RUMSFELD: SADDAM HUSSEIN'S ORIGINAL CONNECTION

verfasst von CRASH_GURU, 02.03.2003, 12:38

-->THE RUMSFELD CONNECTION

What I am about to reveal here ought to be common
knowledge. It isn't. The main source of my information
comes from the MSNBC Web site (Aug. 18, 2002). It's an
Associated Press story that relies heavily on a story in
the NEW YORK TIMES. What I am trying to get across here is
that the media can make or break a story by its headlines
and by the amount of coverage given to it. A story can be
national and still be ignored by the media. Call it the
"St. Petersburg phenomenon." MSNBC story's headline
announced a boring fact:

Rumsfeld key player in Iraq policy shift

Ho hum.

The subhead got a little more interesting:

State Department cables and court records reveal
a wealth of information on how U.S. foreign
policy shifted in the 1980s to help Iraq.
Virtually all of the information is in the words
of key participants, including Donald Rumsfeld,
now secretary of defense.

Well, now. What's this all about? You mean Rumsfeld
has been around for a long time? Indeed, he has.

THE NEW INFORMATION on the policy shift toward
Iraq, and Rumsfeld's role in it, comes as The New
York Times reported Sunday that United States
gave Iraq vital battle-planning help during its
war with Iran as part of a secret program under
President Reagan -- even though U.S. intelligence
agencies knew the Iraqis would unleash chemical
weapons.

The covert program involved more than 60 officers
of the Defense Intelligence Agency who helped
Iraq in its eight-year war with Iran by providing
detailed information on Iranian military
deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans
for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments, the
Times said.

There's nothing a covert US military program to lead
to its opposite effect. It just takes time.

This covert program had to do with scorpions in the
sands: Iran and Iraq. The Iranians are Shi'ites. The
Iraqis who have the votes aren't. (Note: when I speak of
Middle Easter Muslims who"have the votes," I'm speaking
metaphorically.)

Iraq and neighboring Iran waged a vicious war
from September 1980 to August 1988. An estimated
1 million people were killed and millions more
were dislocated by the fighting.

Now, that's serious warfare. The United States lost
fewer than 300,000 men killed during World War II. In
1940, the US population was 130 million. Iraq in 1980 had
a population of 13 million.

http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Asia/iraqc.htm

Iran had 39 million.

http://www.library.uu.nl/wesp/populstat/Asia/iranc.htm

It has been known for some time that the United
States provided intelligence assistance to Iraq
during the war in the form of satellite
photography to help the Iraqis understand how
Iranian forces were deployed. But the full scope
of the program had not been known until now, the
Times said.

Then what is known now? What new revelations add
significant light on the picture?

President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush
personally sent advice to Saddam Hussein, both
directly and through intermediaries, a NSC staff
member said.

Indeed, the record shows that in 1983, Rumsfeld -
- then President Reagan's special envoy to the
Middle East, now secretary of defense -- told
senior Iraqi officials that the use of poison gas
"inhibited" normal relations between the two
countries.

Nevertheless, at those same meetings in Baghdad
with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and
then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Rumsfeld
stated the Reagan administration was so concerned
about an Iranian victory that it offered Saddam
unspecified assistance.

This was in 1983. At this time, Iraq seemed to be
losing the war against Iran. Most of the official evidence
is still sealed.

But in a January 1995 affidavit in a civil case
involving Iraqi arms sales, NSC staff member
Howard Teicher provides the most detailed
discussion of the rationale behind the Iraq tilt.
Moreover, Teicher, who accompanied Rumsfeld to
Baghdad in 1983, lays out in the affidavit how
both President Reagan and then-Vice President
Bush personally delivered military advice to
Saddam Hussein, both directly and through
intermediaries....

"CIA Director [William] Casey personally
spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had
sufficient military weapons, ammunition and
vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war," the
affidavit continued."Pursuant to the secret
NSDD, the United States actively supported the
Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with
billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S.
military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis,
and by closely monitoring third country arms
sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the
military weaponry required." [Teicher co-
authored the secret NSDD, or National Security
Decision Directive -- GN]

Moreover, says Teicher, the U.S. actually
provided military advice to the Iraqis, relaying
U.S. intelligence to Saddam from the highest
levels of the U.S. government, from President
Reagan and then-Vice President Bush, father of
the current president....

"The United States also provided strategic
operational advice to the Iraqis to better use
their assets in combat," says Teicher's
affidavit."For example, in 1986, President
Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein
telling him that Iraq should step up its air war
and bombing of Iran. This message was delivered
by Vice President Bush who communicated it to
Egyptian President Mubarak, who in turn passed
the message to Saddam Hussein."....

Critical to Iraqi success was finding a way to
overcome Iran's human wave attacks which
persisted throughout the war, although Teicher's
affidavit gives no indication that the United
States condoned the use of chemical weapons,
which were used against those human-wave attacks.
Nevertheless, the U.S. government certainly was
aware of how important it was to Iraq to stop
those human wave attacks. U.S. intelligence
officers never opposed such action because they
considered Iraq to be struggling for its survival
and feared that Iran would overrun the crucial
oil-producing Persian Gulf states, the Times
reported.

So, what we have here is a question of lethal sauce
for the goose and lethal sauce for the gander. It gets
even more interesting because of the players on both sides.

President Reagan authorized Rumsfeld to travel to
Baghdad as part of a trip throughout the Middle
East, the arrangements being made between the
U.S. Interests Section in Baghdad and then-Iraqi
Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Mohammed Sahhaf,
according to State Department documents obtained
by the National Security Archives under the
Freedom of Information Act. [Sahhaf is now Iraqi
Foreign Minister.]

