A bunch of reference materials that back up some of my political assertions in the book. 

Click here for the PDF (in case you'd like to print it out) or just read on below:

The current Bush administration discusses Iraq in starkly moralistic terms to further its goal of persuading a skeptical world that a preemptive and premeditated attack on Iraq could and should be supported as a "just war." The documents included in this briefing book reflect the realpolitik that determined this country's policies during the years when Iraq was actually employing chemical weapons. Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government's repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.

Most of the information in this briefing book, in its broad outlines, has been available for years. Some of it was recorded in contemporaneous news reports; a few investigative reporters uncovered much more - especially after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A particular debt is owed to the late representative Henry Gonzales (1916-2000), Democrat of Texas, whose staff extensively investigated U.S. policy toward Iraq during the 1980s and who would not be deterred from making information available to the public [Note 2]. Almost all of the primary documents included in this briefing book were obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act and were published in 1995 [Note 3].

   http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html 

Overview

• Items sent from the U.S. during the Reagan and Bush Administrations that helped Iraq’s non-conventional weapons programs and that were shipped to known military industrial facilities include:

• Computers to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons;[59] machine tools and lasers to extend ballistic missile range;[60] graphics terminals to design and analyze rockets;[61] West Nile Fever virus, a known potential BW agent, sent by the U.S. government’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC);[62] the agents for botulism, tetnus, and anthrax.[63]

One study lists 207 firms from 21 countries that contributed to Iraq’s non-conventional weapons program during and after the Iran-Iraq war. E.g., West German (86); British (18); Austrian (17); French (16); Italian (12); Swiss (11); and American (18).[64]

Throughout the U.S. exports to Iraq, several agencies were supposed to review items relevant to national security or that could be diverted for a nuclear program. The reviewers included the SD, DOD, Energy Department, Subgroup on Nuclear Export Coordination (included representatives from Commerce Dept., Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the intelligence community, and DOD).[65] Sometimes CD did not send items to reviewers. On other occasions, reviewers objected, and CD still approved the items. Stephen Bryen, Deputy Under Secretary of DOD for Trade Security Policy during the second Reagan Administration, claimed that the DOD objected to 40% of applications that CD actually sent to DOD for review. Compare with a 5% DOD objection rate to dual-use technology applications for export to the U.S.S.R. during that same time period.[66]

  

Al shifa

 

http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sudan.html

     http://www.counterpunch.org/gorman10182003.html

That said, I find myself, for the most part, enjoying Al Franken's confrontations with the right. I keep in mind, however, Franken's description, in his book "Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot," of Bill Clinton as the greatest president of the 20th century. Franken's knee-jerk defense of Clinton is evident in the transcript of his appearance on the September 10 edition of "The Flipside" on CNN Financial News. A caller to the program challenged Franken's assertion that Bush lied to start a war, whereas Clinton lied about "small things," supposedly a reference to the Lewinsky scandal. The caller pointed out that Clinton lied about the production of chemical weapons agents at a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. The cruise-missile bombing of this factory in 1998 led to the deaths of untold thousands in that impoverished nation, as the sole source for the production of medicine was eliminated. "I think that's a little bit more serious a lie than lying about his sex life," argued the caller.

Franken responded, "OK. Well, that wasn't a lie. [Clinton] bombed a factory in Sudan. They had soil samples that had–that showed that this was a factory making a precursor to weapons of mass destruction. It was–al Qaeda was in the Sudan. This factory had been financed by al Qaeda. So you just got to get your facts straight. I mean this is–if you read 'The Age of Sacred Terror' by Daniel Benjamin and Steve Simon this is covered, chapter and verse."

Critical observers of the Clinton Administration's

    http://www.causes-of-terrorism.net/usviolence.htm  

Germany’s Ambassador to Sudan writes that “It is difficult to assess how many people in this poor African country died as a consequence of the destruction of the Al-Shifa factory, but several tens of thousands seems a reasonable guess” (Werner Daum, “Universalism and the West,” Harvard International

Review, Summer 2001).  After all, Al-Shifa “provided 50 percent of Sudan’s medicines, and its destruction has left the country with no supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria” (Patrick Wintour, Observer, December 20, 1998).  Additionally, Al-Shifa was “the only one producing TB drugs-for more than 100,000 patients, at about 1 British pound a month.  Costlier imported versions are not an option for most of them-or for their husbands, wives and children, who will have been infected since.  Al-Shifa was also the only factory making veterinary drugs in this vast, mostly pastoralist, country.  Its specialty was drugs to kill the parasites which pass from herds to herders, one of Sudan's principal causes of infant mortality” (James Astill, Guardian, October 2, 2001). The bombing of the Al-Shifa plant also resulted in the mass exodus of Sudan’s international organizations.  Human Rights Watch observed that because of the bombing, “all UN agencies based in Khartoum have evacuated their American staff, as have many other relief organizations.”  Because of this “many relief efforts have been postponed indefinitely, including a crucial one run by the U.S.- based International Rescue Committee are dying daily.” Additionally, “the UN estimates that 2.4 million people are at risk of starvation,” and the “disruption in assistance” for the “devastated population” may produce a “terrible crisis.” Therefore, it is not so surprising that Osama Bin Laden’s popularity  rose after the Al-Shifa bombing.  This horrible incident, along with U.S. policy in Iraq in the past ten years, has devastated Iraq’s civilian population while strengthening Saddam Hussein.  The U.S. egregiously supported Hussein during his gassing of the Kurds in 1988 which provided Bin Laden with a way to defend his irrational hatred of the United States.  Perhaps the only way to counter the United States’ terrorism, is with terrorism of one’s own. If the United States is to continue its war on terrorism, it should perhaps aim its war not at Osama Bin Laden or Iraq (what many predict is next on the U.S.’s list), but rather at itself.  It is only by eradicating its status as the world’s leading terrorist state, that the U.S. can eradicate terrorism. PRINTABLE  PAGE  |   BACK   |   TOP   |    NEXT   |

   

   http://www.melanie-klein-trust.org.uk/chiesa1.htm Terrorism: Psycho-political observations on shock and indifference
Dr Marco Chiesa

'Murder at a distance removes the need for elaborate defensive mechanisms'
(Chomsky, 2001)

The September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were a crime against humanity, which sent waves of shock and horror due to their scale and the means by which they were executed. The reactions to the events have been amply shown in the media, and grief and horror of unprecedented force was displayed throughout most of the world. In this contribution I would like to discuss a contrasting phenomenon, namely indifference shown by political elites, media and general population to similar tragedies that occur to our fellow human being.

