Are Saddam's Sons Alive?

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
I may or may not agree or disagree with this post.

I'll get back to you.

Waning indecisive on us now, Bertster?

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote:


;hahahahaaa

arrongant dickhead!

IF saddam has any terrorist ability the death of his sons will put it in
motion

Flying right now might not be a good idea with surface to air missles so
available.

"Terrence Daniels" wrote in
thlink.net:


"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Sounds like an interesting punishment for when/if we capture the
likes of Saddam, bin Laden or the Erskineclone: lock 'em in a box,
with a poison gas valve hooked up to a radioactive emitter. Even if
they get away without getting gassed, they still get radiation
sickness.

Saddam ought to be led through the streets of Baghdad naked and in
chains, to let the regular Iraqi folk have a crack at him, in the
finest Oriental tradition.

Best plan for Osama is simply to ventilate him with an entire magazine
of 7.62 NATO. As for burial... Plant him six inches under the doorstep
of the women's bathroom in whatever new building they put up at the
WTC site. On the inner side of the doorway. Face up.




Yeah! And the people who armed them, too!

--
Can I borrow a feeling?
http://www.mp3.com/gortician

Bass for your anus:
http://www.mp3.com/manticore
http://www.mp3.com/meterversusyard
http://www.mp3.com/highc
http://www.mp3.com/measurerecs.

"[The artwork of Andrew Penland] is REAL...what I mean by "real" is that
it made NEW THOUGHTS occur in my head, which would have never otherwise
occurred." --Full Force Frank

On 26 Jul 2003 20:46:49 -0700,

(Jon Cornell) wrote:

The best thing about the joke is that the analogy actually holds water
in some twisted way. I personally think it's safe to say that Uday
and Qusay are dead. Osama bin Laden, on the other hand, is almost
certainly exactly as dead as the cat.

....So, do we send in Dave Scott for the context analysis, or do we
splurge and send in Lee Silver to autopsy the cat?


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
.. .
"eyes only" wrote in
:

"Victor H. Britian" wrote in message
om...
They may be equally dead or alive. The consequences of the death of
Saddam Hussein's sons give rise to several questions. If the questions
remain unanswered, the death of the two important figures in Iraq
looks unbelievable.

It is not ruled out that the liquidation of the brothers was in fact a
special operation launched to cover them up.

Yes.

I may or may not agree or disagree with this post.

I'll get back to you.

Considering the cross-posting, speculation must arise as to the involvement
of the Hussein brothers in the COLUMBIA disaster. What nasty pieces of work
they were.

AHS

Scott Lowther wrote in news:3F237612.7935
@ix.netcom.com:

Brave New Worm wrote:

"Terrence Daniels" wrote in
thlink.net:


"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Sounds like an interesting punishment for when/if we capture the
likes of Saddam, bin Laden or the Erskineclone: lock 'em in a box,
with a poison gas valve hooked up to a radioactive emitter. Even if
they get away without getting gassed, they still get radiation
sickness.

Saddam ought to be led through the streets of Baghdad naked and in
chains, to let the regular Iraqi folk have a crack at him, in the
finest Oriental tradition.

Best plan for Osama is simply to ventilate him with an entire
magazine
of 7.62 NATO. As for burial... Plant him six inches under the
doorstep
of the women's bathroom in whatever new building they put up at the
WTC site. On the inner side of the doorway. Face up.




Yeah! And the people who armed them, too!

That would be the Russians. Ever see 'em using M-16s, LAWs, F-16s or
M-1s? Nope. AK-47s, RPGs , MiGs and T-72's all the way.



No that would be the Americans and the British, as far as chemcial and
biological weapons are concerned...

--
Can I borrow a feeling?
http://www.mp3.com/gortician

Bass for your anus:
http://www.mp3.com/manticore
http://www.mp3.com/meterversusyard
http://www.mp3.com/highc
http://www.mp3.com/measurerecs.

"[The artwork of Andrew Penland] is REAL...what I mean by "real" is that
it made NEW THOUGHTS occur in my head, which would have never otherwise
occurred." --Full Force Frank

Scott Lowther wrote in
:

Brave New Worm wrote:

"Terrence Daniels" wrote in
thlink.net:

Best plan for Osama is simply to ventilate him with an entire magazine
of 7.62 NATO. As for burial... Plant him six inches under the doorstep
of the women's bathroom in whatever new building they put up at the
WTC site. On the inner side of the doorway. Face up.

Yeah! And the people who armed them, too!

