: I'm sure there are a few netwise poli-sci majors left in
: the Myth community who could dig up a few tons of
: valid-sourced dirt for this discussion.
Indeed. I'm not a poli-sci major, but a few brief searches I conducted turned up dirt like:
* A story from Newsday circa 1996 alleging that the American Type Culture Collection of Maryland and Virginia made seventy shipments of an anthrax-causing germ and other pathogens to Iraq during the 1980s, making them the largest supplier of biological agents to Iraq during that decade.
* Alcolac International, a chemical company from Baltimore already linked to illegal Iranian chemical shipments, shipped large quantities of the mustard gas ingredient thiodiglycol, as well as other chemical and biological agents, to Iraq according to a 1989 story in the New York Times.
* The Times also charged Nu Kraft Mercantile Corp. of Brooklyn with sending large shipments of thiodiglycol to Iraq.
* In a 1992 speech on the House floor, Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-TX) quoted U.S. intelligence documents claiming that Matrix-Churchill Corp., of Cleveland, OH was an Iraqi government front responsible for chemical and biological shipments.
* Mouse Master, of Lilburn, GA, Sullaire Corp., of Charlotte, NC, Pure Aire, also of Charlotte, NC, Posi Seal, Inc., of N. Stonington, CT, Union Carbide, of Danbury, CT, Evapco, of Taneytown, MD, and Gorman-Rupp, of Mansfield, OH, were all named in the 1992 Senate hearings on "United States export policy toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait" as chemical and biological suppliers.
* These same hearings also charged a number of technology companies including, but not limited to, Hewlett Packard, International Computer Systems, Spectra Physics, Unisys, Tektronix, Honeywell Inc., Digital Equipment Group, and International Imaging Systems with supplying Iraq with specialized computers, lasers, testing equipment, and other instruments vital to the construction of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. A HP spokesperson said the company believed that the Iraqi recipient of its shipments, Saad 16, was a higher learning institution. But according to a 1990 report from the Wall Street Journal, Saad 16 was, "a heavily fortified, state-of-the-art complex for aircraft construction, missile design, and, almost certainly, nuclear-weapons research."
* A number of other companies were sued in connection with providing Iraq with chemical or biological supplies: subsidiaries of Fisher Controls International, Inc., St. Louis; Rhone-Poulenc, Inc., Princeton, NJ; Bechtel Group, Inc., San Francisco; and Lummus Crest, Inc., Bloomfield, NJ, which built a chemical plant in Iraq and, before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, was building an ethylene facility. Ethylene is an essential component of thiodiglycol
* According to a 1998 article in The Progressive: "In 1994, a group of twenty-six veterans, suffering from what has come to be known as Gulf War Syndrome, filed a billion-dollar lawsuit in Houston against Fisher, Rhone-Poulenc, Bechtel Group, and Lummus Crest, as well as American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) and six other firms, for helping Iraq to obtain or produce the compounds which the veterans blamed for their illnesses. By 1998, the number of plaintiffs has risen to more than 4,000 and the suit is still pending in Texas.
A Pentagon study in 1994 dismissed links between chemical and biological weapons and Gulf War Syndrome. Newsday later disclosed, however, that the man who headed the study, Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, was a director of ATCC. Moreover, at the time of ATCC's shipments to Iraq, which the Commerce Department approved, the firm's CEO was a member of the Commerce Department's Technical Advisory Committee, the paper found."
* In 1982, the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from its list of countries alleged to sponsor terrorism, making it eligible to receive high-tech items. In 1991, Rep. Samuel Gejdenson (D-CT), chairman of a House subcommittee investigating "United States Exports of Sensitive Technology to Iraq," stated, "From 1985 to 1990, the United States Government approved 771 licenses for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application. [Only thirty-nine applications were rejected.] The United States spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted. . . . The Administration has never acknowledged that it took this course of action, nor has it explained why it did so. In reviewing documents and press accounts, and interviewing knowledgeable sources, it becomes clear that United States export-control policy was directed by U.S. foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was U.S. foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."
* The Senate committee, investigating "United States export policy toward Iraq prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait," heard testimony in 1992 that Commerce Department personnel "changed information on sixty-eight licenses; that references to military end uses were deleted and the designation 'military truck' was changed. This was done on licenses having a total value of over $1 billion." Testimony made clear that the White House was "involved" in "a deliberate effort . . . to alter these documents and mislead the Congress."
I think this is evidence enough to suggest that not only did the U.S. green-light the sale of many of the weapons of mass destruction we are now looking for, but that the Administration took an active part in covering up as much of this as they could.
: Not to derail this particular subthread, but what's
: everyone else up to at the moment?
Not to encourage the derailment, but I'm preparing to move back to SoCal at the moment. Hollywood to be precise.
-Phil.
