“Yeah, Well America Armed Saddam”
August 2, 2007
Below is a chart of arms sales to Iraq. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) .
See also “Yeah, Well America Influenced Saddam And Middle East Policy.”
| Year | Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact |
France | China (PRC) | United States |
Egypt | Others | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | 1,321 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,326 |
| 1974 | 1,471 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,476 |
| 1975 | 1,087 | 35 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,122 |
| 1976 | 1,161 | 119 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,280 |
| 1977 | 1,062 | 106 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1,168 |
| 1978 | 1,827 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 20 | 1,873 |
| 1979 | 1,108 | 78 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 1,203 |
| 1973-79 | 9,037 | 374 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 37 | 9,448 |
| 1973-79 | 95.7% | 4.0% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.4% | 100% |
| 1980 | 1,665 | 241 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 114 | 2,032 |
| 1981 | 1,780 | 731 | 0 | 0 | 46 | 182 | 2,739 |
| 1982 | 2,023 | 673 | 217 | 0 | 71 | 227 | 3,211 |
| 1980-82 | 5,468 | 1,645 | 217 | 0 | 129 | 523 | 7,982 |
| 1980-82 | 68.5% | 20.6% | 2.7% | 0 | 1.6% | 6.6% | 100% |
| 1983 | 1,898 | 779 | 745 | 21 | 58 | 773 | 4,274 |
| 1984 | 2,857 | 883 | 1,065 | 6 | 0 | 116 | 4,927 |
| 1985 | 2,601 | 700 | 1,036 | 9 | 32 | 116 | 4,494 |
| 1986 | 2,663 | 251 | 918 | 9 | 70 | 86 | 3,997 |
| 1987 | 2,719 | 214 | 887 | 30 | 114 | 157 | 4,121 |
| 1988 | 1,202 | 355 | 301 | 125 | 118 | 196 | 2,297 |
| 1983-88 | 13,940 | 3,182 | 4,952 | 200 | 392 | 1,444 | 24,110 |
| 1983-88 | 57.8% | 13.2% | 20.5% | 0.8 | 1.6% | 6.0% | 100% |
| 1989 | 1,319 | 113 | 23 | 0 | 47 | 67 | 1569 |
| 1990 | 537 | 281 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 851 |
| Total $’s | 30,301 | 5,595 | 5,192 | 200 | 568 | 2,104 | 43,960 |
| Total %’s | 68.9% | 12.7% | 11.8% | 0.5% | 1.3% | 4.8% | 100% |
August 2, 2007 at 9:32 AM
I’m very thankful that you did not go into the obvious here as this argument as always tweaked me; although the chart says it all.
Even if we were the only ones that had supplied the fool with arms it does not follow a logical reality that we would then do nothing or blame ourselves so; justifying doing nothing.
It is an idiotic argument like most if not all from that side; would we be able to do anything on this planet if previous actions exacerbated something? NO, we wouldn’t.
Good find, gotta love the ones that speak for themselves…thanks for the assumed vote
August 2, 2007 at 9:57 AM
Yeah, well the left don’t need no stinkin’ facts to sully their beautiful emotions.
August 2, 2007 at 10:17 AM
Great stuff! The arming of Iraq we did was because of the Iran/Iraq war. We had no idea that Saddam would kill his own people or what an egomanical murderer he was.
Great stats. I have to say that Russia is concerning me more and more…
August 2, 2007 at 10:45 AM
I’m not sure what these 25-35 year old statistics are supposed to prove. What’s surely more relevant is the sagacity of our actions over the past five years in eliminating the only Arab state that could provide the ballast required to contain Iran in the region. What they are really a reflection of, is a desperation to find any fig leaf to justify the monumental incompetence that has forever ended US supremacy in the middle east and opened a Pandora’s box of existential threats to Israel.
August 2, 2007 at 10:53 AM
* Despite intelligence reports that Iraq still sponsored groups on the SD’s terrorist list, and “apparently without consulting Congress”, the Reagan Administration removed Iraq from the State terrorism sponsorship list in 1982.[3] The removal made Iraq eligible for U.S. dual-use and military technology.[4]
1983
* A SD report concluded that Iraq continued to support groups on the SD’s terrorist list.[5]
* Iraq reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and significantly increased CW use in 1983. Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, said that reports of Iraq using CWs on Iranian military personnel “drifted in” at the year’s end.[6] A declassified CIA report, probably written in late 1987, notes Iraq’s use of mustard gas in August 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the SD and/or National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq’s use of CW at this time.[7]
* Analysts recognized that “civilian” helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.[8] Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters.[9] Later, and despite some objections from the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters,[10] officially for crop spraying. See “1988″ for note on Iraq using U.S. Helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons.
