The bad guys we once thought good

[Ins0mniac]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/12/26/1072308674898.html

The bad guys we once thought good

December 27, 2003

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A few pertinent remarks on our friends in low places who have their friends in high places. By Scott Burchill.


Central Intelligence Agency, Langley Virginia
Office of Villains
Department of Wayward Clients and Unsavoury Friends
Status Report: December 2003
To: George J. Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence


Below is the updated report you asked us to prepare with comments, in light of Saddam's apprehension. With the exception of Warren Anderson, we have omitted US nationals (e.g. Kissinger) from the list.

Deceased

Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Nicolae Ceausescu (Romania), Mobutu Sese Seko (Congo/Zaire), Pol Pot (Cambodia), Heydar Aliyev (Azerbaijan)

Comment: Good friends before most became liabilities. Marcos - greatly admired by Paul Wolfowitz - died soon after we got him to Hawaii, while Ceausescu passed on more suddenly than we expected after many years of loyal service. Pol Pot hung on far too long but had the decency to keep out of sight until the end. Aliyev was much appreciated for bringing dynastic succession and a pro-Western oil policy to Central Asia.


In custody on trial or awaiting trial

Manuel Noriega (Panama), Slobodan Milosevic (fmr Yugoslavia - The Hague), Saddam Hussein (Iraq)

Comment: We managed to gloss over the revelation that Noriega was on the CIA payroll under GWB's father before jailing him. Hopefully we can do the same to Saddam, though US and UK support for his WMD programs during the 1980s and 1990s could prove very embarrassing in court. Ditto for Chirac and the Russians. Big mistake taking him alive. Footage of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam in 1983 and not mentioning WMD looks bad, though networks can be trusted to show restraint despite the approaching 20th anniversary (esp Fox).

Faking illness to avoid trial

Augusto Pinochet (Chile), Soeharto (Indonesia)

Comment: Pinochet is senile and, thanks to the Brits, at little further legal risk. Soeharto has the worst human rights record of all and would be easy to nab from Jakarta, though opposition from admirers like Wolfowitz and friends in Canberra should be expected. Too much detail about our support for his 1965 massacres has already leaked out. Has enough knowledge and residual military support to buy immunity and a quiet suburban death on his own terms.

On the run

Osama bin Laden (Saudi Arabia)

Comment: Still unclear how much money and arms we actually gave him to fight the Sovs in Afghanistan. Now protected by Islamists in the Pakistan military and assorted Taliban. Will be difficult to apprehend without losing Musharraf in the process. Priority here is control of the Islamic bomb.

Free

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvallier (Haiti - in France), Jean-Bedel Bokassa (Central African Republic), Hector Gramajo (fmr defence minister, Guatemala - in Guatemala)

Comment: Hopefully forgotten (we are trying).

New Friends (undemocratic)

Pervez Musharraf (Pakistan), Islam Karimov (Uzbekistan), Saparmurat Niyazov (Turkmenistan), Teodoro Obiang (Equatorial Guinea), Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria)

Comment: A measure of our new commitment to spreading democratic politics. Some have oil, one is Stalinist, all have corruption. None have democracy. Like old friends in the Gulf, they have been advised not to take GWB's freedom and democracy speeches seriously.

Given sanctuary by US

Jose Guillermo Garcia (fmr head of El Salvador armed forces, 1980s - Florida), Cuban and Haitian exiles (Florida), South Vietnamese army officers (California)

Comment: We now believe there are more terrorists per square kilometre in Florida than any other place on earth - all with safe haven. Most are from the abattoir states of Central America under Reagan.

It's a battle to keep them away from snooping journalists when they slip their agency minders. Just as well GWB's dictum about countries that provide sanctuary to terrorists doesn't apply to Miami.

Refusing to extradite

Emmanuel Constant (leader of paramilitary group FRAPH in Haiti who murdered thousands in the 1990s - in NYC)

Comment: Avoid comparison with the Taliban's refusal to extradite Osama after 9/11. Haiti is unlikely to bomb the East Coast. Warren Anderson (chairman of Union Carbide, now Dow Chemical), responsible for the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India that killed 16,000 people - Long Island, New York)

Comment: They are only Indians, after all. Even Delhi is reluctant to compensate the victims and 120,000 survivors. Unlikely to ever face charges of culpable homicide.

