  Videotape--

  a session of his party's congress, during which he personally ordered several members executed on the spot. The message, carefully conveyed to the Arab press, was not that these men were executed for plotting against Saddam, but rather for thinking about plotting against him. From the beginning, U.S. officials worried about Saddam's taste for nasty weaponry; indeed, at their meeting in 1983, Rumsfeld warned that Saddam's use of chemical weapons might "inhibit" American assistance. But top officials in the Reagan administration saw Saddam as a useful surrogate. By going to war with Iran, he could bleed the radical mullahs who had seized control of Iran from the pro-American shah. Some Reagan officials even saw Saddam as another Anwar Sadat, capable of making Iraq into a modern secular state, just as Sadat had tried to lift up Egypt before his assassination in 1981.

  But Saddam had to be rescued first. The war against Iran was going badly by 1982. Iran's "human wave attacks" threatened to overrun Saddam's armies. Washington decided to give Iraq a helping hand.

  After Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad in 1983, U.S. intelligence began supplying the Iraqi dictator with satellite photos showing Iranian deployments. Official documents suggest that America may also have secretly arranged for tanks and other military hardware to be shipped to Iraq in a swap deal--American tanks to Egypt, Egyptian tanks to Iraq. Over the protest of some Pentagon skeptics, the Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to buy a wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials from American suppliers. According to confidential Commerce Department export-control documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, the shopping list included a computerized database for Saddam's Interior Ministry (presumably to help keep track of political opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials; television cameras for "video surveillance applications"; chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), and, most unsettling, numerous shipments of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC. According to former officials, the bacterial cultures could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax. The State Department also approved the shipment of 1.5 million atropine injectors, for use against the effects of chemical weapons, but the Pentagon blocked the sale. The helicopters, some American officials later surmised, were used to spray poison gas on the Kurds.

  SS
• 

  Satanus

  Further, the day after iraq invaded kuwait, pres bush senior, in line w glaspie's statement, declared, 'We are not discussing intervention'. What impacted the ship of state to change it's course? It was a visit from aunt maggie. Here is a transcript as recorded by national public radio, of a conversation w daniel schorr, former ambassador to britain:

  SCHORR: The president had said before leaving Washington that, `We're not discussing intervention. I am not contemplating such action.' Thatcher told him, `George, this is no time to go wobbly.' At the ensuing joint press conference, Bush, his spine stiffened, said he was considering steps to end the naked aggression, and thus he started down the road to war.

  http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2002/sep/020904.schorr.html

  It appears that the bushes both fight a wimp factor/image, and so they overcompensate. For his valor, in trouncing saddam, maggie saw to it that bush senior was granted knighthood. Wimp-no-more.

  SS
• 

  Farkel

  After hearing all sides of this on this thread, I'm convinced Sadaam Hussein should remain in power and be Sainted by the Catholic Church, the Muslim religion and the Jehovah's Witnesses for his Humanitarian efforts he's carried forward both domestically and abroad.

  I capitulate. He's really a wonderful guy, after all. I'm sure he conducts "Koran Studies" in his torture chambers, and I'm sure his sons follow his "fine" example and do the same thing their private torture chambers.

  I would like to single out Uday Hussein for the next Nobel Peace Prize. He's right up there with Gandi.

  Sure.

  Farkel
• 

  seawolf

  On July 25, 1990, eight days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, a quiet, largely unreported meeting took place between Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie at the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, which has since been destroyed by the war. The transcript of this meeting is as follows:

  U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

  "I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship - not confrontation - regarding your intentions: Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait's borders?"

  Saddam Hussein:

  "As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only this one more brief chance. (pause) When we [the Iraqis] meet [with the Kuwaitis] and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death."

  U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

  "What solutions would be acceptable?"

  Saddam Hussein:

  "If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (which, in Saddam's view, includes Kuwait) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?"

  (Pause, then Ambassador Glaspie speaks carefully)

  U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

  "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America."

  (Saddam smiles.)

  THE GREEN LIGHT AND THE LIMOSINE

  At a Washington press conference called the next day, State Department spokesperson Margaret Tutweiler was asked by journalists:

  "Has the United States sent any type of diplomatic message to the Iraqis about putting 30,000 troops on the border with Kuwait? Has there been any type of protest communicated from the United States government?"

  to which she responded:

  "I'm entirely unaware of any such protest."

  On July 31st, two days before the Iraqi invasion, John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, testified to Congress that the

  "United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the U.S. has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq."

  Eight days later, on August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein's massed troops invaded and occupied Kuwait (ironically, this was done in a method historically similar to the American anexation of Texas). One month later in Baghdad, British journalists obtained the tape and transcript of the Hussein-Glaspie meeting on July 25, 1990. In order to verify this astounding information, they attempted to confront Ms. Glaspie as she was leaving the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

  Journalist 1:

  "Are the transcripts (holding them up) correct, Madam Ambassador?"

  (Ambassador Glaspie does not respond)

  Journalist 2:

  "You knew Saddam was going to invade (Kuwait), but you didn't warn him not to. You didn't tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told him the oppose - that America was not associated with Kuwait."

  Journalist 1:

  "You encouraged this aggression - his invasion. What were you thinking?"

  U.S. Ambassador Glaspie:

  "Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take ALL of Kuwait."

  Journalist 1:

  "You thought he was just going to take SOME of it? But how COULD YOU?! Saddam told you that, if negotiations failed, he would give up his Iran (Shatt al Arab Waterway) goal for the "WHOLE of Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be." You KNOW that includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always viewed as an historic part of their country!"

  (Ambassador Glaspie says nothing, pushing past the two journalists to leave)

  "America green-lighted the invasion. At a minimum, you admit signalling Saddam that some aggression was okay - that the U.S. would not oppose a grab of the al-Rumalya oil field, the disputed border strip and the Gulf Islands (including Bubiyan) - territories claimed by Iraq?"

  (Again, Ambassador Glaspie says nothing as a limousine door closes behind her and the car drives off.)
• 

  seawolf

  I'm sure he conducts "Koran Studies" in his torture chambers

  Would that be from his "My Book of Koran Studies" with the yellow cover?
• 

  Satanus

  Farkel

  I quote this stuff to balance the popular 'we good, they bad' retoric that blasts through the media pipes. People seem to forget 50 % of history.

  SS
• 

  Simon

  I'm not trying to say he's a wonderful guy. Far from it.

  However, he's treated as a convenient 'monster' for the west to blame everything on, including all the deaths that they have caused by their policies.

  The reason wit's so important (to me) is that without some pressure and public opinion to prevent it, similar things could happen again and that will not solve the situation and lead to more hatred, more terrorism etc ...
• 

  Trauma_Hound

  Simon, sorry to tell you this, but your not going to reason with these people, I mean they have JeffT on they're side, that thinks Depleted Uranium occurs naturally.