It was not only the Reagan administration that initiated the sale of arms to Baghdad. Billions of dollars worth of raw materials, machinery and equipment, missile technology, and other “dual-use” items were also supplied by West German, French, Italian, British, Swiss and Austrian corporations. German firms even sold Iraq entire factories capable of mass-producing poison gas. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
The destination of most of these materials was Saad 16, near Mosul in northern Iraq. Western intelligence agencies had long known that the sprawling complex was Iraq's main ballistic missile development center. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
The Reagan administration also asked other countries to fuel the Iraqi war machine. In 1983, Reagan asked Italy’s Prime Minister Guilo Andreotti to sell weapons to Iraq early in its war with Iran. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
Just four months after the attack on the Kurds, the Reagan administration awarded Bechtel Corporation with a contract to build a huge petrochemical plant that would give the Hussein regime the capacity to generate chemical weapons. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
On September 8, 1988, the Senate passed the Prevention of Genocide Act, which would have imposed sanctions on the Hussein regime. Immediately, the Reagan administration announced its opposition to the bill, calling it “premature.” The White House used its influence to stall the bill in the House of Representatives. When Congress did eventually pass the bill, the White House refused to implement it. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
In August 1989, FBI agents raided the Atlanta branch of the Rome-based Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) and uncovered massive fraud involving the CCC loan guarantee scheme and billions of dollars worth of unauthorized “off-the-books” loans to Iraq. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
BNL Atlanta manager Chris Drougal had used the CCC program to underwrite programs that had nothing to do with agricultural exports. Using this covert set-up, Iraq tried to buy the most hard-to-get components for its nuclear weapons and missile programs on the black market. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
On October 2, 1989, President George Herbert Bush signed the top-secret National Security Decision 26, which declared: “Normal relations between the United States and Iraq would serve our long-term interests and promote stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East. The United States should propose economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behavior and increase our influence with Iraq. … We should pursue, and seek to facilitate, opportunities for United States firms to participate in the reconstruction of the Iraqi economy. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
As public and congressional pressure mounted on the Agriculture Department to end Iraq’s access to CCC loan guarantees, Secretary of State James Baker insisted that Secretary of Agriculture Clayton Yeutter drop his opposition to their continuation. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
In November 1989, Bush approved $1 billion in loan guarantees for Iraq in 1990. In April 1990, more revelations about the BNL scandal convinced the Department of Agriculture to halt Iraq’s CCC loan guarantees. On May 18, National Security Adviser Scowcroft personally intervened to ensure the delivery of the first $500 million transaction of the CCC subsidy for 1990. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
From July 18 to August 1, 1990, the Bush administration approved $4.8 million in advanced technology sales to Iraq. This included Saad 16 and the Iraqi ministry of industry and military industrialization. On August 1, $695,000 worth of advanced data transmission devices were approved. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
On August 2, 1990, The Agriculture Department officially suspended the CCC loan guarantees to Iraq. On that very day, Iraqi tanks and troops attacked Kuwait. (Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine)
Arming Iraq : how the U.S. and Britain secretly built Saddam's war machine by Mark Phythian
Subjects: Illegal arms transfers -- Iraq. | Illegal arms transfers --United States. | Illegal arms transfers -- Great Britain. | More ...
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