During the Gulf war part of the nearly 100,000 tons of bombs that rained over Iraq (the equivalent of five Hiroshima bombs) targeted water purification plants, irrigation systems and sewage treatment plants as well as electrical and other Iraqi civilian infrastructure, which were systematically destroyed. The combined effect of war and prolonged iron fist sanctions had disastrous effects on the civilian population of that Country. The spread of typhoid and other contaminated-water-borne diseases, coupled with the denial of food aids and medicines, has led to one of the biggest death tolls of civilians in any one Country in recent history. According to the recent Unicef report (1999) 500,000 preventable under-fives deaths occurred in the period 1991-1998. Those children died of treatable diseases and malnutrition. The incidence of birth malformations and children's cancers has increased by 3 and 4 times respectively as a likely consequence of the depleted uranium used in bombs, which found its way into the food chain (Fisk, 2000). More recent figures show that 4,000 children still die every month as a consequence of the continuing effects of economic sanctions, primarily a US/UK affair. Denis Halliday, one of the three respected UN diplomats in charge of humanitarian coordination for Iraq who have resigned in protest against sanctions, has called these sanctions “genocidal”.

The reaction to these appalling crimes was (and is) very different from those witnessed after the September 11 crimes, when an almost total universal condemnation was coupled with feelings of shock and devastation. By contrast the level of shock and anxiety in the West has been very low relative to the magnitude of the human tragedy involved in Iraq. Horror, grief, anger and despair have not been universal. While most of the media treated the known humanitarian catastrophe in a low-key fashion and let it drop rather quickly, the reaction of the political elites was to minimise or deny the extent of the tragedy. The latter found its most eloquent expression in Madeleine Albright's statement on national television that “the price [of 500.000 Iraqi children's death] is worth it”. When John Pilger invited Robin Cook, the then Foreign Secretary, to participate in one of the very few programmes dedicated to the suffering of the Iraqi people, he declined on grounds that it would not be desirable to be shown alongside dying children. A ten-year catastrophe of genocidal proportion has fallen into oblivion. No three minutes silence has ever been recorded in any institutions for the children of Iraq, or indeed no psychoanalytic contribution was sought or conference organised on understanding the psychological and social roots of the human disaster brought upon the Iraqi people. Now we are faced with the horrifying prospect of a renewed full-scale war against Iraq as part of the so-called ‘war on terrorism’, which will inflict further mortal blows to the Iraqi population.

A second dramatic example of this selective indifference, and there are several to choose from, is the destruction by US bombs in August 1998 of the major pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, one of the poorest countries in the world. The Al-Shifa factory produced 50% of the affordable medicinal requirements and 90% of anti-malarial and TB drugs in the entire country, as well as most of the veterinary drugs. It is estimated that thousands of people (although the precise total toll is unknown), of which a high proportion were children, died of treatable diseases as a consequence. This crime elicited no detectable response, and it is fair to assume that it did not enter into many people’s consciousness. The total toll of preventable deaths can only be an approximate estimate (carried out by the German Embassy in Khartoum and by a non-governmental organization based in Cairo) because Washington vetoed a formal UN inquiry into the affair. This is in great contrast with the huge effort put into assessing the extent of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo after the Balkan war. Incidentally, the US has always had a cavalier attitude towards UN initiatives, the most recent of which is its lack of endorsement of the International Criminal Court. This may be understandable in the light of a previous sentence passed in June 1986 by the International Court of Justice (the World Court) that condemned the US for ‘unlawful use of force’ in the terrorist war against Nicaragua, which killed some 30,000 people and left a country in ruins, and asked the US to pay substantial damages to Managua. The US dismissed the World Court deliberation and proceeded to escalate the war by increasing military aid to the Contras terrorist forces.

I would like to offer some theoretical explanations for the possible reasons behind such contrasting personal and societal reactions to terrible criminal acts that have led to thousands of innocent victims and left behind a horrifying trail of destruction and suffering. Why such universal reactions of outrage and condemnation in one case are matched by so muted responses or outright indifference in others? Why such a discrepancy?

When indifference is the main reaction to a catastrophe occurring to people who do not share our culture and race, and who do not belong to our political sphere of influence, I suggest that the differences felt between them and us are magnified to a point where these people become so alien that they tend to disappear altogether as human entities from our consciousness. They stop existing as human beings with whom we share a great deal of common ground. As a consequence our capacity to empathise with their sufferings and take in the nature of the crimes committed against them becomes partially obliterated. We can feel the full force of the impact of the many barbarically murdered on September 11, but the 5,000 estimated civilian casualties of recent aerial bombardments in Afghanistan hardly touch us. In this country we may become preoccupied by the possibility of biological warfare, but there may be little or no concern for some who have died such as the thousands who have died of starvation in refugee camps in Pakistan or in distant villages in Afghanistan: just a mention or a statistic to sacrifice on the altar of our war aims. The splitting and other schizoid operations at work in these circumstances lead to insulation and crimes that would elicit horror if they were committed against us or people similar to us, become mere footnotes to be quickly disposed when they are perpetrated by us or by people similar to us. Segal (1997) convincingly shows that inability and unwillingness to face guilt and responsibility for crimes is a central factor that mobilises manic mechanisms, a corollary of which is the “dehumanisation of the enemy…, making the enemy either a monster or an object beneath contempt”. I suggest that obliteration of the notion and perception of people’s suffering is at the root of indifference.

Over-identification with, and idealisation of, our prevalent culture and our political elite may be another important factor in the denial and indifference to the crimes we commit. If by definition, and without need of qualification, we are the 'civilised society' engaged in a war against 'evil' and possess ‘a strong sense of right and wrong’ (a fundamentalist position), then we cannot believe that we are in fact capable of committing crimes against humanity, an exclusive prerogative of the enemy of the day.

Mainstream media undoubtedly has an important role in influencing and sustaining psychological operations. Media and political elites are well aware of the power of images. Nobody will ever forget the shocking images of the airplanes guided into the twin towers and the resulting carnage, shown repeatedly, day after day, on our screens. By contrast how many images of dying children or grieving mothers in Iraq or in Sudan have been shown in the last ten years?

In the same way high-tech killings by automated modern warfare are presented in an aseptic and sanitised fashion. Media coverage reinforces denial and insulation that allows us to black out the notion that at the end of the 'high precision, laser guided' bombing there are human being in flesh and bones.

It is of great relief that many courageous people do not fall prey to such syndrome of indifference, even when a heavy personal price is paid, like the parents of Greg Rodriguez, a young man who died in the World Trade Centre carnage. They said: "We read enough of the news to sense that our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. It is not the way to go…not in our son's name." For these bereaved parents murder at a distance does not elicit defences, but is regarded as a crime.

References

Chomsky, N. (2001). Foreword, Vietnam Inc., P. J. Griffiths. London: Phaidon Press.
Fisk, N. (2000). The hidden war. In A. Arnove (Ed.), Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War. London: Pluto Press.
Segal, H. (1997). From Hiroshima to the Gulf war and after: socio-political expressions of ambivalence. In J. Steiner (Ed.), Psychoanalysis, Literature and war (pp. 157-168). London: Routledge.
Unicef (1999). Results of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternity Mortality Surveys : Unicef.
    http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980 - 2 August 1990

Prepared by Nathaniel Hurd.
15 July 2000 (updated 12 December 2001 by Nathaniel Hurd and Glen Rangwala).