That would be the Russians. Ever see 'em using M-16s, LAWs, F-16s or
M-1s? Nope. AK-47s, RPGs , MiGs and T-72's all the way.

French and Chinese, too. Don't forget the Mirage fighters and Exocet and
Silkworm missiles...


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in
:

Scott Lowther wrote in
:

Brave New Worm wrote:

"Terrence Daniels" wrote
in thlink.net:

Best plan for Osama is simply to ventilate him with an entire
magazine of 7.62 NATO. As for burial... Plant him six inches under
the doorstep of the women's bathroom in whatever new building they
put up at the WTC site. On the inner side of the doorway. Face up.

Yeah! And the people who armed them, too!

That would be the Russians. Ever see 'em using M-16s, LAWs, F-16s or
M-1s? Nope. AK-47s, RPGs , MiGs and T-72's all the way.

French and Chinese, too. Don't forget the Mirage fighters and Exocet
and Silkworm missiles...



http://www.counterpunch.org/boles1010.html
Helping Iraq Kill with Chemical Weapons:
The Relevance of Yesterday's US Hypocrisy Today
by ELSON E. BOLES

You may feel disgusted by the hypocrisy of US plans to make war on Iraq
and sickened at the inevitable slaughter of thousands of people. But if
you could only vaguely recall the details of how deep the hypocrisy goes,
then read on.

The US not only helped arm Iraq with military equipment right up to the
time of the Kuwait invasion in 1989, as did Germany, Britain, France,
Russia and others, but also sold and helped Iraq to integrate chemical
weapons into their US-provided battle plans while fighting Iran between
1985-1988.

According to a New York Times article in August, 2002, Col. Walter P.
Lang, a senior defense intelligence officer at the time, explained that
D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials "were desperate to make sure that Iraq did
not lose" to Iran. "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was
not a matter of deep strategic concern," he said. One veteran said, that
the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas." "It was just
another way of killing people _ whether with a bullet or phosgene, it
didn't make any difference."

Now consider just how deceptive the recent comments from the White House
are. In late September spokesman Ari Fleischer said that British Prime
Minister Blair's dossier of evidence is "frightening in terms of Iraq's
intentions and abilities to acquire weapons." A few days later, while
making his case against Saddam, President Bush said "He's used poison gas
on his own people." Bush deceives because he hides the fact that US
officials, including his father, had no qualms about helping Saddam gas
Iranians. What is truly frightening are the US policies toward Iraq, the
cover ups of those policies, and the US officials who personally profit
in the millions of dollars from those policies. To whatever degree Saddam
is a tyrant, he would not be that without the US government.

The question is not whether Saddam is willing to use chemical or other
weapons of mass destruction again. The question is whether the US is
currently selling and helping countries use weapons of mass destruction.

Details about Iraq killing Iranians with US-supplied chemical and
biological weapons significantly deepens our understanding of the current
hypocrisy. It began with "Iraq-gate" -- when US policy makers,
financiers, arms-suppliers and makers, made massive profits from sales to
Iraq of myriad chemical, biological, conventional weapons, and the
equipment to make nuclear weapons. Reporter Russ Baker noted, for
example, that, "on July 3, 1991, the Financial Times reported that a
Florida company run by an Iraqi national had produced cyanide -- some of
which went to Iraq for use in chemical weapons -- and had shipped it via
a CIA contractor." This was just the tip of a mountain of scandals.

A major break in uncovering Iraqgate began with a riveting 1990 Nightline
episode which revealed that top officials of the Reagan administration,
the State Department, the Pentagon, C.I.A., and D.I.A., collectively
engaged in a massive cover up of the USS Vincennes' whereabouts and
actions when it shot down an Iranian airliner in 1987 killing over 200
civilians. The "massive cover up" Koppel explained, was designed to hide
the US secret war against Iran, in which, among other actions, US Special
Operations troops and Navy SEALS sunk half of Iran's navy while giving
battle plans and logistical information to Iraqi ground forces in a
coordinated offensive.

In continuing the probe, as Koppel explained in June, 1990, "It is
becoming increasingly clear that George Bush [Sr.], operating largely
behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of
the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq
into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to
destroy."

A PBS Frontline episode, "The Arming of Iraq" (1990) detailed much of the
conventional and so-called "dual-use" weapons sold to Iraq. The public
learned from other sources that at least since mid-1980s the US was
selling chemical and biological material for weapons to Iraq and
orchestrating private sales. These sales began soon after current
Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad in 1985 and met
with Saddam Hussein as a private businessman on behalf of the Reagan
administration. In the last major battle of the Iran-Iraq war, some
65,000 Iranians were killed, many by gas.