Unindicted

Ariel Sharon (Israel)

Comment: Long record of brutality, most notably in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Rebadged "man of peace" by GWB in the Orwellian sense. European travel may become difficult.

Turkish leaders

Comment: No longer so well disposed after they failed to help us out in Iraq. Army even refused Wolfowitz's order to defy the government and back the invasion.

Remember not to call Turkey's attacks on its Kurdish population "terrorism" because we supplied them with the means to do it. As with Colombia, our money officially goes to the guys in the white hats - or in this case - the white fezzes.

Scott Burchill lectures in international relations at Deakin University.

[durus]

Good post. Some interesting stuff in there.

[reaperman]

Very interesting indeed.

[Haalen]

The most interesting are the ones under the "New Friends" category, particularly Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Musharraf: He may end up being good for India-Pakistan relations, but recently he has been conceding to the fundamentalists while trying to make a power grab. He made the deals with the fundamentalists to pass a resolution in parliment that allows him to dissolve parliment only if the supreme court approves. After the resolution passed he appointed a new head of the supreme court who is loyal to him.

Karimov: Dont let his first name fool you. He is very anti-Islam. He is hated by human rights groups mostly for torturing prisoners. He has control of a very large cache of chemical weapons left over from the Soviet era, although he has a agreed to work with the US in disposing it, we havent takin a very active role in that. Since allowing us to use his airspace for the war in Afghanistan we have increased aid to Uzbekistan.

Niyazov aka "Turkmenbashi": Similar to Karimov in a lot of ways, brutal, former soviet leader. Just like Saddam Hussein he has images of himself everywhere, and is not opposed to using torture. I still have to look into how much aid we give him.

[beowulf437]

Gawd what fucking bullshit.

Ceausescu was never a friend of the US. He was the Soviet errand boy when they didn't want to get their hands dirty.

Pol Pot was always thought of as a mad man and the CIA even admitted that they were running a secret campaign against him throughout the sixties.

Milosevic was thought of as even more moderate than Tito at first so of course most of the western goverments tried to work with him.

Everyone knows Noriega was on the CIA payroll at first. When dealing with intelegence you have to deal with some unsavory types. Good little boys and girls don't grow up to be spies. The CIA pulled their support of him when they finally realized what sociopath he was. Sometimes goverment agencies don't act to quickly.

Bin Laden received support from the US in the early 80's when he was 'supposed' to be running his Islamic charity. They were also hoping to get some intelegence from him. By the mid 80's it was realized that he was begining to get too dangerous to try to deal with.

Saddam Hussien was put into power with the support of the Soviet Union. He was armed by the Soviets. He was whole heartedly supported by the French who sold him weopons and nuclear technology and the Germans who sold him chemical technology. But it was the Russians who trained his army gave him balistic missiles and chemical weapons and help him set up a biological warfare program.

You know you could try to get a little more background before making sweaping statements.

Also they guy who wrote the article seems more than a little racist calling Cubans, Haitians, and Vietnamese living in the US terrorist. I suppose he also thinks all Muslims, Jews, and Indonesians in the US are terrorist as well.

[Haalen]

Originally posted by beowulf437

Saddam Hussien was put into power with the support of the Soviet Union. He was armed by the Soviets. He was whole heartedly supported by the French who sold him weopons and nuclear technology and the Germans who sold him chemical technology. But it was the Russians who trained his army gave him balistic missiles and chemical weapons and help him set up a biological warfare program.


From a BBC report:
"Iraq purchased anthrax spores from the United States in the 1980s, and was thought to be developing the capability to use them in warheads and in aerial attacks."

