Memo to Jess Helms from InfoTimes. Note excerpt from US Army War College report that no evidence exists to support US claims that Iraq used gas on the Kurds.


I continue to make inquiry into the situation in Iraq, as it is likely to brew up into another crisis one of these days when the US Army War College has no choice but to conclude that Iraq is not hiding any weapons of mass destruction -- or if they are, they are so well hidden that nobody is going to find them. As you know, I'm sure, the warhawks in the United States will continue to insist that the embargo remain in place no matter what, and there will be assertions from around the world that we have not been acting in good faith. As you also know, I believe there are serious questions regarding our behavior toward Iraq that go back further. You would agree, I think, that at the very least our State Department gave a "green light" to Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait in August 1990. The more I read of the events of the period, the more I believe history will record that the Gulf War was unnecessary, perhaps even that Saddam Hussein was willing to retreat back to his borders, but our government decided we preferred the war to the status quo ante.
In my previous correspondence with you on this matter, I had been in a quandary about the state of our relations with Baghdad during that critical period. In the months immediately preceding the "green light" given by our Ambassador, April Glaspie, a number of your Senate colleagues including Bob Dole had traveled to Baghdad, met with Saddam, and found him to be a head of state worthy of support. Even Sen. Howard Metzenbaum [D-OH], a Jewish liberal and staunch supporter of Israel, gave him a seal of approval. What disturbs me even now, Jesse, is that these meetings occurred after the Senate Foreign Relations committee had accused Iraq of using poison gas against its own people, i.e., the Kurds. Like all other Americans, in recent years I had assumed that what I read in the papers was true about Iraq gassing its own people. Once the war drums again began beating last November, I decided to read up on the history, and found Iraq denied having used gas against its own people. Furthermore, I heard that a Pentagon investigation at the time had also turned up no hard evidence of Saddam gassing his own people.

This is serious stuff, because the US Army War College tells us that 1.4 million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the sanctions, which is 3,000 times more than the number of Kurds who supposedly died of gassing at the hands of Saddam. Many of my old Cold Warrior friends practically DEMAND that we not lift the sanctions because if Saddam would gas his own people, he would gas anyone. Now I have come across the 1990 Pentagon report, published just prior to the invasion of Kuwait. Its authors are Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II and Leif R. Rosenberger, of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The report is 93 pages, but I append here only the passages having to do with the aforementioned issue:

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Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East

Throughout the war the United States practiced a fairly benign policy toward Iraq. Although initially disapproving of the invasion, Washington came slowly over to the side of Baghdad. Both wanted to restore the status quo ante to the Gulf and to reestablish the relative harmony that prevailed there before Khomeini began threatening the regional balance of power. Khomeini's revolutionary appeal was anathema to both Baghdad and Washington; hence they wanted to get rid of him. United by a common interest, Iraq and the United States restored diplomatic relations in 1984, and the United States began to actively assist Iraq in ending the fighting. It mounted Operation Staunch, an attempt to stem the flow of arms to Iran. It also increased its purchases of Iraqi oil while cutting back on Iranian oil purchases, and it urged its allies to do likewise. All this had the effect of repairing relations between the two countries, which had been at a very low ebb.

In September 1988, however -- a month after the war had ended -- the State Department abruptly, and in what many viewed as a sensational manner, condemned Iraq for allegedly using chemicals against its Kurdish population. The incident cannot be understood without some background of Iraq's relations with the Kurds. It is beyond the scope of this study to go deeply into this matter; suffice it to say that throughout the war Iraq effectively faced two enemies -- Iran and the elements of its own Kurdish minority. Significant numbers of the Kurds had launched a revolt against Baghdad and in the process teamed up with Tehran. As soon as the war with Iran ended, Iraq announced its determination to crush the Kurdish insurrection. It sent Republican Guards to the Kurdish area, and in the course of this operation - according to the U.S. State Department -- gas was used, with the result that numerous Kurdish civilians were killed. The Iraqi government denied that any such gassing had occurred. Nonetheless, Secretary of State Schultz stood by U.S. accusations, and the U.S. Congress, acting on its own, sought to impose economic sanctions on Baghdad as a violator of the Kurds' human rights.