Investigators turned up new scandals, including the involvement of Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), the giant Italian bank, and many of the very
same circles of arms suppliers, covert operators, and policy makers in
and out of the US government and active in those roles for years. The
National Security Council, CIA and other US agencies tacitly approved
about $4 billion in unreported loans to Iraq through the giant Italian
bank's Atlanta branch. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of
the US government, purchased computer controlled machine tools,
computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum,
chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraq's missile, chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons programs.

However, the early reports on BNL's activities and the startling
revelations that the US government astonishingly knew that BNL was
financing billions of dollars of purchases illegally, were rather comical
in view of later revelations regarding who was involved. US government
officials didn't just know and approve, but some were employees at BNL
directly or indirectly. It was Representative Henry Gonzalez (D-Texas)
who relentlessly brought key information into the Congressional Record
(despite stern warnings by the State Department to stop his personal
investigation for the sake of "national security").

Gonzalas revealed, for example, that Brent Scowcroft served as Vice
Chairman of Kissinger Associates until being appointed as National
Security Advisor to President Bush in January 1989. As Gonzalez reported,
"Until October 4,1990, Mr. Scowcroft owned stock in approximately 40 U.S.
corporations, many of which were doing busies in Iraq." Scowcroft's stock
included that in Halliburton Oil, also doing business in Iraq at the
time, which had also been run by current Vice President Dick Cheney for a
time. Recall that this year President George Bush Sr. faced suspicion of
insider trading in relation to selling his stock in Halliburton. The
companies that Scowcroft owned stock in, according to Gonzalez, "received
more than one out of every eight U.S. export licenses for exports to
Iraq. Several of the companies were also clients of Kissinger Associates
while Mr. Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of that firm." Thus, Kissinger
Associates helped US companies obtain US export licenses with BNL-finance
so Iraq could purchase US weapons and materials for its weapons programs.

Many US business-men and officials made handsome profits. This included
Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, who
was an employee of BNL while BNL was simultaneously a paying client of
Kissinger Associates. Gonzalez reported that Mr. Alan Stoga, a Kissinger
Associates executive, met in June 1989 Mr. Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
"Many Kissinger Associates clients received US export licenses for
exports to Iraq. Several were also the beneficiaries of BNL loans to
Iraq," said Mr. Gonzalez. Kissinger admitted that "it is possible that
somebody may have advised a client on how to get a license."

Perhaps the most bizarre revelations about the involvement of former US
officials concerned a Washington-based enterprise called "Global
Research" which played a middleman role in selling uniforms to Iraq. It
was run by, none other than Spiro Agnew (Nixon's former VP who resigned
to avoid bribery and tax evasion charges), John Mitchell (Nixon's chief
of staff and Watergate organizer), and Richard Nixon himself. In the mid-
1980s, more than a decade after Watergate, Nixon wrote a cozy letter to
former dictator and friend Nicolae Ceausescu to close the deal. Global
Research, incidentally, swindled the Iraqis, who thought they were
getting US-made uniforms for desert conditions. Instead they received,
and discarded, the winter uniforms from Romania.

By late 1992, the sales of chemical and biological weapons were revealed.
Congressional Records of Senator Riegle's investigation of the Gulf War
Syndrome show that that the US government approved sales of large
varieties of chemical and biological materials to Iraq. These included
anthrax, components of mustard gas, botulinum toxins (which causes
paralysis of the muscles involving swallowing and is often fatal),
histoplasma capsulatum (which may cause pneumonia, enlargement of the
liver and spleen, anemia, acute inflammatory skin disease marked by
tender red nodules), and a host of other nasty chemicals materials.

To top it all off, there is the question as to whether Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait was a set up. Evidence indicates that the US knew of Iraq's plans
-- after all, the military and intelligence agencies of the two countries
were working very closely. Newspaper reports about the infamous meeting
between then-Ambassador Glaspie and Iraq officials, and a special ABC
report in the series "A Line in the Sand," indicated that, although the
US officials told Iraq that it disapproved, they indicated that the US
would not interfere.

Bear in mind the attitude of the US policy makers not only regarding
Iraq's use of gas against Iranians, but in general. Richard Armatige,
then Asst. Sec. of Defense for International Security Affairs and now
Deputy Secretary of State, said with a hint of pride in his voice that
the US "was playing one wolf off another wolf" in pursuing our so-called
national interest. This kind of cool machismo resembled the pride that
Oliver North verbalized with a grin during the Iran-Contra hearings as "a
right idea" with regard to using the Ayatollah's money to fund the
Contras. The setting up of Iraq thus would be very consistent with the
goals and the character of US foreign policy in the Middle East: to
control the region's states either for US oil companies or as bargaining
chips in deals with other strong countries, and to profit by selling
massive quantities of weapons to states that will war with or deter those
states that oppose US "interests."