Before 1980

• Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War Iraq severed diplomatic relations with the U.S. In late 1979 the State Department (SD) put Iraq on its list of States sponsoring groups categorized by the SD as "terrorist."[1]

1980

• The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) asserted in a report that Iraq has been ‘actively acquiring’ Chemical Weapons [CW] capacities since the mid-1970s.[2]

1982

• Despite intelligence reports that Iraq still sponsored groups on the SD's terrorist list, and "apparently without consulting Congress", the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from the State terrorism sponsorship list in 1982.[3] The removal made Iraq eligible for U.S. dual-use and military technology.[4]

1983

• A SD report concluded that Iraq continued to support groups on the SD’s terrorist list.[5]
• Iraq reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and significantly increased CW use in 1983. Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, said that reports of Iraq using CWs on Iranian military personnel "drifted in" at the year’s end.[6] A declassified CIA report, probably written in late 1987, notes Iraq's use of mustard gas in August 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the SD and/or National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq's use of CW at this time.[7]
• Analysts recognized that "civilian" helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.[8] Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters.[9] Later, and despite some objections from the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters,[10] officially for crop spraying. See "1988" for note on Iraq using U.S. Helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons.
• Later in the year the Reagan Administration secretly began to allow Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer to Iraq U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons.[11] Reagan personally asked Italy’s Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq.[12]

1984

• The SD announced on 6 March that, based on "available evidence," it "concluded" that Iraq used "lethal chemical weapons" (specifically mustard gas) in fresh fighting with Iran.[13] On 20 March, U.S. intelligence officials said that they had "what they believe to be incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass-producing the lethal chemical warfare agent".[14]
• European-based doctors examined Iranian troops in March 1984 and confirmed exposure to mustard gas.[15] The UN sent expert missions to the battle region in March 1984, February/March 1986, April/May 1987, March/April 1988, July 1988 (twice), and mid-August 1988. These missions detailed and documented Iraq’s CW use.[16]
• According to the Washington Post, the CIA began in 1984 secretly to give Iraq intelligence that Iraq uses to "calibrate" its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. In August, the CIA establishes a direct Washington-Baghdad intelligence link, and for 18 months, starting in early 1985, the CIA provided Iraq with "data from sensitive U.S. satellite reconnaissance photography…to assist Iraqi bombing raids." The Post’s source said that this data was essential to Iraq’s war effort.[17]
• The United States re-established full diplomatic ties with Iraq on 26 November,[18] just over a year after Iraq’s first well-publicized CW use and only 8 months after the UN and U.S. reported that Iraq used CWs on Iranian troops.

1985

• In 1985 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to put Iraq back on the State terrorism sponsorship list.[19] After the bill’s passage, Shultz wrote to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Howard Berman, cited the U.S.’ "diplomatic dialogue on this and other sensitive issues, " claimed that "Iraq has effectively distanced itself from international terrorism," and stated that if the U.S. found that Iraq supports groups practicing terrorism "we would promptly return Iraq to the list."[20] Rep. Berman dropped the bill and explicitly cited Shultz’s assurances.[21]
• Iraq’s Saad 16 General Establishment’s director wrote a letter to the Commerce Department (CD) detailing the activities in Saad’s 70 laboratories. These activities had the trademarks of ballistic missile development.[22]

1986

• The Defense Department’s (DOD) Under Secretary for Trade Security Policy, Stephen Bryen, informed the Commerce Department’s (CD) Assistant Secretary for Trade Administration in November that intelligence linked the Saad 16 research center with ballistic missile development.[23] Between 1985 and 1990, CD approved many computer sales to Iraq that go directly to Saad 16. CD approved over $1 million worth of computer equipment for sale to Saad 16 after Commerce received the above-mentioned November letter from DOD.[24] As of 1991 Saad 16 reportedly contained up to 40% U.S.-origin equipment.[25]

1988

• The CD approved exports in January and February to Iraq’s SCUD missile program’s procurement agency. These exports allowed Iraq to extend SCUD range far enough to hit allied soldiers in Saudi Arabia and Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv and Haifa.[26]
• On 23 March, London’s Financial Times and several other news organizations reported from Halabja, located in Iraqi Kurdistan, that several days prior Iraq used CWs on Halabja’s Kurds.[27]
• In May, two months after the Halabja assault, Peter Burleigh, Assistant Secretary of State in charge of northern Gulf affairs, encouraged U.S.-Iraqi corporate cooperation at a symposium hosted by the U.S.-Iraq Business Forum. The U.S.-Iraq Business Forum had strong (albeit unofficial) ties to the Iraqi government.[28]
• The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent a team to Turkey to speak to Iraqi Kurdish refugees and assess reports that Iraq "was using chemical weapons on its Kurdish population."[29] This report reaffirmed that between 1984 and 1988 "Iraq repeatedly and effectively used poison gas on Iran," the UN missions’ findings, and the chemical attack on Halabja that left an estimated 4,000 people dead.[30]
• Following the Halabja attack and Iraq’s August CW offensive against Iraqi Kurds, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed on 8 September the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988" the day after it is introduced.[31] The act cuts off from Iraq U.S. loans, military and non-military assistance, credits, credit guarantees, items subject to export controls, and U.S. imports of Iraqi oil.[32]
• Immediately after the bill’s passage the Reagan Administration announced its opposition to the bill,[33] and SD spokesman Charles Redman called the bill "premature".[34] The Administration works with House opponents to a House companion bill, and after numerous legislation compromises and end-of-session haggling, the Senate bill died "on the last day of the legislative session".[35]
• According to a 15 September news report, Reagan Administration officials stated that the U.S. intercepted Iraqi military communications marking Iraq’s CW attacks on Kurds.[36]
• U.S. intelligence reported in 1991 that the U.S. helicopters sold to Iraq in 1983 were used in 1988 to spray Kurds with chemicals.[37]
• "Reagan administration records show that between September and December 1988, 65 licenses were granted for dual-use technology exports. This averages out as an annual rate of 260 licenses, more than double the rate for January through August 1988."[38]
• A general note about the Security Council's reaction to Iraq's CW use. Between 1984 and the implementation of the ceasefire on 20 August 1988 the UN Security Council passed six resolutions directly or indirectly related to the "situation between Iran and Iraq." In 1984, Security Council Resolution (SCR) 552 "condemns [Iran's] recent attack on commercial ship en route to and from ports of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia"[39] but it did not pass a resolution on the Iran-Iraq War generally or the UN expert mission's chemical weapons March findings specifically. During all of 1985 the Security Council did not pass a resolution on the "situation between Iran and Iraq" or Iraq's chemical weapons use therein. Although the UN's expert mission concluded in March 1986 that Iraq used chemical weapons on Iranian troops,[40] SCR 582 (1986) symmetrically noted "that both the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq are parties to the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous and Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare signed at Geneva on 7 June 1925"[41] and "deplores…in particular the use of chemical weapons contrary to obligations under the 1925 Protocol".[42] Resolution 588 (1986) did not mention chemical weapons.[43] In 20 July 1987, SCR 598 again deplored "in particular the use chemical weapons contrary to obligations of the 1925 Protocol",[44] but does not elaborate. After considering the expert mission's 25 April 1988 report, the Security Council in Resolution 612 is "dismayed" by chemical weapons' continued use and "more intensive scale".[45] Furthermore, the Council "affirms the necessity that" both parties observe the 1925 Geneva Protocol, "condemns vigorously the continued use of chemical weapons" and "expects both sides to refrain from the future use of chemical weapons".[46] SCR 619 (1988) focused on implementing the United Nations Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group and did not mention chemical weapons.[47] After the ceasefire, the Security Council considered the reports of the expert missions from 20-25 July and 2-19 August 1988 and stated in SCR 620 that it is "deeply dismayed" by the "continued use of chemical weapons" and that "such use against Iranians has become more intense and frequent".[48] Despite identifying Iranians as more frequent chemical weapons targets, the Security Council did not condemn Iraq. Rather, the Security Council "condemns resolutely the use of chemical weapons in the conflict between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq"[49]. All of the subsequent four resolutions, passed between 1989-1990 and relevant to "the situation between Iran and Iraq," pertained to the United Nations Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group and as such omitted any reference to chemical weapons use.[50]