Having looked at all of the evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the State Department's claim that gas was used in this instance. To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds -- in Turkey where they had gone for asylum -- failed to discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...

It appears that in seeking to punish Iraq, the Congress was influenced by another incident that occurred five months earlier in another Iraqi-Kurdish city, Halabjah. In March 1988, the Kurds at Halabjah were bombarded with chemical weapons, producing a great many deaths. Photographs of them Kurdish victims were widely disseminated in the international media. Iraq was blamed for the Halabjah attack, even though it was subsequently brought out that Iran too had used chemicals in this operation, and it seemed likely that it was the Iranian bombardment that had actually killed the Kurds.

Thus, in our view, the Congress acted more on the basis of emotionalism than factual information, and without sufficient thought for the adverse diplomatic effects of its action.

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It is called a loose end...

Violence brings one thing, more and more of the same.

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The complete demonization of Saddam Hussein threatens to determine every decision and action affecting not only his future but that of Iraq as well. With U.S. mass media and U.S. government propaganda stripping Saddam Hussein of every redeeming human quality, any act against him or Iraq is ipso facto justified.

This successful demonization made the U.S. unilateral war of aggression against Iraq politically possible.

The debate about intelligence failures is itself a cover-up of the obvious. Saddam Hussein was demonized to justify regime change in Iraq. It rendered him an evil madman threatening the civilized world. He possessed weapons of mass destruction. He supported 9/11. He aided al-Qaeda. WMDs could be launched within minutes of his order. That Saddam Hussein would use them was clear. He used them "against his own people." Ignored were the facts that under devastating attacks by the U.S. in 1991 and 2003, Iraq did not use any illegal weapons. In 1991, Iraq was the victim of 88,500 tons of explosives (almost seven Hiroshimas) delivered by the Pentagon in 42 days that destroyed its infrastructure: water systems, power, transportation, communications, manufacturing, commercial properties, housing, mosques, churches, synagogues. Food production, processing, storage, distribution, fertilizer and insecticide production, were targeted for destruction. Nearly 150,000 defenseless people were killed outright in Iraq. The U.S. claimed its casualties to be 156 — 1/3 from friendly fire, the remainder accidents.

Sanctions against Iraq from August 6, 1990, into 2003 took over 1,500,000 lives, the majority children under age five. By October 1986, 567,000 children under five were dead from sanctions according to a U.N. FAO report that month. One-fourth of the infants born alive in Iraq in 2002 weighed less than four pounds, a dangerously low and crippling birth weight — symbolic of the condition of the entire country.

During the high-tech terrorism of "Shock and Awe" in March and April 2003, Iraq never used any WMDs or other illegal weapon as some 25,000 of its defenseless people were killed.

At least 35 nations have WMDs in their military stockpiles, the U.S. more than all others combined. The U.S. is planning a new generation of nuclear weapons, tactical weapons that would have been used against Iraq if the U.S. had possessed them in 2003. The U.S. used 4,000 tons, or more, of depleted uranium, super bombs in attempts to assassinate Saddam Hussein and cluster bombs to savage anyone within a large area, usually urban, where they were dropped.

Saddam Hussein was demonized because he refused to surrender the sovereignty and independence of Iraq and its people to demands and plans for U.S. domination and exploitation under its New World Order.

Stephen C. Pelletiere, the CIA’s senior political analyst of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000 and head of a 1991 U.S. Army investigation into how Iraq would fight a war against the U.S., has repeatedly and publicly absolved Iraq from targeting Kurds at Halabja.

A Defense Intelligence Agency investigation and report made immediately after the Halabja incident absolved Iraq. The U.S. continued its support of Iraq with full knowledge of the facts.