The problem that Armatige refers to was the fact that by 1990, the US and
allied arming of Iraq had given Iraq a decisive military edge over Iran,
which upset the regional "balance." The thinking among the US hawks was
Iraq's military needed to somehow be returned to its 1980 level. An
invasion of Kuwait would enable the US to do that.

But initially many arms suppliers opposed the war on Iraq because they
had been making huge profits from arms sales to Saddam's regime during
the 1980s. Indeed, one US official interviewed expressed his
disappointment with Iraq's invasion and the subsequent Gulf War because
the relationship with Iraq could have continued to be "very profit...uh
mutually profitable."

Bush Sr. and others expected that after the war, Saddam would capitulate
to US designs on the region. With a heeled Saddam, the interests of arms
suppliers, defense contractors, and the many US oil corporations could be
renewed. Iraqi would have to re-arm itself and invest in oil drilling and
processing facilities that were destroyed by US forces. And to pay for
all that, Iraq would have to sell oil cheap, which served the interests
both of the giant oil corporations and the American public who had begun
buying GM SUVs en masse. It would be good for US business.

The invasion today is, above all, to renew US firm's access to Iraqi oil.
As reported recently in the New York Times, former CIA director R. James
Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein
from power, argues that, "It's pretty straightforward, France and Russia
have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if
they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do
the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies
work closely with them. If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will
be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi
government to work with them."

His views are of course supported by the new Iraqi government-in-waiting.
Faisal Qaragholi, the "petroleum engineer who directs the London office
of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organization of
opposition groups that is backed by the United States" says that "Our oil
policies should be decided by a government in Iraq elected by the
people." Ahmed Chalabi, the INC leader, put it more bluntly and sadi that
he favored a U.S.-led consortium to develop Iraq's oil fields, which
would replace the existing agreements that Iraq has with Russia and
France. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi
said.

Note also that Bush and company have a personal stake in unilateral
action. According to Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff at ABC, "Dick
Cheney's Halliburton Co. had interests in Iraqi oil production after the
[Gulf ] war."

Thus, following the Gulf War, Cheney, Bush Sr. and others didn't expect
that Saddam would refuse to abide by US interests and join the so-called
"family of nations." This is really what President Bush Jr meant when he
said at a cabinet meeting on Sept. 24, 2002 that he intends "to hold
Saddam Hussein to account for a decade of defiance."

There is no shock about any of this, nor of the sordid assortment of
officials and individuals directly or indirectly involved -- from the
infamous US-based international arms dealer Sarkis Songhanalian and
former Gen. Secord, to Oliver North and Richard Nixon -- and many others.
They had been part of covert US arms and drug deals and Mafia dating back
decades. Iraqgate was in fact also part of Irangate, and both are about a
shadow government that circumvents domestic and international laws in
arming regimes and terrorist organizations to enhance the profits of US
businessmen and corporations.

The public learned since the mid-1980s that the shadow government folks
played all sides of various wars, and made curious business alliances.
Profits were good, but there were also ideological reasons. While arming
Iraq and putting proceeds into their pockets, the covert operators also
armed Iran. Israel of course, had also been arming Iran since the
Ayatollah came into power in order to counter Iraq. The US soon joined
these operations after Regan came to power.

Oliver North, Bush Sr., Robert McFarlane, and Gen. Secord, and others
purchased from the CIA spare parts for US-made weapons and more than two
thousand TOW missiles, which the CIA had purchased at discount rates from
the Pentagon. Secord and North sold the weapons and parts to Iran in
exchange for cash and the release of US hostages in Lebanon.

In public, Ronnie Reagan repeatedly condemned negotiations with
terrorists in principle and even stated on national TV that there had
been no negotiations with terrorists. He went back on air a few months
later and said that while he still didn't believe "in his heart" that the
US had negotiated with terrorists, the facts told him "otherwise." He
escaped impeachment because he "couldn't remember" signing detailed
instructions for sales of weapons to Iran and for the diversion of money
to the Contras.