From the SHM:
"A lengthy report in the Washington Post on December 30, 2002 - based on analysing thousands of pages of declassified government documents and interviews with former policy-makers - said that "US intelligence and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi defences" following Rumsfeld's visit. ....Again according to the Washington Post, a 1994 investigation by the US Senate Banking Committee turned up dozens of biological agents shipped to Iraq during the mid-'80s under licence from the Department of Commerce, including various strains of anthrax subsequently identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological warfare program. The Commerce Department also approved the export of insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being used for chemical warfare"

From the Washington Post:
"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."

"As part of its opening to Baghdad, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department terrorism list in February 1982, despite heated objections from Congress. Without such a move, Teicher says, it would have been "impossible to take even the modest steps we were contemplating" to channel assistance to Baghdad. Iraq "

"According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." "

"When United Nations weapons inspectors were allowed into Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, they compiled long lists of chemicals, missile components, and computers from American suppliers, including such household names as Union Carbide and Honeywell, which were being used for military purposes."

"Although U.S. export controls to Iraq were tightened up in the late 1980s, there were still many loopholes. In December 1988, Dow Chemical sold $1.5 million of pesticides to Iraq, despite U.S. government concerns that they could be used as chemical warfare agents. "

Bechtel was working in Iraq setting up chemical plants right up until the first gulf war.
The French built Osirak for Saddam before 1981, when we supported him, and supported the Osirak nuclear facility project.
The British were also very very closely involved with Iraq, selling him many many weapons.

[durus]

Wasn't it a case of Russia supported Iran so the US supported IRAQ in order to secure oil?
Then at some later point the US government decides Sadam is a dick cos he doesn't do what they want so then they put all sorts of sanctions and shit on him. Meanwhile he turns super anti US because he knows what dicks they are and with all these trade restrictions he has nothing to lose.
Then the US in an effort to keep petrol prices down (because they prefer greenhouse gas emitting gas guzzler cars) invades Iraq and steals a crap load of their oil.

Oh yeah and one more thing: When arguing a point making a personal attack demonstrates that your argument is weak or your argumentative skills are weak. What difference do my opinions or the colour of my skin make if I am posting the truth?

[beowulf437]

Iraq purchased anthrax spores from the United States in the 1980s, and was thought to be developing the capability to use them in warheads and in aerial attacks."

That's kind of funny that Iraq would purchase laboratory grade anthrax spores from the US (the kind that has been attenuated for research) to produce weapons when anthrax is endemic in that area of the world.

"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."

Here is the link to the GAO report on sales to Iraq.

http://www.fas.org/man/gao/gao9498.htm

Here is a brief history of the Iran Iraq war

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/iran-iraq.htm

Here is an overveiw of Iraqi military industry in the 80's

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/agency/mimi.htm

"According to a sworn court affidavit prepared by Teicher in 1995, the United States "actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure Iraq had the military weaponry required." "

Here is an assesment of Iraq in the 80's

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iraq/iq_appen.html#table13

Now if scroll down to table 11 you will find that the overwhelming majority of the weapons systems listed are soviet or warsaw pact equipment. I don't think the Soviets were all that cooperative with the US at that time.

Here is a little history of the Soviets in Iraq.

http://www.claremont.org/writings/030320rood.html

According to an article in Literaturnaya Gazeta (Moscow) September 12, 1990, the Soviet intelligence services, the GRU and KGB, knew of the Iraqi preparations for war against Kuwait but were uncertain of the date when the invasion would start.3 On September 15, the Soviet Defense Minister stated that 178 Iraqi military personnel were being trained at various sites in the Soviet Union and would not return home until their training was complete in November.4 In 1989, the year before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, there were 16,660 Soviet and East European "economic technicians," 10,000 more from Communist China, and 1,350 Soviet and East European "military technicians" in Iraq. The Central Intelligence Agency did not know, or at least did not record for public information, the number of Chinese military technicians present in Iraq.5

[DOGG]

i didnt read all the stuff but look up the Riegle Report (http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/riegle1.html) (U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War. United States Senate, 103d Congress, 2d Session May 25, 1994 ) specifically THIS (http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/report/r_1_2.html#exports) section.