The "rogue states" condemned by President Bush are "rogue" because they do not submit to U.S. authority... For those who believe both peace and economic justice require "sovereign equality" among nations, a principle on which the U.N. Charter is based, the "rogue states" deserve our gratitude for resisting, often at a terrible cost, U.S. demands for submission. Nearly all the more than 80 U.S. military interventions in the Western Hemisphere in the past century are evidence that the U.S. intervenes in countries that defy its will and resist its exploitation.

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This is a great site for good, relavent information...and I'm not saying people should stop searching for this info. This analysis of Saddam/U.S. connections is excellent.

BUT...there comes a time when READING and WRITING about the wrong-doing, the criminality of our government is NOT ENOUGH.

THIS WEEK there are actions all over the country, as the new congress opens, to DEMAND, not ask for, a change of policy. On Jan. 4, there will be a renewed push to DEMAND impeachment for War Crimes be put back on the table. Find an event in your area! GET INVOLVED!

The World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime!

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Here are a couple of WEB Sites for some interesting reading and to help you make some decisions. Try researching the information, find out the facts as shared on these sites. Don't deny it before you find the truth. You have to do some work people to keep your God given-Undisputed & Inalienable Rights. The Masters of this world will not give them back to us if we are unaware of them or given up because we are to lazy and comfortable in our present lives. www.lawfulpath.com gives us a starting point they have for all of us; 'Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars'. It is from a book "Behold A Pale Horse" by Milton William Cooper killed for his fight against the masters.

From what I see from the U.S. citizens or I should say 'SLAVES' very few are willing to DIE for their freedoms that were taken away from us at the start of 1913.

www.wtpconstitutionalactivism.org www.apfn.org

www.prisonplanet.com www.infowars.com www.gcnlive.com

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" I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us -- and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners."

Let's just hope that we do not repeat the same mistake that Bush 1 did.. We now went the distance to ensure one of the most brutal regimes of the century, behind Hitler, Japan of WW2 and Stalin was wiped out.

The author of course would take our efforts and turn them around into something evil (typical of those aligning with the far left).. Evil would have been to again walk away.

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.
Saddam Hangs...Iraq Violence Continues.

So - it's a wrap. Madass Insane is off the table, nevermore available to divulge details he knew of US complicities and misdeeds.

Convenient for many in the US administration.

Cui bono?

Ole Ullern

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they'll continue to be dragged by Iraq for years and possibly decades to come. America is already dying. Which nation in the West is next? Sigh ...

P.S.: War with Iran will guarentee America's final nail in the coffin.

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enough said for those who understand the dialectic being played in the middle-east.

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The article has a few things in it I must take issue with, one being that Arabs are Muslims, when in fact the terms can and are mutally exclusive. This is to say nothing of the Arab Christians, the Arab secularists, and the like. The authors obvious orientalism is astounding, only because he seems completely oblivious to it. But to the point...

This is a day the west, and more specifically, the US, will come to regret for now the mask is fully withdrawn. Not that it was ever that fixed anyway, but man, the absurdity of it all!

Saddam, the "butcher of Baghdad", is condemned to death for killing 100+, BUT is ostensibly referred to as "the dictator who gassed his own people, etc." yet not condemned for those charges. But oh wait: could it be that it's because the US is an accomplice there? Then there's this trail, which if memory serves, is thoroughly illegal as per the Nuremberg Tribunal which I believe states an occupying power cannot convict people in this way. Not that the US was ever paying any attention to legal constraints, but still. So then we have this conviction and this death sentence which, seeing as how thousands linger on death row in the US for years, seems odd for its expediency. Just saying.

I don't excuse Hussein for his crimes and really it's not my place to condemn him. However, for the US to invade a country and then illegally hang its president is so CRIMINAL/IMMORAL/UNETHICAL/WRETCHED that I hang my head in shame for it.