* Later in the year the Reagan Administration secretly began to allow Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer to Iraq U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons.[11] Reagan personally asked Italy’s Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq.[12]
1984
* The SD announced on 6 March that, based on “available evidence,” it “concluded” that Iraq used “lethal chemical weapons” (specifically mustard gas) in fresh fighting with Iran.[13] On 20 March, U.S. intelligence officials said that they had “what they believe to be incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass-producing the lethal chemical warfare agent”.[14]
* European-based doctors examined Iranian troops in March 1984 and confirmed exposure to mustard gas.[15] The UN sent expert missions to the battle region in March 1984, February/March 1986, April/May 1987, March/April 1988, July 1988 (twice), and mid-August 1988. These missions detailed and documented Iraq’s CW use.[16]
* According to the Washington Post, the CIA began in 1984 secretly to give Iraq intelligence that Iraq uses to “calibrate” its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. In August, the CIA establishes a direct Washington-Baghdad intelligence link, and for 18 months, starting in early 1985, the CIA provided Iraq with “data from sensitive U.S. satellite reconnaissance photography…to assist Iraqi bombing raids.” The Post’s source said that this data was essential to Iraq’s war effort.[17]
* The United States re-established full diplomatic ties with Iraq on 26 November,[18] just over a year after Iraq’s first well-publicized CW use and only 8 months after the UN and U.S. reported that Iraq used CWs on Iranian troops.
Footnotes
[1] Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine, (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997), p. 11.
[2] Phythian, pp. 73-74. Phythian cites Financial Times, 23 February 1983.
[3] Milt Freudenheim, Barbara Slavin and William C. Rhoden, “The World in Summary; Readjustments In the Mideast”, New York Times, 28 February 1982.
[4] Phythian, p. 34.
[5] Bruce W. Jentleson, With Friends Like These: Reagan, Bush, and Saddam, 1982-1990, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), p. 52.
[6] Leonard A. Cole, The Eleventh Plague: The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare, (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1997), p. 87. Shultz’s comment is from George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), p. 238, quoted in Jentleson, p. 48.
[7] “CW Use in Iran-Iraq War”, declassified on 2 July 1996 and placed on the website of the Federation of American Scientists.
[8] Phythian, pp. 37-38.
[9] Phythian, p. 37.
[10] Phythian, p. 38. Phythian cites former NSC official Howard Teicher and Radley Gayle, Twin Pillars to Desert Storm: America’s Flawed Vision in the Middle East from Nixon to Bush, (New York: William Morrow, 1993), p. 275.
[11]Phythian, p. 35. Phythian cites Murray Waas and Craig Unger, “In the Loop: Bush’s Secret Mission,” New Yorker, p. 70.
[12] Phythian, p. 36. Phythian cites Alan Friedman, Spider’s Web: Bush, Saddam, Thatcher and the Decade of Deceit, (London: Faber, 1993), pp. 81-84.
[13] Cole, p. 243, n36. See Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Says Iraqis Used Poison Gas Against Iranians in Latest Battles,” New York Times, (March 6, 1984) for State Department quote.
[14] Cole, p. 243, n36. See Seymour M. Hersh, “U.S. Aides Say Iraqis Made Use of a Nerve Gas,” New York Times (March 30, 1984). Quotation marks are for Hersh’s words.
[15] Jentleson, p. 76.
[16] Jentleson, p. 76.
[17] Bob Woodward, “CIA Aiding Iraq in Gulf War; Target Data From U.S. Satellites Supplied for Nearly 2 Years,” Washington Post, 15 December 1986.
[18] Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Restores Full Ties With Iraq But Cites Neutrality in Gulf War,” New York Times, 27 November 1984.
[19] Jentleson, p. 54.
[20] Jentleson, p. 54. Jentleson quotes from Letter from Secretary of State George Shultz to Congressman Howard L. Berman, 20 June 1985.
[21] Jentleson, p. 54.
August 2, 2007 at 11:03 AM
Thank you for the info and clarification. Saddam did indeed use the WMD’s on his own.
As for the heli remarks possible being ‘weaponized,’ that is irrelevant. A car can be weaponized.
Now, much of the other data you posit is no more than speculative, at best.
Feel free to present documented evidence.
August 2, 2007 at 11:27 AM
The points are documented in the footnotes. Republicans, not democrats, took Saddam/Iraq off the terrorist list and when a democrat, Rep Berman, sponsored a bill that passed the house, Schultz came in and killed it.
The problem of arming and attacking Iraq is totally a republican mess up.