  The Security Council could only condemn Iraq by name for using chemical weapons through non-binding Presidential statements, over which permanent members of the Security Council do not have an individual veto. On 21 March 1986, the Security Council President, making a "declaration" and "speaking on behalf of the Security Council," stated that the Council members are "profoundly concerned by the unanimous conclusion of the specialists that chemical weapons on many occasions have been used by Iraqi forces against Iranian troops…[and] the members of the Council strongly condemn this continued use of chemical weapons in clear violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 which prohibits the use in war of chemical weapons".[51] The US voted against the issuance of this statement, and the UK, Australia, France and Denmark abstained. However, the concurring votes of the other ten members of the Security Council ensured that this statement constituted the first criticism of Iraq by the Security Council. A similar Presidential statement was made on 14 May 1987, which noted that the Council was "deeply dismayed" about the CW use against Iranian forces and civilians.

1989

• In March, CIA director William Webster testified before Congress that Iraq was the largest CW producer in the world.[52]
• James Baker received an SD memo stating that Iraq was diligently developing chemical, biological, and new missiles, and that Baker was to "express our interest in broadening U.S.-Iraqi ties" to Iraqi Under-Secretary Hamdoon.[53]
• Although the CIA and the Bush Administration knew that Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI) "controlled entities were involved in Iraq's clandestine nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs and missile programs … the Bush administration [approved] dozens of export licenses that [allowed] United States and foreign firms to ship sophisticated U.S. dual-use equipment to MIMI-controlled weapons factories".[54]
• By October 1989, when all international banks had cut off loans to Iraq, President Bush signed National Security Directive (NSD) 26 mandating closer links with Iraq and $1 billion in agricultural loan guarantees. These guarantees freed for Iraq hard cash to continue to buy and develop WMDs, and are suspended only on 2 August 1990, the same day that Iraq invaded Kuwait. Richard Haass, then a National Security Council official, and Robert Kimmitt, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, also told the Commerce Department (CD) not to single Iraq out for dual-use technology restrictions.[55]
• When one American firm twice contacted the CD with concerns that their product could be used for nuclear weapons (NW) and ballistic missiles, the CD simply requested Iraqi written guarantees about civilian use, said that a license and review was unnecessary, and convinced the company that shipment was acceptable.[56]

1990

• From July 18 to 1 August (Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August) the Bush Administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology product sales to Iraq. End-buyers included MIMI and Saad 16. Mimi was identified in 1988 as a facility for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. In 1989 Saad was linked to CW and NW development.[57]
• The Bush Administration approved $695,000 worth of advanced data transmission devices the day before Iraq invades Kuwait.[58]

Overview

• Items sent from the U.S. during the Reagan and Bush Administrations that helped Iraq’s non-conventional weapons programs and that were shipped to known military industrial facilities include:

• Computers to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons;[59] machine tools and lasers to extend ballistic missile range;[60] graphics terminals to design and analyze rockets;[61] West Nile Fever virus, a known potential BW agent, sent by the U.S. government’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC);[62] the agents for botulism, tetnus, and anthrax.[63]

One study lists 207 firms from 21 countries that contributed to Iraq’s non-conventional weapons program during and after the Iran-Iraq war. E.g., West German (86); British (18); Austrian (17); French (16); Italian (12); Swiss (11); and American (18).[64]

Throughout the U.S. exports to Iraq, several agencies were supposed to review items relevant to national security or that could be diverted for a nuclear program. The reviewers included the SD, DOD, Energy Department, Subgroup on Nuclear Export Coordination (included representatives from Commerce Dept., Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), the intelligence community, and DOD).[65] Sometimes CD did not send items to reviewers. On other occasions, reviewers objected, and CD still approved the items. Stephen Bryen, Deputy Under Secretary of DOD for Trade Security Policy during the second Reagan Administration, claimed that the DOD objected to 40% of applications that CD actually sent to DOD for review. Compare with a 5% DOD objection rate to dual-use technology applications for export to the U.S.S.R. during that same time period.[66]