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First things first, the Office of Special Plans, created the pretext for the Iraq invasion in the basement of the Pentagon when the CIA could not reliably conclude WMD's existed in Iraq. Bush told his NSA staffers right at the 911 event that "I want Saddam tied to this,..." Later the Coalition Provisional Authority set-up the current government in Iraq and the "elections" were subsequently held. Today, very little coherent government exists in Iraq outside the "Green Zone." Iraq's government controls only narrow swaths of the country and that only with maximum USA muscle and firepower. Hanging Saddam quickly would never have happened without USA approval, the USA only has to threaten to withdraw or curtail military support to get what it wants. Getting Saddam quickly out of the way reflects no doubt a hope by Bush that Bathaaist loyalists will now throw support behind the US backed government. However, I think it only will continue to fuel the Sectarian violence in Iraq, a country in the midst of all-out civil war.

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Since people seem to be reposting other's work, here's a choice example:

"February 15, 2003
Cold Fronts
War is Golden for the Bush Administration

By CHRIS FLOYD
The opening of a long-delayed civil suit in a London courtroom; a brief, buried article on a judicial nomination; a fluctuation in the commodities market: three mundane, seemingly-unrelated items in the news last week that combined to give a fleeting glimpse of the ugly reality behind the frantic, diversionary façade of the "civilized world."

The London case involves our old friends, BCCI, the international bank that served as the front for a global crime ring involving top officials and Establishment worthies in dozens of "civilized" nations. BCCI ran guns to Saddam and other heavies, funded Pakistan's illegal nuclear weapons program, laundered drug profits, peddled prostitutes, doled out bribes, served as a conduit for covert CIA operations--and, through its connections to the bin Laden family, gave George W. Bush a sweetheart loan of $25 million to bail out one of his many business failures.

One of the respectable organizations tainted by the ring was the Bank of England, which was the financial regulator for BCCI when the front finally collapsed in 1991--leaving its legitimate creditors some $11 billion in the hole. Not surprisingly, some of these victims filed suit against ye olde B of E, claiming that its oversight of BCCI left something to be desired. But successive British governments--including the plagiaristic poodle-led pack currently in power--have fought for years to quash the lawsuit, the Observer reports.

That's because the trial could open a can of particularly grubby worms concerning the UK government's extensive canoodling with BCCI. A host of worthies are expected to be grilled in the dock, including John Major, former UK prime minister and current business partner of George Bush I in yet another secretive international front that profits from war, weapons, violence, repression and the greasing of highly-placed palms: the Carlyle Group.

Even as the trial finally gets underway, British PM Tony "Bow-Wow" Blair is withholding crucial BCCI evidence, claiming it's top secret. In fact, says Blair, the hidden juice is so red hot that even the law under which it has been declared secret must remain secret. An overreaction? Probably not--not when you consider the fact that BCCI was one of the chief conduits by which Western governments secretly armed Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction throughout the 1980s. This is not the kind of dirty laundry you want aired at the very moment you are waving the bloody shirt of war at, er, Saddam Hussein for, er, possessing weapons of mass destruction that, er, you and your allies sold to him in the first place...."

The NYT in its obituary of Saddam ignores any mention of US funding for his regime...but then, they have a Carlyle Director on their corporate board, so no surprises at their historical whitewash of Bush&Co.... By the way, the best protest is to stop buying fossil fuels and use solar, wind and locally produced biofuels for energy. Happy New Year! Hope it's better than the last one, what?

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Now that Saddam has been hanged for killing lots of people and for knowing lots of murderous secrets about the USA perhaps someday George W. Bush will hanged for killing lots of people and for knowing lots of murderous secrets about the USA.