This (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/globalissue/usforeignpolicy/iraq1980scontent.html) is also a good resource for american support of iraq.

It is also true that the CIA will purchase soviet made weapons (not directly from the soviets) and arm countries with them.

[Haalen]

The US saw the Iraq invasion of Kuwait coming, as seen in this CSIS report about Schwarzkopf when he first assumed command from General Crist in 1988:
"Instead, General Schwarzkopf decided to plan for what he thought was a much more likely worst-case scenario: Iraq, emerging from eight years of war against Iran with the world’s fourth-largest and most battle-tested army, moving south to capture the rich oil fields whose output was ess ential to the industrialized world.

This new strategy was first tested in INTERNAL LOOK, a command post exercise conducted from 9 July through 4 August 1990 at Fort Bragg and at Hurlburt and Duke Fields in Florida. As the exercise developed, General Schwarzkopf noticed that the real- world movements of Iraq’s air and ground forces eerily paralleled the scripted scenario of the war game. "

[beowulf437]

It is also true that the CIA will purchase soviet made weapons (not directly from the soviets) and arm countries with them.

Yes that happened in Afganistan, because the Afganis were already familar with Soviet weaponry. No secret was made of the US purchasing Soviet made small arms through Egypt and India and several other countries for supplying Afganis. In the case of Iraq however the Soviet Union had a great customer in Iraq and saw the Iraqi wars against Iran and the Kurds as a good thing (the USSR having both large Kurdish and Shi'a muslim populations that they had been oppressing for years themselves).

The Riegle report even hints at that the Soviet Union was helping Iraq develope chemical/biological weapons.

Committee staff has learned that Iraq may have acquired any one of a number of the Soviet binary novachok ("newcomer") series of chemical warfare agent compounds or information relevant to the development of those compounds.

The employment of biological agents in a "cocktail" mix with chemical warfare agents is consistent with Soviet military doctrine.

I am not saying that some of the stuff the US sold to Iraq did not help their military, and that some US firms intentionally 'fudged the books' to get some sales to Iraq. In fact there have been congressional hearings and criminal investigations over those points. To say the US is responsible for the Iraqi war machine and Hussiens rise to power is in complete avoidence of the facts. What do you think 18,000 Soviet advisors were doing in Iraq, teaching them how to grow rice.

Controls on various technologies have been strengthened in the US since the 1980's but this has lead to bad feelings with some countries and loss of markets for US goods to Europeans countries without similar restrictions.

The whole dual use area is in itself a tricky subject. One of the types of equipment sold to Iraq in the 80's was equipment to process ammonia. Ammonia in itself is a dangerous chemical, but it is a component of cleaning compounds and fertilizers. It is also a component of explosives and poison gas. Did the purchase of high speed cameras from the US help the Iraqi nuclear and ballistic missile programs? Maybe. If I had the $20,000 dollars to buy one of these cameras today could I? Yes, as long as I didn't try to export it. Did the sale of biological material to Iraq help their biological weapons program? More and more evidence is coming out that at the worst case Iraq biological weapons program was a dead end.

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1992/921021-248923.htm

One of the problems the US had with exports to Iraq is that the US goverment is not a monolithic entity. At the time in the 80's export licenses could be aquired through the Commerce Department, the State Department, or the Department of Defense. These agencies seldom interacted with each other, and though laws were in place that each agency was responsible for different types of licenses the Iraqi's were very good at circumventing the laws. What one agency would have no problem issuing a license for another agency might take exception to, and by getting licenses through different agencies for different components they were able to obtain a complete technology that would otherwise be unavailable. It would be like if you went to the hardware store and bought all the componets for a bomb the owner might become suspicious and report it, but if you went to several stores over a period of months no one would be able to tell what you were up to until after the fact.

As for finacial support of Hussien throughout the 80's most of it came from the Arab world. Kuwait was Iraq's biggest creditor and this was a factor in Hussiens decision to invade.

http://www.jubileeiraq.org/creditors/kuwait.htm

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/20030412.asp

http://www.iraqandiraqis.com/new_page_18.htm