American Gulf War Veterans Association
Joyce
Riley vonKleist, RN, BSN spokesperson
P.O.Box 85, Versailles, Missouri 65084
(573)
378-6049 voice, (573) 378-5998 fax
www.gulfwarvets.com,
gulfwar@dam.net
For Immediate Release:
September 10, 2002
Contact Person: Gary Treece
U.S. SUPPLIES, CALIBRATES AND ENDORSES
USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN IRAQ
As the Bush administration works to gain
world support to conduct a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, new disturbing
information has surfaced with regard to U.S. involvement in the development of
Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons program.
The pre-emptive strike is based upon
President Bush and Vice-President Cheney’s beliefs that there must be an
invasion of Iraq because Saddam Hussein:
1.
possesses weapons of mass destruction and the potential for nuclear
weapons,
2. used
these weapons on his own people (Kurds) and the Iranians,
3. has a
history of lying to the world.
According to information obtained by the
AGWVA, there is irrefutable evidence to show that the United States government
provided and encouraged Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. The United States
Department of Commerce and The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) provided
at least 80 shipments of biological agents that were not attenuated (or
weakened) and were capable of reproduction. These shipments included such
virulent agents as Anthrax, West Nile Virus and Clostridium botulinum
(S.R.103-900, May 25, 1994, pg. 264).
The AGWVA also found it very disturbing
to learn that on December 19, 1983, the Middle Eastern envoy who carried a
handwritten note from President Reagan to Saddam Hussein, to “resume our diplomatic relations with
Iraq” was none other than our present Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld.
According to “U.S. Diplomatic and
Commercial Relationships with Iraq”, 1980-August 2, 2000, (www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html),
Nathaniel Hurd states:
“Iraq reportedly began using chemical
weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and significantly increased CW use
in 1983… Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the
Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters. 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.”
Mark Phythian, in his book Arming
Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine”
(Northeastern University Press, 1997) stated:
“ …the Secretaries of Commerce and State
(George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC (National Security Council)
advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters, officially for
crop spraying. It is believed that US-supplied choppers were used in the 1988
chemical attack on the Kurdish village Halabja, which killed 5000
people.”
In his own book Turmoil and
Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State, George Shultz
refers to a declassified CIA report which notes Iraq’s use of mustard gas in
August 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the State Department
and/or the National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq’s use of
chemical weapons at this time. If the use of chemical weapons was known in
August of 1983, and Donald Rumsfeld went to Iraq in December of 1983, he was on
notice that this country was using and was going to continue to use weapons of
mass destruction. Why,
then, did the United States move to de-list Iraq from those considered to be
terrorist nations?
On March 23, 1984, Iran accused Iraq of
poisoning 600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas. Donald
Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad on March 24, 1984. On that same day, the UPI wire
service reported that a team of UN experts had concluded that:
“Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has
been used on Iranian soldiers. Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld held talks with
foreign minister Tariq Aziz.”
Probably the most critical piece of
information is that according to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, in a
December 15, 1986 article, the CIA began to secretly supply Iraq with
intelligence in 1984 that was used to “calibrate” mustard gas attacks on Iranian
troops.
It is public record that the U.S. not
only armed Iraq from 1983 thru August 1, 1990, but that they also provided the
money to Iraq to purchase the weapons via the Atlanta branch of the Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), George Bush, Sr., and the Export-Import Bank.
Iraq received $5 Billion dollars funneled through the Commercial Credit
Corporation ostensibly for food credits. It is also public information
that at least $2 Billion dollars from the defaulted loan was repaid by the U.S.
citizen taxpayers.
Joyce Riley, spokesperson for the
American Gulf War Veterans Association has for seven years been shining the
light of accountability on the Department of Defense for having armed our
“enemy” with weapons of mass destruction, exposing our military to these weapons
and then denying not only their culpability but the very existence of the
mystery diseases. She often quotes Senator Donald Riegle (D-MI) who stated in
Senate Report 103-900, “Our troops are not just sick, they are dying.”