Insiders considered these trades "business as usual." Former General
Secord, for instance, unashamedly told Congressional investigators during
the Iran-Contra hearings that his arms-dealing firm, the "Enterprise,"
which sold the TOWs to other brokers and then to Iran, was a legitimate
profit-making business. And as we all know, at the other end of the deal,
North channeled a portion of the proceeds from those sales through Swiss
banks and to the terrorist Contras in Honduras. Their job was to
overthrow the Sandinista regime that overthrew the brutal 43-year Somoza
family dictatorship supported by the US.

Again, in legal terms, the scandal was not only that Reagan's
administration circumvented the Boland Amendment which outlawed military
support to the Contras, but also that the CIA had also mined the harbors
of Nicaragua. When the US was taken to the International Court of Justice
(ICJ) and convicted of violating international laws, President Reagan
disregarded this conviction saying the ICJ had no jurisdiction over the
United States.

Bush Jr. has stated the following reasons for invading Iraq, all of which
are accurate except the last: (1) Iraq used chemical weapons, (2) Iraq
tried to build nuclear weapons, and (3) the US tried to bring Iraq into
the "family of nations" (said first by Bush Sr). He is correct that Iraq
was willing to use chemical weapons and has been trying to build nuclear
weapons for years. Of course, he just fails to mention that the US was
willing to sell, and to help Iraq use, chemical weapons of mass
destruction and that his friends profited handsomely in so doing. He also
fails to note that today Hussein is not seen as an immediate threat by
it's Arab neighbors, none of whom have called for his ouster, and that
Iraq has only a shadow of the power it had in 1990. There is no evidence
to support Bush or Blair's claims that Iraq has and is preparing to use
chemical or biological weapons.

Lastly, what about Bush Jr.'s third contention, that the US had tried to
bring Saddam into the "family of nations?" In view of the thousands upon
thousands of women, children, and men butchered with US battle plans and
arms, as well as arms from Europe, one could only characterize that
family as being composed of unscrupulous, profiteering, vile accomplices
to mass murder. Perhaps this is also a reason why the Bush administration
opposes the formation of the World Court and needs US politicians and
military personel exempt from international law.

Elson E. Boles is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Saginaw Valley
State University University in Michigan.

He can be reached at:



How Did Saddam Get Weapons
Of Mass Destruction?
We Sold Them To Him
By Neil Mackay and Felicity Arbuthnot
The Sunday Herald - UK
12-10-2

The United States 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
Snr, 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.

Classified US Defence Dep-artment documents also seen by the Sunday
Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to
nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can
be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

The Senate committee's rep orts 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.

The Senate report also makes clear that: 'The United States provided the
government of Iraq with 'dual use' licensed materials which assisted in
the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system
programmes.'

This assistance, according to the report, included 'chemical warfare-
agent precursors, chem ical warfare-agent production facility plans and
technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological
warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile
system guidance equipment'.

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 licences issued by the Department of
Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's
chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system
development programmes.'

Riegle added that, between January 1985 and August 1990, the 'executive
branch of our government approved 771 different export licences 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.

However, Bush and Blair will also have to prove that Saddam still has
chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities. This looks like a
difficult case to clinch in view of the fact that Scott Ritter, the UN's
former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, says the United Nations des
troyed most of Iraq's wea pons of mass destruction and doubts that Saddam
could have rebuilt his stocks by now.

According to Ritter, between 90% and 95% of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction were des troyed by the UN. He believes the remainder were
probably used or destroyed during 'the ravages of the Gulf War'.

Ritter has described himself as a 'card-carrying Republican' who voted
for George W Bush. Nevertheless, he has called the president a 'liar'
over his claims that Saddam Hussein is a threat to America.

Ritter has also alleged that the manufacture of chemical and biological
weapons emits certain gases, which would have been detected by satellite.
'We have seen none of this,' he insists. 'If Iraq was producing weapons
today, we would have definitive proof.'

He also dismisses claims that Iraq may have a nuclear weapons capacity or
be on the verge of attaining one, saying that gamma-particle atomic
radiation from the radioactive materials in the warheads would also have
been detected by western surveillance.

The UN's former co-ordinator in Iraq and former UN under-secretary
general, Count Hans von Sponeck, has also told the Sunday Herald that he
believes the West is lying about Iraq's weapons programme.

Von Sponeck visited the Al-Dora and Faluja factories near Baghdad in 1999
after they were 'comprehensively trashed' on the orders of UN inspectors,
on the grounds that they were suspected of being chemical weapons plants.
He returned to the site late in July this year, with a German TV crew,
and said both plants were still wrecked.