* In 1985 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to put Iraq back on the State terrorism sponsorship list.[19] After the bill’s passage, Shultz wrote to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Howard Berman, cited the U.S.’ “diplomatic dialogue on this and other sensitive issues, ” claimed that “Iraq has effectively distanced itself from international terrorism,” and stated that if the U.S. found that Iraq supports groups practicing terrorism “we would promptly return Iraq to the list.”[20] Rep. Berman dropped the bill and explicitly cited Shultz’s assurances.[21]
* Iraq’s Saad 16 General Establishment’s director wrote a letter to the Commerce Department (CD) detailing the activities in Saad’s 70 laboratories. These activities had the trademarks of ballistic missile development.[22]
[17] Bob Woodward, “CIA Aiding Iraq in Gulf War; Target Data From U.S. Satellites Supplied for Nearly 2 Years,” Washington Post, 15 December 1986.
[18] Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. Restores Full Ties With Iraq But Cites Neutrality in Gulf War,” New York Times, 27 November 1984.
[19] Jentleson, p. 54.
[20] Jentleson, p. 54. Jentleson quotes from Letter from Secretary of State George Shultz to Congressman Howard L. Berman, 20 June 1985.
[21] Jentleson, p. 54.
[22] Prepared statement of Gary Milhollin, director, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, before the Subcommittee on Technology and National Security of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, 23 April 1991. Cited in Committee on Government Operations, House, “Strengthening the Export Licensing System,” 2 July 1991, para.11.
[23] Committee on Government Operations, House, “Strengthening the Export Licensing System,” 2 July 1991, para.10.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ibid, para.9.
August 2, 2007 at 11:27 AM
John, you said “I’m not sure what these 25-35 year old statistics are supposed to prove. What’s surely more relevant is the sagacity of our actions over the past five years in eliminating the only Arab state that could provide the ballast required to contain Iran in the region.”
Iraq could not contain Iranian missiles any more than anything short of a concerted western sponsored military attack against Iran could.
As for our involvement in Iraq having opened “a Pandora’s box of existential threats to Israel,” don’t be absurd. They existential threat to Israel by dysfunctional, failed and tyrannical regimes in the region has long pre existd our presence in the region.
August 2, 2007 at 11:30 AM
“I’m not sure what these 25-35 year old statistics…”
“I’m not sure what Vietnam has to do with Iraq…” We’ll eventually get ourselves back to the revolution
“* Despite intelligence reports that Iraq still sponsored groups on the SD’s terrorist list, and…”
“It is an idiotic argument like most if not all from that side; would we be able to do anything on this planet if previous actions exacerbated something? NO, we wouldn’t.”
August 2, 2007 at 11:40 AM
“The points are documented in the footnotes”
This where you academic shortcomings come through.
Newspapers, authors and so on, are not acceptable documentation.
That said, some of the references you cite are valid- but not necesarily in context.
For example, you cite Schultz’s efforts to engage Iraq, a fact. What you do not cite (by way of ignorance or deceit) is that failed to comply and live up to it’s promises.
All this leads back to the assertions you have made before, on which I agree.
There is no point in supporting or engaging any dysfunctional and tyrannical Arab regime. They have proved time and time again they cannot be relied upon or trusted.
August 2, 2007 at 12:03 PM
doubleplusungood refs doubleplusunevents.
memhole.
war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength
bush is goldstein
hillary in 2008
August 2, 2007 at 1:24 PM
“This where you academic shortcomings come through.
Newspapers, authors and so on, are not acceptable documentation.”
Heeheehee….uh…yeah.
Which regulations are you referring to? Neocon-Job Manual of Spin?
Please Siggy. Your daily displays of hypocrisy and neutered intellect are sufficient without going “all-out” the fool.
August 2, 2007 at 1:27 PM
“This where you academic shortcomings come through.
Newspapers, authors and so on, are not acceptable documentation.”
Heeheehee….uh…yeah.
Which regulations are you referring to? Neocon-Job Manual of Spin? Or the APA Manual?
Books and periodicals aren’t good enough for you.
Please “Dr.” Siggy. Your daily displays of hypocrisy and neutered intellect are sufficient without going “all-out” the fool.
August 2, 2007 at 1:47 PM
LOLOL
Buzz, after reading the drivel you direct at Dr Sanity, it is clear that your shortcomings are rather deep.
In any event, if you are defending using newspapers and what is unsubstantiated and questionable sources by authors that have no direct experience in the matter on which they opine, you make my case.
Thank you.
Keep up the dance- it really is most entertaining!
August 2, 2007 at 6:59 PM
[...] “Yeah, Well America Armed Saddam” Below is a chart of arms sales to Iraq. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) . See also […] [...]
August 3, 2007 at 9:16 AM
and it was done all in the name of peak oil
see
http://samvega.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/burn-bany-burn-the-green-movement-peak-oil-and-transition-towns/
November 3, 2010 at 3:55 AM
http://archive.pressthink.org/2006/04/09/waas_now.html
June 20, 2011 at 6:31 AM
[...] Arms from the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact totaled 68.9%, France 12.7% and mainland China 11.8%. Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. As to Iraq not constituting a, threat are you kidding me? In 1990 Saddam attempted to corner [...]