Footnotes

[1] Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine, (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997), p. 11.
[2] Phythian, pp. 73-74. Phythian cites Financial Times, 23 February 1983.
[3] Milt Freudenheim, Barbara Slavin and William C. Rhoden, "The World in Summary; Readjustments In the Mideast", New York Times, 28 February 1982.
[4] Phythian, p. 34.
[5] Bruce W. Jentleson, With Friends Like These: Reagan, Bush, and Saddam, 1982-1990, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), p. 52.
[6] Leonard A. Cole, The Eleventh Plague: The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare, (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1997), p. 87. Shultz's comment is from George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993), p. 238, quoted in Jentleson, p. 48.
[7] "CW Use in Iran-Iraq War", declassified on 2 July 1996 and placed on the website of the Federation of American Scientists.
[8] Phythian, pp. 37-38.
[9] Phythian, p. 37.
[10] Phythian, p. 38. Phythian cites former NSC official Howard Teicher and Radley Gayle, Twin Pillars to Desert Storm: America's Flawed Vision in the Middle East from Nixon to Bush, (New York: William Morrow, 1993), p. 275.
[11]Phythian, p. 35. Phythian cites Murray Waas and Craig Unger, "In the Loop: Bush's Secret Mission," New Yorker, p. 70.
[12] Phythian, p. 36. Phythian cites Alan Friedman, Spider's Web: Bush, Saddam, Thatcher and the Decade of Deceit, (London: Faber, 1993), pp. 81-84.
[13] Cole, p. 243, n36. See Bernard Gwertzman, "U.S. Says Iraqis Used Poison Gas Against Iranians in Latest Battles," New York Times, (March 6, 1984) for State Department quote.
[14] Cole, p. 243, n36. See Seymour M. Hersh, "U.S. Aides Say Iraqis Made Use of a Nerve Gas," New York Times (March 30, 1984). Quotation marks are for Hersh's words.
[15] Jentleson, p. 76.
[16] Jentleson, p. 76.
[17] Bob Woodward, "CIA Aiding Iraq in Gulf War; Target Data From U.S. Satellites Supplied for Nearly 2 Years," Washington Post, 15 December 1986.
[18] Bernard Gwertzman, "U.S. Restores Full Ties With Iraq But Cites Neutrality in Gulf War," New York Times, 27 November 1984.
[19] Jentleson, p. 54.
[20] Jentleson, p. 54. Jentleson quotes from Letter from Secretary of State George Shultz to Congressman Howard L. Berman, 20 June 1985.
[21] Jentleson, p. 54.
[22] Prepared statement of Gary Milhollin, director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, before the Subcommittee on Technology and National Security of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, 23 April 1991. Cited in Committee on Government Operations, House, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System," 2 July 1991, para.11.
[23] Committee on Government Operations, House, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System," 2 July 1991, para.10.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid, para.9.
[26] Prepared statement of Gary Milhollin, director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, before the Subcommittee on Technology and National Security of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, 23 April 1991. Cited in Committee on Government Operations, House, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System," 2 July 1991, para. 25.
[27] Andrew Gowers and Richard Johns, "Iraq Uses Chemical Bombs on Its Own Citizens, " The Financial Times, 23 March 1988.
[28] Jentleson, p. 84-85.
[29] Peter W. Galbraith and Christopher van Hollen, Jr., staff report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Chemical Weapons Use in Kurdistan: Iraq's Final Offensive, October 1988, p. v.
[30] Galbraith and van Hollen, p. 30.
[31] Jentleson, p. 78.
[32] U.S. Senate, "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988," 100th Congress, 2nd session, 8 September 1988.
[33] Jentleson, p. 78.
[34] Robert Pear, "U.S. Says It Monitored Iraqi Messages on Gas," New York Times, 15 September 1988.
[35] Jentleson, p. 78.
[36] Robert Pear, "U.S. Says It Monitored Iraqi Messages on Gas," New York Times, 15 September 1988.
[37] Henry Weinstein and William C. Rempel, "Big Help from U.S.; Technology was Sold with Approval — and Encouragement — from the Commerce Department but Often over Defense Officials' Objections," The Los Angeles Times, 13 February 1991.
[38] Jentleson, p. 88. Jentleson cites U.S. Department of Commerce, "Approved Licenses to Iraq, 1985-1990".
[39] S/Res/552, 1 June 1984, paragraph 4.
[40] Nick Ludington, "U.N. Says Iraq Used Poison Gas in War Against Iran," The Associated Press, 14 March 1986.
[41] S/Res/582, 24 February 1986, preamble.
[42] S/Res/552, 24 February 1986, para. 2.
[43] S/Res/588, 8 October 1986
[44] S/Res/598, 20 July 1987, preamble
[45] S/Res/612, 9 May 1988, preamble
[46] S/Res/612, 9 May 1988, para. 1-3
[47] S/Res/619, 9 August 1988
[48] S/Res/620, 26 August 1988, preamble
[49] S/Res/620, 26 August 1988, para. 1
[50] S/Res/631, 8 February 1989; S/Res/242, 29 September 1989; S/Res/251, 29 March 1990; S/Res/671, 27 September 1990; and S/Res/676, 28 November 1990
[51] S/17911 and Add. 1, 21 March 1986. Note that this is a "decision" and not a resolution.
[52] Jentleson, p. 106. Jentleson cites U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, "Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat: The Urgent Need for Remedies," Hearings, 101st Congress, 1st Session, 1 March 1989, pp. 27-45.
[53] Jentleson, p. 107. Jentleson cites and quotes State Department memorandum, "Meeting with Iraqi Under Secretary Hamdoon," 24 March 1989.
[54] Statement by Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-Tex), "Details on Iraq's Procurement Network," 102nd Congress, 2nd session, 10 August 1992.
[55] Douglas Frantz and Murray Waas, "Bush Secret Effort Helped Iraq Build It's War Machine," Los Angeles Times, 23 February 1992.
[56] Jentleson, p. 110.
[57] Committee on Government Operations, House, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System" .
[58] Stuart Auerbach, "$1.5 Billion in U.S. Sales to Iraq", Washington Post, 11 March 1991.
[59] Sub-committee on Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs of the House Committee on Government Operations, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System," 2 July 1991.
[60] Committee on Government Operations, House, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System", 2 July 1991, section "National Security vs. Export Promotion: Sales to Iraq," para. 16.
[61] Auerbach, "$1.5 Billion in U.S. Sales to Iraq".
[62] Committee on Government Operations, House, "Strengthening the Export Licensing System".
[63] Cole, p. 85. Cole cites U.S. Senate, a report by chairman Donald W. Riegle, Jr., and ranking member Alfonse M. D'Amato of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and Their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War, May 25, 1994, pp. 39-41.
[64] Cole, p. 82. Cole cites Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Poison Gas Connection, (Los Angeles: Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1990) p. 46.
[65] Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq, (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1991), pp. 202 and 410 n5.
[66] Jentleson, p. 62, Jentleson cites U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, "Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL)," Hearing, 102nd Congress, 1st Session, 9

  

U.S. knew re chemical weapons:

 

http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960702/72566_01.htm

     

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/made-in-the-usa-part-iii-us-government-agency-listings/2892/