'We filmed the evidence of the dishonesty of the claims that they were
producing chemical and biological weapons,' von Sponeck has told the
Sunday Herald. 'They are indeed in the same destroyed state which we
witnessed in 1999. There was no trace of any resumed activity at all.'
First Published 8-8-02
Copyright © 2002 SMG Sunday Newspapers, Ltd.






Rumsfeld 'offered help to Saddam'

Declassified papers leave the White House hawk exposed over his role
during the Iran-Iraq war

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday December 31, 2002
The Guardian

The Reagan administration and its special Middle East envoy, Donald
Rumsfeld, did little to stop Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction
in the 1980s, even though they knew Saddam Hussein was using chemical
weapons "almost daily" against Iran, it was reported yesterday.
US support for Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war as a bulwark against
Shi'ite militancy has been well known for some time, but using
declassified government documents, the Washington Post provided new
details yesterday about Mr Rumsfeld's role, and about the extent of the
Reagan administration's knowledge of the use of chemical weapons.

The details will embarrass Mr Rumsfeld, who as defence secretary in the
Bush administration is one of the leading hawks on Iraq, frequently
denouncing it for its past use of such weapons.

The US provided less conventional military equipment than British or
German companies but it did allow the export of biological agents,
including anthrax; vital ingredients for chemical weapons; and cluster
bombs sold by a CIA front organisation in Chile, the report says.

Intelligence on Iranian troop movements was provided, despite detailed
knowledge of Iraq's use of nerve gas.

Rick Francona, an ex-army intelligence lieutenant-colonel who served in
the US embassy in Baghdad in 1987 and 1988, told the Guardian: "We
believed the Iraqis were using mustard gas all through the war, but that
was not as sinister as nerve gas.

"They started using tabun [a nerve gas] as early as '83 or '84, but in a
very limited way. They were probably figuring out how to use it. And in
'88, they developed sarin."

On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed
intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by
Iraq.

However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing
the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent
Iraq losing the war.

In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle
East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US
willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations.

Mr Rumsfeld has said that he "cautioned" the Iraqi leader against using
banned weapons. But there was no mention of such a warning in state
department notes of the meeting.

Howard Teicher, an Iraq specialist in the Reagan White House, testified
in a 1995 affidavit that the then CIA director, William Casey, used a
Chilean firm, Cardoen, to send cluster bombs to use against Iran's "human
wave" attacks.

A 1994 congressional inquiry also found that dozens of biological agents,
including various strains of anthrax, had been shipped to Iraq by US
companies, under licence from the commerce department.

Furthermore, in 1988, the Dow Chemical company sold $1.5m-worth
(£930,000) of pesticides to Iraq despite suspicions they would be used
for chemical warfare.

The only occasion that Iraq's use of banned weapons seems to have worried
the Reagan administration came in 1988, after Lt Col Francona toured the
battlefield on the al-Faw peninsula in southern Iraq and reported signs
of sarin gas.

"When I was walking around I saw atropine injectors lying around. We saw
decontamination fluid on vehicles, there were no insects," said Mr
Francona, who has written a book on shifting US policy to Iraq titled
Ally to Adversary. "There was a very quick response from Washington
saying, 'Let's stop our cooperation' but it didn't last long - just
weeks."





--
Can I borrow a feeling?
http://www.mp3.com/gortician

Bass for your anus:
http://www.mp3.com/manticore
http://www.mp3.com/meterversusyard
http://www.mp3.com/highc
http://www.mp3.com/measurerecs.

"[The artwork of Andrew Penland] is REAL...what I mean by "real" is that
it made NEW THOUGHTS occur in my head, which would have never otherwise
occurred." --Full Force Frank

"Arved Sandstrom" wrote in message
...

Considering the cross-posting, speculation must arise as to the
involvement
of the Hussein brothers in the COLUMBIA disaster. What nasty pieces of
work
they were.

Let's play "American Presidential Speech Mad Libs"! *

Obviously they met with a guy who had a friend who was a cousin of the
roommate of the friend of a guy who knew Ilan Ramon. This is enough to
justify bombing the bejeezus out of (a relatively small foreign country
who's been ****ing us off), who supplied (military materials) to (the name
of an organization) in (a year). America cannot stand for this grave threat
to our (a synonym for security).

Either that or they had a SECRET AGENT INSIDE AREA 51 WHO FIRED HAARP AT THE
SHUTTLE!!! Musta been those Freemasons again. I heard that Qusay Hussein
was an Illuminati.

(* Toungue-in-cheek. Sorta. No flames if you can't handle a joke, please)