The visit, which included meetings with Aziz and
Saddam Hussein, was laid out in cables sent by
the Interests Section and Rumsfeld himself to
George Shultz, then the secretary of state.

Rumsfeld informed the Interests Section that he
was"pleased with the positive response... to
your sounding," adding that he would"probably be
carrying a presidential message for Saddam [cq]."
Arrangements were made for a visit on the night
of Dec. 19-20, 1983....

Rumsfeld did carry a conciliatory letter from
Reagan to Saddam. The letter has not been
released, but parts of it were quoted in the
State Department cables. Saddam at one point
expressed"great pleasure" at the letter, and
Aziz quoted Reagan as saying"the Iran-Iraq war
could pose serious problems for the economic and
security interests of the U.S., its friends in
the region and in the free world."

Rumsfeld first met with Tariq Aziz, then foreign
minister on Dec. 19. Rumsfeld laid out the shared
interests of the two countries, telling Aziz:
"While there were a number of differences of view
between us, we also see a number of areas of
common interest. We both desire regional peace,
stability and correcting regional imbalance."

All of this may seem bizarre, but it isn't. It's
business as usual. When a nation adopts Britain's balance
of power strategy, as the United States has, it gets into
these bizarre situations all the time.

Rumsfeld lamented that it was unfortunate an
entire generation of Iraqis and Americans were
growing up without contact with each other and
promised the United States"would approach our
allies in terms of specific instances where they
are either directly or indirectly providing
weapons which enable Iran to continue the war,
and would try to foster strategic understanding
of the dangers of focusing on narrow, short-term
interests."....

In a talking-points memo prepared by the State
Department, Rumsfeld was asked to note that the
United States hoped for a peaceful solution to
the Iran-Iraq war, but to also deliver the
following message to Saddam:"The [United States
government] recognizes Iraq's current
disadvantage in a war of attrition since Iran has
access to the Gulf while Iraq does not would
regard any major reversal of Iraq's fortunes as
strategic defeat for the west," a clear
indication of which side the U.S. was prepared to
support.

But what about the State of Israel? Hadn't the
Israelis bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981? Why
would the US be helping Israel's enemy? Because Iraq was
not Israel's enemy in 1983.

In his affidavit, Teicher noted that Rumsfeld was
carrying a letter offering help from then-Israeli
Foreign Minister Itzhak Shamir."Israeli Foreign
Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the
United States would deliver a secret offer of
Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States
agreed. I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and
was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told
Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel's
offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept
the Israelis' letter to Hussein offering
assistance, because Aziz told us that he would be
executed on the spot by Hussein if he did so."

This is what the balance of power strategy always
produces. The strategic goal was to keep either side from
winning.

Nevertheless, Rumsfeld said the United States
opposed an Iranian victory and noted that"we
[are] improving our contingency planning with
Gulf states as to our goal of keeping the Straits
[of Hormuz] open."...

Repeatedly, Rumsfeld made clear that U.S.
interests coincided with Iraq's in the war. He
wrote in his own note to Shultz,"I said I
thought we had areas of common interest,
particularly the security and stability in the
Gulf, which had been jeopardized as a result of
the Iranian revolution. I added that the U.S.
had no interest in an Iranian victory; to the
contrary. We would not want Iran's influence
expanded at the expense of Iraq. As with all
sovereign nations, we respect Iraq's
independence, sovereignty and territorial
integrity."

That last sentence bears repeating:"As with all
sovereign nations, we respect Iraq's independence,
sovereignty and territorial integrity."

When Rumsfeld met with Saddam the following
morning, accompanied by State Department Arab
experts Robert Pelletreau and William Eagleton,
Iraqi television videotaped the opening greetings
and delivery of President Reagan's letter to the
Iraqi leader. Saddam was dressed in military
uniform, a pistol on his hip. Rumsfeld conveyed
his pleasure at being in Baghdad.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/795649.asp?cp1=1


CONCLUSION

America is in the tar baby. We will not get out
anytime soon. President Bush's speech on Wednesday evening
guaranteed that.


Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for
Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress
towards a truly democratic Palestinian state...

Without this outside support for terrorism,
Palestinians who are working for reform and long
for democracy will be in a better position to
choose new leaders. True leaders who strive for
peace; true leaders who faithfully serve the
people. A Palestinian state must be a reformed
and peaceful state that abandons forever the use
of terror.

For its part, the new government of Israel -- as
the terror threat is removed and security
improves -- will be expected to support the
creation of a viable Palestinian state --
(applause) -- and to work as quickly as possible
toward a final status agreement. As progress is
made toward peace, settlement activity in the
occupied territories must end.

The United States and other nations are working
on a road map for peace. We are setting out the
necessary conditions for progress toward the goal
of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side
by side in peace and security. It is the
commitment of our government -- and my personal
commitment -- to implement the road map and to
reach that goal. Old patterns of conflict in the
Middle East can be broken, if all concerned will
let go of bitterness, hatred, and violence, and
get on with the serious work of economic
development, and political reform, and
reconciliation. America will seize every
opportunity in pursuit of peace. And the end of
the present regime in Iraq would create such an
opportunity.

Like Don Quixote, President Bush is pursuing an
impossible dream. But, unlike Don Quixote, he doesn't have
Sancho Panza at his side to remind him about reality.
Instead, he has Donald Rumsfeld

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• RUMSFELD: SADDAM HUSSEIN'S ORIGINAL CONNECTION - CRASH_GURU, 02.03.2003, 12:38