 Made in the USA, Part III: US Government Agency Listings

By Jim Crogan

Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 12:00 am

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (Atlanta, Georgia) 1984 to 1993 — The CDC shipped a number of "viruses, retroviruses, bacteria and fungi" to Iraq from "October 1, 1984 thru October 13, 1993," stated then-CDC director David Satcher in a 1995 letter to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. According to Satcher, CDC’s shipments to Iraq continued two years after the first Gulf War. However, he included no information regarding the post–Gulf War I shipments. The pre-war shipments included: 1985 — Three shipments of West Nile virus, two shipments of dengue-fever virus, one shipment of Yersinia pestis (non-virulent plague bacteria), one shipment of Bhania virus, one shipment of Hazara virus, one shipment of Kemerovo virus, one shipment of Langat virus, one shipment of Sandfly Fever/Naples virus, one shipment of Sandfly Fever/Sicilian virus, one shipment of Sindbis virus, one shipment of Tahyna virus, one shipment of Thogoto virus, five plague-infected mouse-tissue smears and a variety of antigens and antibodies.1985 — Three yeast cultures of candida1985 — Eight vials of antigens (substances that stimulate the production of antibodies) as well as antibodies for ricketts and typhus 1986 — Two vials of non-infectious botulinum toxoid1988 — A variety of teaching supplies and CDC procedures manuals1989 — A variety of enterococcus bacteria and one shipment of streptococcus bacteria (return to agency index)CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (Langley, Virginia)1982 — President Ronald Reagan signed a National Security Council directive ordering the agency to provide Iraq with intelligence-information advice and hardware. The order was enthusiastically carried out by then-CIA Director William Casey (see Bechtel), who supported the sale of cluster bombs to Iraq. CIA also assisted in the sale of non-U.S. weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. 1984 — Agency secretly provided Iraq with instructions on how to calibrate its mustard-gas attacks on Iranian troops.1986 — Agency authorized secret study documenting Iraqi use of chemical weapons. 1988 — CIA Director William Webster acknowledged to Congress that Iraq was the largest producer of chemical weapons in the worl.(return to agency index)DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE(Washington, D.C.)1983 to 1990 — Extended billions of dollars worth of loan guarantees to Iraq through the Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corporation. Iraq used some of these funds to buy material, equipment and technology for its chemical-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. After Iraq defaulted on some its loan obligations, the federal government agreed, in 1995, to pay $400 million to BNL (an Italian bank) to settle claims. Iraq is liable for reimbursing the U.S. treasury, but repayment is considered unlikely.1992 — An Agriculture Department employee shredded documents describing department’s role in obtaining $5.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans to Iraq through BNL, an Italian bank. The shredding was witnessed by a Justice Department paralegal. (return to agency index)DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE (Washington, D.C.)1985 to 1990 — Approved $1.5 billion worth of export licenses for shipments of goods with both military and civilian applications to Iraq. According to an Inspector General’s report, Commerce officials later tampered with export records to disguise shipments of equipment and technology used by the Iraqi military. Five records alterations pertained to the proposed shipment of more than $1 billion in trucks originally described as "designed for military use." 1988 — Department approved shipments of equipment to upgrade Iraq’s Scud-missile program.1992 — Commerce Department inspector general admitted to Congress that department officials altered 66 export licenses for Iraq. (return to agency index)DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (Arlington, Virginia)1982 — President Ronald Reagan ordered department to provide Iraq with intelligence information, advice and hardware. 1983 — Private citizen Donald Rumsfeld (currently the secretary of defense) was dispatched to Iraq as the personal envoy of President Reagan. Met with Saddam Hussein and pledged support for regime. Rumsfeld’s trip occurred as U.S. was receiving reports of chemical-weapons use by Iraq. Rumsfeld also carried with him a secret offer of help to Iraq from then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir. During both the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration (prior to the invasion of Kuwait), the department supported export licenses transferring weapons technology and weapons materials to Iraq.(return to agency index)DEPARTMENT OF STATE (Washington, D.C.)1982 — Department removed Iraq from list of countries sponsoring terrorism.1983 — Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz (See Bechtel) successfully lobbied Commerce Department to approve sale of helicopters to Iraq. State Department begins receiving reports of chemical-weapons use by Iraqi military. 1984 — Schultz persuaded Representative Howard Berman (D–Los Angeles) to drop his bill returning Iraq to list of countries sponsoring terrorism. 1984 — Diplomatic relations reestablished with Iraq.1986 — Reagan sent secret message to Saddam Hussein, advising him to step up his air war on Iran. Message delivered to Hussein through Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by Vice President George Bush.1988 — At the U.N., Schultz downplayed Iraq’s use of chemical weapons on Kurds. 1989 — Department supplied visas for three Iraqi nuclear scientists to attend an international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon. This conference discussed nuclear-weapons technology and flyer-plate technology used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves. 1989 — Secretary of State James Baker received memo informing him that Iraq was aggressively developing chemical-, biological- and new missile-weapons programs.1990 — Bush administration approved $4.8 million in sales of advanced technology to Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. MIMI was responsible for Iraq’s nuclear-, missile and chemical-weapons program. (return to agency index)NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL (Washington, D.C.)1983 to 1989 — During this period, the NSC, usually with the State Department, successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to approve sales to Iraq of military-related items and items with dual military and civilian use, such as heavy trucks, to Iraq. 1983 — Successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to approve the sale of 10 "civilian" Bell helicopters to Iraq in 1983. The helicopters were eventually modified and used in 1988 to spray poison gas on Iranians and possibly the Kurds. 1989 — President George Bush signed NSC Directive 26, which established closer ties to Baghdad and provided $1 billion in agricultural loans. (return to agency index)U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS LABORATORIES:LAWRENCE LIVERMORE (University of California, Livermore, California) LOS ALAMOS (University of California, Los Alamos, California)SANDIA (Sandia National Laboratories are government-owned but operated under contract by Lockheed Martin, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (Washington, D.C.)U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (Washington, D.C.)1989, California — These three labs in conjunction with the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense organized a quadrennial international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon. There, representatives from these nuclear labs presented information on nuclear-weapons-detonation technology and flyer-plate technology used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves. Three Iraqi nuclear scientists attended this conference from the Al Qaqaa State Establishment. Al Qaqaa supplied bomb parts for Iraq’s nuclear-weapons testing. (return to agency index) ·Malasian ·Malaysian ·Mexican ·Middle Eastern ·Open Late ·Peruvian ·Pizzeria ·Recommended ·South American ·Southeast Asian ·Southern ·Spanish ·Steakhouse ·Sushi ·Thai ·Vegetarian Friendly ·Vietnamese ·Western Europe  http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#2

Reagan administration officials interceded on behalf of José Bueso Rosa, a Honduran general who was heavily involved with the CIA's contra operations and faced trial for his role in a massive drug shipment to the United States. In 1984 Bueso and co-conspirators hatched a plan to assassinate Honduran President Roberto Suazo Córdoba; the plot was to be financed with a $40 million cocaine shipment to the United States, which the FBI intercepted in Florida.

Document 13
Declassified e-mail messages indicate that Oliver North led the behind-the-scenes effort to seek leniency for Bueso . The messages record the efforts of U.S. officials to "cabal quietly" to get Bueso off the hook, be it by "pardon, clemency, deportation, [or] reduced sentence." Eventually they succeeded in getting Bueso a short sentence in "Club Fed," a white collar prison in Florida.

Document 14 (See page 76 of Document 6, the Kerry Report)
The Kerry Committee report reviewed the case, and noted that the man Reagan officials aided was involved in a conspiracy that the Justice Department deemed the "most significant case of narco-terrorism yet discovered."