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Saddam was a Butcher! So are the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran etc... all the way to Indonesia under Suharto...
All Regimes were supported by the US at one time or another.
Saddam was trained by the CIA in Cairo in his early days!!!!!
Then when in power, he nationalized Oil!!! And the CIA started its undermining work!
Of course he spent his paranoid time killing and suppressing any dissent.
Will we ever hear his side of the story? Will the charade of his trial be ever exposed to the Mass media and show how Western Democracies actually encouraged him initially?
Unfortunately, this cover up of an execution is just enough to bide time for this administration. Nail the Closet!
"Real" Justice as opposed to this pantomime would have involved Saddam being able to express himself on distasteful topics Rumsfeld would not want be made public!
Who provided Chemical Weapons to Saddam? Turkey. a staunch Nato Ally never protested their Use...
And on and on and on.
Sorry ..got to puke now...

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Or, did they rush to hang SH while the media was fixated on the death of Pres. Ford?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNA3t3guG90

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The rhetorical question in the title of Kola Odetola's article below is profound and damning. As one who has been deeply involved in the anti-war movement in the United States since September 11, 2001 and before, I can attest to it's truth: The western anti-war movement is indeed the "left boot of imperialism". In one sense, Odetola may be painting with too wide a brush for there are many committed individuals, organizations and coalitions within the anti-war movement who sacrifice and fight every day against the U.S.-led empire. It must be understood that those who sacrifice so much to stop these imperial wars are fighting on multiple fronts. They are fighting against the empire in a very difficult theater. They are also fighting against large well-funded organizations and coalitions within the anti-war movement who are not "anti-war" at all. Thus, in the broad sense of Kola Odetola's statement, there can be no doubt that the force of the anti-war movement has been compromised, blunted and to a large extent rendered ineffective by the empire. But those who are committed to stop the advance of the Global Corporate Empire will fight on.

When a war like the so-called "war on terrorism" has been planned in Washington think-tanks for 25 years, you can bet that one of the pillars of that architecture was to prevent and destroy dissent in empire's back yard. Some in "the movement" say the government "infiltrates" the anti-war movement. I say they don't have to infiltrate it - large organizations and coalitions were already owned and operated by the empire before the war began. They are owned and managed because they come from imperial seed. They have been effective in sabotaging the efforts of solid organizations like Ramsey Clark's International Action Center and the Troops Out Now coalition. They have been effective in sucking many well-meaning people into their treachery. Go to their websites now and you will see no mention of the lynching of Saddam Hussein - which serves as a litmus test for the authenticity of any movement against the U.S. war on the people of Iraq. Even now, these "imperial left-wingers" are praising and supporting the Democratic Party in the United States while the Democrats continue to fund the war on Iraq. But really, what do we expect of them? At bottom, they are capitalists. - Les Blough, Editor

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http://members5.boardhost.com/
medialens/msg/1167439871.html

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Did you know that, under the orders of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice, that more innocent people were killed during the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan than Saddam ever even came close to killing? Women, babies, grandmothers, it didn't matter to Saddam, CIA operative, and it doesn't matter to Bush & Co. either.

No you didn't know that, because America "doesn't count 'enemy' casualties." Even if they're innocent civilians. ESPECIALLY if they're innocent civilians. All counts were pulled out of Rumsfeld's ass while he sat on the crapper, and then divided. By one-HUNDRED.

And did you know that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Rove, and especially Poppy Bush killed close to 3,000 of their own citizens on 9-11 by EITHER absolute complicity or absolute incompetence (pick your poison.) Not to mention the Katrina campaign.

No you didn't, because most Americans unfortunately get their news from the mainstream media years later after the real truth has been posted widely on the internet for the rest of the world to see, learn, and remember. Sometimes, DECADES later. And the world has a far longer memory than MOST Americans.

So Saddam got hanged, and rather shabbily and hastily, as if those doing it were petrified that Bush would try and stop it any second. Bush, STOP an execution? Now that's a laugh. Even when it's going to bring a level of sectarian violence to Baghdad that makes what has happened so far look like a picnic? No problem, just more for Bectel and Haliburton to rebuild, more useless Iraquis out of the way of "the precious", the oil, and the portfolios of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, and Rice get fatter and fatter, making those escape compounds in South America stronger and stronger. (But not quite strong enough.)

