Document 47/1985 - America Ignores Iraq's Use of WMD

[jgarden]

Document 47: Department of State Cable from George P. Shultz to the Mission to the European Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations. "U.N. Human Rights Commission: Item 12: Iranian Resolution on Use of Chemical Weapons by Iraq," March 14, 1984.

The State Department instructs the U.S. delegate to the United Nations to get the support of other Western missions for a motion of "no decision" regarding Iran's draft resolution condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons. Failing that, the U.S. is to abstain on the resolution.

   
 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82

Twenty one years ago America was quite prepared to turn a blind eye to the Iraqi use of WMD against the Iranians and the Kurds. After Sadaam outlived his usefulness, America then wanted the UN to pass a similar resolution condemning the same WMD it would have abstained from 2 decades earlier

[Soldier4Christ]

I don't see where they "turned a blind eye". The documents tate that the U.S. condemned those hte use of CW and took appropriate political action to prevent it's future useage. I was active duty at that time and clearly remember the involvement of the U.S. in the Iran/Iraq war. We (the Military) were not physically involved at that time but the U.S. was politically involved.

At the time the U.S. was at odds with all the middle east nations and were advised by them to stay out of it. If we had taken any other action than what we had there was a very high likelyhood of all out war in the middle east including Israel. It would have quickly escalated into a major world war which is what we were attempting to prevent.

As in anything where politics are involved, especially politics with many nations involved, it takes a long time to achieve anything. The war in Iraq did not start over night in March 2003. It has been building for many, many years even prior to the 1990/1991 campaign.

 

[Marv]

It certainly wasn't a blind eye at all.  Much of what Saddam obtained was obtained through foreign subsidiaries of American corporations or through deniable launderers of American aid.

It even went so far that we fixed several "pesticide" applying helicopters for Iraq because the pilots were being overcome by the application.  I have seen helicopters applying insecticides day after day that less than 1 gram of product would be a fatal dosage, yet no such special equipment was needed for the pilot.  Saddam used to like to brag that he had the insecticides to deal with the Iranians.  

We gave Saddam many millions of dollars of aid at a time when according to our own intelligence he used WMD's on almost a daily basis.

We even provided him military intelligence even though we were supposedly neutral because the Iranians were massed and going to cut Iraq in half and would almost certainly have defeated and deposed Saddam.

Several of the people involved in the whole thing back in the Reagan administration are directly involved today, people like Rumsfeld and Cheney.  It makes sense that they were so certain that Saddam had WMD's, he had them back when they were shaking hands with him, why shouldn't he have them now.

The answer seems to be that Saddam while a horrible tyrant, wasn't insane, and he got rid of them or didn't replace them after the Gulf War.  I don't believe he had any "problem" with using WMD's but he could see the handwriting on the wall that if he did-he was gone.  He didn't count on an administration that it seems had decided to get rid of him anyway.

Getting rid of Saddam is a good thing.  The major concerns are that Iran and North Korea consider themselves immune to military action while we are tied down there.  Iran just purchased 1 billion dollars in armaments including many surface to air missles from Russia.

In addition Iran has infiltrated and is funding many of the Shiite militia in Iraq.  They are smart enough not to fight against the US or British troops, what they are doing is settling scores and killing other Iraqies.  Iran hopes to be able to use the whole situation to install a government in Iraq that is very, shall we say, friendly to Iran.

We have to be careful or the end product of our invasion of Iraq will be a greatly strengthened Iran and not a free Iraq.

A reasonable timeframe from our invasion to a free stable Iraq is 12 to 15 years, even then they made need intermittent help for awhile.  A long ways from the 6 days or 6 weeks or at the outside 6 months that Rumsfeld said it would take to end the conflict.

Marv