 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/index.htm#2

(north and drug running and Noriega

 

panama canal treaty

Article VPrinciple of Non-InterventionEmployees of the Panama Canal Commission, their dependents and designated contractors of the Panama Canal Commission, who are nationals of the United States of America, shall respect the laws of the Republic of Panama and shall abstain from any activity incompatible with the spirit of this Treaty. Accordingly, they shall abstain from any political activity in the Republic of Panama as well as from any intervention in the internal affairs of the Republic of Panama. The United States of America shall take all measures within its authority to ensure that the provisions of this Article are fulfilled.

JANUARY 1988

Deciding that he has outlived his usefulness to the Contra cause, the Reagan Administration approves an indictment of Noriega on drug charges. By this time, U.S. Senate investigators had found that `the United States had received substantial information about criminal involvement of top Panamanian officials for nearly twenty years and done little to respond.'

APRIL 1989

The Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Communications, headed by Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, issues its 1,166-page report on drug corruption in Central America and the Caribbean. The subcommittee found that `there was substantial evidence of drug smuggling through the war zone on the part of individuals Contras, Contra suppliers, Contra pilots, mercenaries who worked with the Contras supporters throughout the region.' U.S. officials, the subcommittee said, `failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war efforts against Nicaragua.' The investigation also reveals that some `senior policy makers' believed that the use of drug money was `a perfect solution to the Contras' funding problems.'

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm

the above sums up U.S. involvement in drug trafficking by congress

 

L.A. Times

A review of thousands of declassified government documents and interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.” “Leaked Report Says German and US Firms Supplied Arms to Saddam: Baghdad's uncensored report to UN names Western companies alleged to have developed its weapons of mass destruction.”  Tony Paterson, The Independent (UK).  Wednesday, 18 December, 2002Archived at: http://www.shalomctr.org/node/100http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html 

excerpt:

 Analysts recognized that "civilian" helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.[8] Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters.[9] Later, and despite some objections from the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters,[10] officially for crop spraying. See "1988" for note on Iraq using U.S. Helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons. SUHARTO, EAST TIMOR, AND THE US: Indonesia’s tight relationship under Suharto with successive US presidents is fairly well known and needs little elaboration.  From the brutal Indonesian civil war of the mid 1960’s, through the repression of independence movements in Aceh and Western New Guinea (annexed by Suharto in 1969 under murky circumstances) , the invasion of East Timor and right up to the Clinton era, Suharto sought and used his status as a loyal US ally and anti-communist to bolster and arm his regime. However, what might be more disputed is US complicity in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975.  For the undeniable smoking gun, see the George Washington University’s National Security Archive: (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/), in particular  East Timor Revisited: FORD, KISSINGER AND THE INDONESIAN INVASION, 1975-76, Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975; New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto.  National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 62   http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62 An excerpt:  The New Evidence The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of the territory that ended only after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.  President Bill Clinton cut off military aid to Indonesia in September 1999—reversing a longstanding policy of military cooperation—but questions persist about U.S. responsibility for the 1975 invasion; in particular, the degree to which Washington actually condoned or supported the bloody military offensive.  Most recently, journalist Christopher Hitchens raised questions about the role of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in giving a green light to the invasion that has left perhaps 200,000 dead in the years since.  Two newly declassified documents from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, released to the National Security Archive, shed light on the Ford administration’s relationship with President Suharto of Indonesia during 1975. Of special importance is the record of Ford’s and Kissinger’s meeting with Suharto in early December 1975.  The document shows that Suharto began the invasion knowing that he had the full approval of the White House.  Both of these documents had been released in heavily excised form some years ago, but with Suharto now out of power, and following the collapse of Indonesian control over East Timor, the situation has changed enough that both documents have been released in their entirety. Other documents found among State Department records at the National Archives elucidate the inner workings of U.S. policy toward the Indonesian crisis during 1975 and 1976.  Besides confirming that Henry Kissinger and top advisers expected an eventual Indonesian takeover of East Timor, archival material shows that the Secretary of State fully understood that the invasion of East Timor involved the "illegal" use of U.S.-supplied military equipment because it was not used in self-defense as required by law.The discussion here continues in this vein and culminates in links to Memorandum of Conversation between Presidents Ford and Suharto, 5 July 1975, 12:40 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc1.pdf The Secretary's 8:00 a.m. Staff Meeting, Tuesday, August 12, 1975, Secret [excerpt], with cover memorandum on highlights of meeting attachedhttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc2.pdf President Carter’s authorization of arms sales to Indonesia: Summary at  http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Nevins_Carter.htm excerpt:Carter lauded and supported the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran until the bitter end, for example. In Nicaragua, his administration provided significant support to the hated Somoza dictatorship. And in El Salvador, he extended large amounts of military and economic aid to a country whose army was engaging in widespread massacres, even after the slaying of its Catholic archbishop, and four Americans–three Maryknoll nuns and one lay churchworker. In the case of Indonesia's illegal invasion and occupation of East Timor, Carter followed a similar path. In late 1977, when Indonesia was actually running out of military equipment, his administration authorized a dramatic increase in arms sales to Jakarta. And over the next several months, the Carter White House approved sales of fighter jets and ground-attack bombers to Indonesia's Suharto regime, whose military employed them in East Timor to bomb and napalm the population into submission.  SUHARTO, EAST TIMOR, AND THE US: Indonesia’s tight relationship under Suharto with successive US presidents is fairly well known and needs little elaboration.  From the brutal Indonesian civil war of the mid 1960’s, through the repression of independence movements in Aceh and Western New Guinea (annexed by Suharto in 1969 under murky circumstances) , the invasion of East Timor and right up to the Clinton era, Suharto sought and used his status as a loyal US ally and anti-communist to bolster and arm his regime. However, what might be more disputed is US complicity in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975.  For the undeniable smoking gun, see the George Washington University’s National Security Archive: (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/), in particular  East Timor Revisited: FORD, KISSINGER AND THE INDONESIAN INVASION, 1975-76, Ford and Kissinger Gave Green Light to Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor, 1975; New Documents Detail Conversations with Suharto.  National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 62   http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62 An excerpt:  The New Evidence The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of the territory that ended only after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.  President Bill Clinton cut off military aid to Indonesia in September 1999—reversing a longstanding policy of military cooperation—but questions persist about U.S. responsibility for the 1975 invasion; in particular, the degree to which Washington actually condoned or supported the bloody military offensive.  Most recently, journalist Christopher Hitchens raised questions about the role of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in giving a green light to the invasion that has left perhaps 200,000 dead in the years since.  Two newly declassified documents from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, released to the National Security Archive, shed light on the Ford administration’s relationship with President Suharto of Indonesia during 1975. Of special importance is the record of Ford’s and Kissinger’s meeting with Suharto in early December 1975.  The document shows that Suharto began the invasion knowing that he had the full approval of the White House.  Both of these documents had been released in heavily excised form some years ago, but with Suharto now out of power, and following the collapse of Indonesian control over East Timor, the situation has changed enough that both documents have been released in their entirety. Other documents found among State Department records at the National Archives elucidate the inner workings of U.S. policy toward the Indonesian crisis during 1975 and 1976.  Besides confirming that Henry Kissinger and top advisers expected an eventual Indonesian takeover of East Timor, archival material shows that the Secretary of State fully understood that the invasion of East Timor involved the "illegal" use of U.S.-supplied military equipment because it was not used in self-defense as required by law.The discussion here continues in this vein and culminates in links to Memorandum of Conversation between Presidents Ford and Suharto, 5 July 1975, 12:40 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc1.pdf The Secretary's 8:00 a.m. Staff Meeting, Tuesday, August 12, 1975, Secret [excerpt], with cover memorandum on highlights of meeting attachedhttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/doc2.pdf President Carter’s authorization of arms sales to Indonesia: Summary at  http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Nevins_Carter.htm excerpt:Carter lauded and supported the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran until the bitter end, for example. In Nicaragua, his administration provided significant support to the hated Somoza dictatorship. And in El Salvador, he extended large amounts of military and economic aid to a country whose army was engaging in widespread massacres, even after the slaying of its Catholic archbishop, and four Americans–three Maryknoll nuns and one lay churchworker. In the case of Indonesia's illegal invasion and occupation of East Timor, Carter followed a similar path. In late 1977, when Indonesia was actually running out of military equipment, his administration authorized a dramatic increase in arms sales to Jakarta. And over the next several months, the Carter White House approved sales of fighter jets and ground-attack bombers to Indonesia's Suharto regime, whose military employed them in East Timor to bomb and napalm the population into submission.  Other items of interest:Winter 1996 profile of Suharto in the Yale International Forum:http://www.yale.edu/iforum/Winter1996/Suharto_Win96.htm Arms Sales to Indonesia, 1975-1995: http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/indoarms.html An Article at the World Policy Center’s Arms Trade Resource Center notes the uninterrupted flow of US arms to Indonesia since the East Timor invasion, and Clinton’s willingness ( in March 1997) to continue the policy. Again, a long and detailed discussion for those interested. The article also contains a table detailing the 1.1 billion in arms sales to Indonesia over the period 1975-1995, with strong peaks in 1978 (Carter), 1986 (Reagan), and figures in the tens of millions every year from 1989-1995 (Bush I and Clinton).   Suharto in 1997: “A credit to Indonesia” – Paul Wolfowitz http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0102wolfowitz_body.html PDF attached, also at http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0102wolfowitz.pdf Interesting piece from Foreign Policy in Focus, Feb 2001 discussing the continued US silence on East Timor as “Classic Bipartisan foreign policy”:

