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16 January 2003
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Dit artikel is deel van de serie Iraq-US-connection.
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Persoonlijke ontmoeting tussen Saddam en Rumsfeld
Amerikaans gifgas voor Saddam dankzij Rumsfeld
Door Daan de Wit
De Amerikaanse minister van defensie Donald Rumsfeld zorgde door een persoonlijke ontmoeting met Saddam Hussein in 1983 ervoor dat Amerikaanse bedrijven gifgas gingen leveren aan Irak. Hij maakte de weg vrij 'for US companies to sell Baghdad biological and chemical weapons components, including anthrax and bubonic plague cultures, according to newly declassified US Government documents', zo staat te lezen in The Times. 'Mr Rumsfeld’s 90-minute meeting with Saddam, preceded by a warm handshake [...] was captured on film [...]'. Zie de beelden onderaan dit artikel.

Beleid VS duurde tot vlak voor aanval op Koeweit
De Washington Post schrijft: 'Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.' The Times: 'The policy was followed with such vigour over the next seven years that on July 25, 1990, only one week before Saddam invaded Kuwait, the US Ambassador to Baghdad met Saddam to assure him that President Bush “wanted better and deeper relations”.' Diezelfde ambassadeur, April Glaspie, gaf Saddam het groene licht voor de invasie van Koeweit (zie deze DeepJournal).

VS grootleverancier Saddam
'To prevent Iraqi defeat in the Iran-Iraq war, which was started by Iraq and lasted from 1980 to 1988, the Reagan Administration began supplying Saddam with battlefield intelligence on Iranian troop movements. By the end of the decade, Washington had authorised the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications. These included poisonous chemicals and biological viruses, among them anthrax and bubonic plague.' Nog steeds hebben de Amerikanen moeite om de Pest in hun laboratoria te houden. Vandaag werd bekend dat de verloren Pest-samples uit de Texaanse universiteit weer terecht zijn.

'According to an affidavit sworn by Howard Teicher, a former National Security Council official during the Reagan Administration, the US “actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third-country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required.” Mr Teicher said that William Casey, the former CIA Director, used a Chilean front company to supply Baghdad with cluster bombs.'

Miltvuur
'A 1994 investigation by the Senate Banking Committee disclosed that dozens of biological agents were shipped to Iraq in the mid-1980s under licence from the US Commerce Department, including strains of anthrax. Anthrax has been identified by the Pentagon as a key component of Saddam’s biological weapons programme.' Anthrax, miltvuur, je weet wel, dat spul waar iedereen enige tijd geleden zo bang voor was (behalve vice-president Cheney, omdat hij al lang vantevoren was ingeënt) omdat Al Qaida het rondstuurde, totdat bleek dat het afkomstig was van een Amerikaans legerlaboratorium.

Halabja
'In November 1983, a month before Mr Rumsfeld’s first visit to Baghdad, George Shultz, the Secretary of State, was given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops were resorting to “almost daily use of CW (chemical weapons) against the Iranians”.' Zowel The Times als de Washington Post halen in dit verband de bekende gifgasaanval op de Koerden in Halabja aan, maar die zou zijn gepleegd door Iran en niet door Irak. Zie daarvoor deze DeepJournal: 'Onderzoeker onthult: Gifgasaanval [in Halabja] op Koerden niet door Saddam'.
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