Did you know that what goes around in this world comes around? Did you know that Saddam's execution sent a very powerful message to anyone even THINKING of being a Bush "ally", as well as to those who already are in that precarious position?

Now you know all these things, what five people do YOU think are going to be executed next? Hint: There isn't going to be ANY moron "President" Ford to pardon Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Rove, and they'll probably throw Laura Bush up there too just to satisfy the crowd, her hair turned white in prison. Remember, there will be FEW Americans left on the planet, let alone that particular crowd. How picturesque.

Now, time for your guess: Sword or guillotine?

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16019.htm

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Move over Adolf!
The Hist Chan has Archival footage of the final bloody hours of Saddam's reign of terror!
Go inside the secret, hidden world of the BRUTAL DICTATOR as he is bound, hooded and suffocated at the end of America's 'Rope of Freedom!'
'Rope of Freedom' is now available for ordering for $29.95 (plus $3,000,000,000,000.01 D.O.D.)
Send to:
United States of America c/o D.Cheney
Wash, DC.

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notwithstanding the wrongs that Saddam has undeniably been responsible for throughout his career. The execution was illegal, immoral, repugnent and in contravention of international law. The moslem world (and indeed most people everywhere else) should be outraged at what has essentially been a disgusting finale to a Stalinist style show trial and a kangaroo court decision orchestrated by the U.S. administration.

Moreover, if Saddam's appropriate punishment is to swing on the end of a rope for the crimes he has committed (it wasn't, but again I certainly concede that he was responsible for many many deaths) then what is the appropriate fate and punishment for that wretched, contemptable (and remarkably cowardly) piece of slime that currently occupies the White House, and who has been responsible for far more murder and mayhem than Saddam, including the deaths of perhaps as many as 3/4 million Iraqis since the start of the (totally illegal) 2003 invasion?

I certainly have some ideas. How about hauling GW off in handcuffs to the Sunnis for whatever punishment (at their hands) they think might be appropriate? As for techniques, how about throwing him into a cage with a very large (and very hungry) boa constrictor? That would be an interesting spectacle. Perhaps we could serve up lapdog Tony B. for a second course? Does anyone else have any better suggestions?

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So, now I hear the USA might be looking for "another strongman" as the only thing that MIGHT somehow hold Iraq together. Once again, Bush logic at work, just what was Saddam to begin with?, and not only that, what would another strongman be: a "kinder and nicer version of Saddam?". But, really, here is the thing, if you put in at least 350,000-500,000 US troops in there you will probably win. The troops would seal the borders with Iran and Syria, they could gut the insurgents and disarm them, they could occupy territory until the new government can effectively govern it. This by the way is what General Shinseki said to Congress years ago and it was a career ending statement for him. But, it is true. Bush does not get it because this entire thing was planned by Rumsfeld in the basement of the Pentagon. Rule One: You don't go to war unless you can win. The Powell Doctrine, you go in with overwhelming force. By jumping the gun, bypassing the UN and going in with only the UK giving the USA significant help, Bush created what Powell called the broken pottery rule: "you broke it, you pay for it." And, boy is the USA paying. Still, if Bush thought it was worth it, he could go to the American people, explain his views, admit mistakes, perhaps then he could recruit enough soldiers for the USA to win in Iraq, or he could get Congress to reinstate the draft. So, without sufficient troops the USA cannot and will not win, America's troops are just turkey shoots for the insurgents. And to say you will just put in 20,000 more troops, well, you might as well say your going to pour water on a gasoline fire. No, the choices making any sense now are only two, go in with overwhelming force, or cut your losses and get out. The American people, and Bush by default, have already made choice two the only logical choice.

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Mr.HEATHEN wrote: ""Move over Adolf!
The Hist Chan has Archival footage of the final bloody hours of Saddam's reign of terror!
Go inside the secret, hidden world of the BRUTAL DICTATOR as he