It mentions, among many other things, Paul Wolfowitz’s speaking to Congress in 1997: If that sounds like hyperbole, consider Wolfowitz’s recent public comments on Indonesia. As late as May 1997, he was telling Congress that “any balanced judgment of the situation in Indonesia today, including the very important and sensitive issue of human rights, needs to take account of the significant progress that Indonesia has already made and needs to acknowledge that much of this progress has to be credited to the strong and remarkable leadership of President Suharto.” See also Tom Shorrock’s piece at http://www.firstofthemonth.org/9_11/9_11_shorrock_asian.html That disclosure reveals much about Holbrooke, Wolfowitz and US policy in Asia. East Timor is a classic example of the bipartisan nature of US foreign policy during the Cold War - and the secrecy surrounding US military support for authoritarian leaders like president Suharto, who ruled Indonesia from the US-backed coup in 1965 until his downfall in 1998. There is an unbroken link from the Ford-Kissinger years, when the US backed Suharto's invasion of the former Portuguese territory, through the Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton eras, when US policy focused on supporting Suharto's military and burnishing his image to the world. During the Reagan years, there was no greater champion of Suharto than Wolfowitz, whose career is a textbook example of Cold War politics that focused for nearly 50 years on the care and feeding of dictators like Suharto, Chun Doo-hwan in South Korea, and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. While there were differences in nuance between Democratic and Republican presidents, these policies remained remarkably consistent from administration to administration. Where Wolfowitz and the Reagan Republicans departed from the Democrats was in their public stance toward these unsavory figures.  Suharto and Clinton In May 1993, Clinton placed Indonesia on a Human Rights Watch List for its actiopns in East Timor, (among other places, noted at http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/suharto.html and http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/WR94/Asia-06.htm) but this didn’t stop Suharto being warmly received in Washington in October 1995.  The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) has copies of 1995 letters to Clinton by several prominent legislators protesting Suhato’s 1995 visit to the White house as well as an NY Times piece on the visit archived at:  http://www.etan.org/legislation/archive/95oct.htm Be aware, for what it’s worth, that it was not Clinton himself who called Suharto “Our Kind of Guy” but instead the ever-popular “Senior Administration official”.  This quote has also been attributed to Reagan.  Speaking of Reagan:Allegations of financial ties between the Clinton and Suharto regimes are well known, and L.J. Davis raised them in a 1997 article for Mother Jones Magazine: http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/1997/01/davis.htmlSuharto and Reagan Ronald Reagan’s posthumous profile at Allexperts.com has been scrubbed of previous references to Reagan’s relationship with Suharto, and notes in passing “that Reagan-era papers which might provide further details [of the Iran-Contra affair] were originally scheduled to be released starting in 2001, but President George W. Bush enacted a rule change to allow many of these to be withheld indefinitely”. Of course, the cached version is still available, at  http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:MbTUinhUZeAJ:experts.about.com/e/r/ro/Ronald_Reagan.htm+reagan+suharto+friend&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=10 or better yet, http://tinyurl.com/gt3n4 it quotes East Timorese Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jose Ramos-Horta:

"Reagan, like Carter, ignored the rights of black South Africans who languished under a system of institutionalized terrorism and racism; the widespread and systematic use of torture in Chile and Guatemala. They not only ignored, but actively supported the mass murder of Timorese women, men, and children, orchestrated by their friend and ally, General Suharto of Indonesia. Under Carter, there were crocodile tears for the oppressed; under Reagan, there hasn't even been pretence of concern for those in Timor, Chile, Paraguay, South Africa." (Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor, 87)

Reagan responsible for massacres: Timor rights groups

 A news item reported after Reagan’s death. Sydney Morning Herald, June 6, 2004 - 5:43PMhttp://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/06/1086460167973.html It’s a longish piece, but the key quote is, “Despite pleas from human rights groups, Reagan - who visited Indonesia at the height of the bloodshed in 1986 - refused to ban the use of US-supplied arms in East Timor.” A largely similar article appeared on aljazeera.net, and can be found at http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1869.cfm