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Saddam can never be allowed a fair trial
by Eric S. Margolis, Toronto Sun
July 31, 2003
If put on public trial, Saddam Hussein would have a field day revealing the embarrassing alliance between his brutal regime and Washington:
• CIA's role in bringing the Ba'ath Party to power in a 1958 coup, opening the way for Saddam to take control.
• US, Israeli, Iranian destabilization of Iraq during the 1970's by fueling Kurdish rebellion. Washington's egging on the aggressive Shah of Iran in the Shatt al-Arab waterway dispute, a primary cause of the Iran-Iraq War.
• US secretly urging Iraq to invade Iran in 1980 to overthrow that nation's revolutionary Islamic government.
• Covert supply of Saddam's war machine by the US and Britain during the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict: biological warfare programs and germ feeder stocks, poison gas manufacturing plants and raw materials. Billions in aid, routed through the US Department of Agriculture, Italy's Banco del Lavoro, and the shady bank, BCCI. Heavy artillery, munitions, spare parts, trucks, field hospitals, and electronics.
Equally important, the US Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA operated offices in Baghdad that provided Iraq with satellite intelligence data on Iranian troop deployments that provided decisive in the war's titanic battles at Basra, Majnoon, and Faw.
• The murky role played by Washington just before Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The US Ambassador told Saddam `the US takes no position in Arab border disputes.' Was this a trap to lure Saddam to invade Kuwait, then crush his army, or simple diplomatic bungling? Saddam could supply the awkward answers.
In short, Saddam was one of America's closet Mideast allies during the 1980's, a major recipient of US military and financial aid. Saddam's killing of large numbers of Kurds and Shia rebels occurred while he was a key US ally. Washington remained mute at the time. When Bush I called on Kurds and Shia to revolt in 1991, the US watched impassively as Saddam slaughtered the poorly-armed rebels.
Better a bullet-riddled Saddam, or one executed by a military kangaroo court in Guantanamo, or hanged by the new, American- installed `Vichy' Iraqi regime in Baghdad.
Saddam should be handed over by the US to the UN War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague that is currently trying Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and other accused Balkan war criminals. After all, it was Washington that engineered Milosevic's delivery to the Hague, an act for which the US deserves high praise. What applies to Milosevic applies equally to Saddam Hussein.
In fact, it would be better for the Iraqi leader to stand trial at the newly constituted International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. But the Bush Administration, in one of its most shameful acts, has refused to join this tribunal or cooperate with it.
Published by
Toronto Sun
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Rumsfeld backed Saddam even after chemical attacks
by Andrew Buncombe, The Independent [London, UK]
Dec. 24, 2003
Fresh controversy about Donald Rumsfeld's personal dealings with Saddam Hussein was provoked yesterday by new documents that reveal he went to Iraq to show America's support for the regime despite its use of chemical weapons.
The formerly secret documents reveal the Defence Secretary travelled to Baghdad 20 years ago to assure Iraq that America's condemnation of its use of chemical weapons was made "strictly" in principle.
The criticism in no way changed Washington's wish to support Iraq in its war against Iran and "to improve bi-lateral relations ... at a pace of Iraq's choosing".
Earlier this year, Mr Rumsfeld and other members of the Bush administration regularly cited Saddam's willingness to use chemical weapons against his own people as evidence of the threat presented to the rest of the world.
Senior officials presented the attacks against the Kurds — particularly the notorious attack in Halabja in 1988 — as a justification for the invasion and the ousting of Saddam.
But the newly declassified documents reveal that 20 years ago America's position was different and that the administration of President Ronald Reagan was concerned about maintaining good relations with Iraq despite evidence of Saddam's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish rebels.
In March 1984, under international pressure, America condemned Iraq's use of such chemical weapons. But realising that Baghdad had been upset, Secretary of State George Schultz asked Mr Rumsfeld to travel to Iraq as a special envoy to meet Saddam's Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, and smooth matters over.
In a briefing memo to Mr Rumsfeld, Mr Shultz wrote that he had met Iraqi officials in Washington to stress that America's interests remained "in (1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq".
The memo adds: "This message bears reinforcing during your discussions."
Exactly what Mr Rumsfeld, who at the time did not hold government office, told Mr Aziz on 26 March 1984, remains unclear and minutes from the meeting remain classified. No one from Mr Rumsfeld's office was available to comment yesterday.
It was not Mr Rumsfeld's first visit to Iraq. Four months earlier, in December 1983, he had visited Saddam and was photographed shaking hands with the dictator. When news of this visit was revealed last year, Mr Rumsfeld claimed he had "cautioned" Saddam to stop using chemical weapons.
When documents about the meeting disclosed he had said no such thing, a spokesman for Mr Rumsfeld said he had raised the issue with Mr Aziz.
America's relationship with Iraq at a time when Saddam was using chemical weapons is well-documented but rarely reported.
During the war with Iran, America provided combat assistance to Iraq that included intelligence on Iranian deployments and bomb-damage assessments. In 1987-88 American warships destroyed Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf and broke the blockade of Iraqi shipping lanes.
Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, a non-profit group that obtained the documents, told The New York Times: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980s and it didn't make any difference to US policy. The embrace of Saddam and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances."
Last night, Danny Muller, a spokesman for the anti-war group Voices in the Wilderness, said the documents revealed America's "blatant hypocrisy". He added: "This is not an isolated event. Continuing administrations have said 'we will do business'. I am surprised that Donald Rumsfeld does not resign right now
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