- The Reagan administration and its special Middle East
envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, did little to stop Iraq developing weapons of mass
destruction in the 1980s, even though they knew Saddam Hussein was using
chemical weapons "almost daily" against Iran, it was reported
yesterday.
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- US support for Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war as a
bulwark against Shi'ite militancy has been well known for some time, but
using declassified government documents, the Washington Post provided new
details yesterday about Mr Rumsfeld's role, and about the extent of the
Reagan administration's knowledge of the use of chemical weapons.
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- The details will embarrass Mr Rumsfeld, who as defence
secretary in the Bush administration is one of the leading hawks on Iraq,
frequently denouncing it for its past use of such weapons.
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- The US provided less conventional military equipment
than British or German companies but it did allow the export of biological
agents, including anthrax; vital ingredients for chemical weapons; and
cluster bombs sold by a CIA front organisation in Chile, the report says.
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- Intelligence on Iranian troop movements was provided,
despite detailed knowledge of Iraq's use of nerve gas.
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- Rick Francona, an ex-army intelligence lieutenant-colonel
who served in the US embassy in Baghdad in 1987 and 1988, told the Guardian:
"We believed the Iraqis were using mustard gas all through the war,
but that was not as sinister as nerve gas.
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- "They started using tabun [a nerve gas] as early
as '83 or '84, but in a very limited way. They were probably figuring out
how to use it. And in '88, they developed sarin."
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- On November 1 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz,
was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical
weapons]" by Iraq.
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- However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret
order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary
and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war.
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- In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to
serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and
passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic
relations.
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- Mr Rumsfeld has said that he "cautioned" the
Iraqi leader against using banned weapons. But there was no mention of
such a warning in state department notes of the meeting.
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- Howard Teicher, an Iraq specialist in the Reagan White
House, testified in a 1995 affidavit that the then CIA director, William
Casey, used a Chilean firm, Cardoen, to send cluster bombs to use against
Iran's "human wave" attacks.
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- A 1994 congressional inquiry also found that dozens of
biological agents, including various strains of anthrax, had been shipped
to Iraq by US companies, under licence from the commerce department.
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- Furthermore, in 1988, the Dow Chemical company sold $1.5m-worth
(£930,000) of pesticides to Iraq despite suspicions they would be
used for chemical warfare.
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- The only occasion that Iraq's use of banned weapons seems
to have worried the Reagan administration came in 1988, after Lt Col Francona
toured the battlefield on the al-Faw peninsula in southern Iraq and reported
signs of sarin gas.
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- "When I was walking around I saw atropine injectors
lying around. We saw decontamination fluid on vehicles, there were no insects,"
said Mr Francona, who has written a book on shifting US policy to Iraq
titled Ally to Adversary. "There was a very quick response from Washington
saying, 'Let's stop our cooperation' but it didn't last long - just weeks."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2002
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,866942,00.html
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