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by Felicity Arbuthnot
November 14, 2013
from
GlobalResearch Website
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"The individual is handicapped by coming
face to face
with a conspiracy so monstrous
he cannot believe it
exists."
J. Edgar Hoover
1895-1972
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Since the fairy tale about weapons of mass
destruction that can be launched against Western targets "within forty five
minutes" is well past it's sell by date, the trans-Atlantic
hasbara industry
has dreamed up
a new Grim Reaper for Syria, their latest quarry: chemical
weapons.
Stephen Zunes succinct quote that:
"U.S. policy regarding chemical weapons has
been so inconsistent and politicized that the United States is in no
position to take leadership in response to any use of such weaponry by
Syria" (i) hits the chemical warhead on the nose cone.
Never mind Israel's lethal stockpiles, for ever,
seemingly, blind eye territory, as apparently is the United States 5,449
metric tons chemical weapons arsenal, which cannot be disposed of until at
least 2021 due to the hazards involved (Japan Times, 12 September 2013.).
However the storm troopers of the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW) joined the other insurgents in Syria and in
under a month:
"�completed the functional destruction of
critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production
facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable."
(ii)
President Assad, his country, this year
alone, being five times an illegal target of Israel's fearsome destructive
power from just across the Golan Heights (iii) stated that
his weapons were purely defensive - to use the cold war adage, a balance of
terror.
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All nations have the legal right to self-defence
- unless they are majority Muslim, it would seem.
Compared to the might of the countries threatening its destruction, Syria is
now, if not quite a sitting duck, certainly a lamer one and must be mindful
of the fate of Libya, when pressured and Iraq when forced to disarm.
Coincidentally, President Assad's assertions are almost exactly those used
by the United States regarding chemical weapons - at a time when the U.S.
was certainly at no threat from external forces.
On 28 March 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that:
"The U.S. government is considering forcing
two defiant chemical companies to sell the Pentagon a key ingredient for
producing nerve gas, Pentagon officials said �"
Further,
"The United States has said that it would
need chemical weapons to deter the Soviets' use of chemical weapons
during a non-nuclear conflict in Central Europe - a prospect even (the
then) Defense Secretary Dick Cheney (termed) 'extremely remote.' "
This was five months after the fall of the
Berlin Wall (9 November 1989) and fifteen months after
then President Gorbachev had committed, at the UN, to cutting Soviet
troops by a massive 500,000, including withdrawing significant military
presence in eastern Europe. (iv) A hand of reconciliation to the U.S., by any
standards, after approaching fifty years of hostilities.
Given the circumstances, was the US really concerned about the "Soviet
threat" or was an un-noticed elephant lurking round the corner?
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The LA Times article was headed:
"Firms Balk at Selling Nerve Gas Element to
U.S.: Two chemical companies cite corporate policy and ethics. But the
Pentagon may invoke an old law and force them to deliver the compound."
"The Occidental Chemical Corp., and the Mobay Corp., said company
policies forbid sales that would contribute to the proliferation of
chemical weapons. Both refused to fill Defense Department orders for
thionyl chloride, a widely used industrial and agricultural chemical
that is needed to make a lethal nerve agent."
Thus,
"The U.S. government is considering forcing
two defiant chemical companies to sell the Pentagon a key ingredient for
producing nerve gas �
"Defense officials said the two firms are the only ones in the United
States that now commercially produce the chemical agent. The firms'
unwillingness to sell has brought the production of a new generation of
U.S. chemical weapons, which began in 1987, to a halt.
"The Army needs 160,000 pounds of the ingredient by June to proceed on
schedule, the Pentagon said. Government officials said they can compel
the companies to sell the chemical under the Defense Production Act, a
1950 law designed to give the Pentagon first priority on war materiel."
What war did the Pentagon have in mind, since
the Administration of the President
George H.W. Bush was working, "to negotiate a worldwide ban"
on chemical arms production and just four months earlier Bush had also:
"proposed to Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev that the superpowers sign an accord at their summit this June
that would call for the destruction of 80% of their chemical weapons�"
Yet regarding the purchase of the potentially
lethal chemicals:
"If the United States invokes the Defense
Production Act, the companies will get the message that this is
important and that they should reconsider their policies", said one
official.
Occidental Petroleum Corp's,
"Chairman and chief executive officer Armand
Hammer (was) a longtime champion of improved U.S. relations with the
Soviet Union and has been critical of the pace of U.S. arms control
efforts."
A spokesman for Mobay, subsidiary of German
giant, Bayer,
"said the Pentagon approached Mobay with an
order for 160,000 pounds of thionyl chloride�"
It was needed by June (1990) for use in the
production of the nerve agent Sarin, noted the New Scientist (7
April 1990.)
Mobay's man was robust:
"We have told the government... that we have
no intentions of selling thionyl chloride for these purposes."
So, to the lurking elephant.
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It seems it was
less about deterring "the Soviets'�" and more about an Iraq, financially on
its knees and fiscally relentlessly undermined and targeted by the U.S.
since the end of the Iran-Iraq war (September1980-August1988) in which the
U.S. had backed Iraq (and armed both sides.)
During and after a U.S., driven war, devastating both countries, Kuwait,
Iraq accused, had been slant drilling in to Iraq's Rumaila oil fields.
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In addition, since the end of the war, Kuwait
had hugely exceeded OPEC production quotas, costing, Iraq claimed, $14
billion a year, in addition to the $2.4 billion estimated loss from the war
period extractions of,
"some millions of barrels" - additionally
"capturing some of Iraq's customers." (v)
Saddam Hussein had told a session of the Arab
League:
"We cannot tolerate this kind of economic
warfare. We have reached a state of affairs where we cannot take the
pressure."
Whatever else, he was the proudest of men, the
admission must have cost him dearly.
That America did not know something was about to give in the near future is
unthinkable. The U.S. had flagged Kuwait's oil tankers with U.S., flags in
1987, to protect the statelet with the world's fifth largest oil reserves,
from Iran - and they remained U.S. flagged.
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An attack on Kuwait would be an attack on a
U.S., protectorate.
Interestingly, some in Washington were sympathetic to Saddam Hussein's view:
"Henry M. Schuler, director of the energy
security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, said that from the Iraqi viewpoint, the Kuwait Government
was 'acting aggressively - it was economic warfare.' "
"Whether he's Hitler or not, he has some reason on his side", Mr.
Schuler said, adding that, "American officials needed to appreciate the
economic and psychological significance the Rumaila field holds for the
Iraqis and why Kuwait's exploitation of Rumaila, in addition to its high
oil output in the 1980′s, was an affront to the Iraqis.
"It's not just the emotional man in the street in the Arab world who
finds the Iraq case appealing," he said.
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"So do many of those who are thinking,
intelligent people. If the Iraqi people feel they are the victims of
aggression, and that their legitimate claims are being stifled now by
American intervention, they will hang in there a lot longer than if that
were not the case."
As recently as 2011, veteran, ten term
Congressman Ron Paul talked in Congress on the slant drilling claims
pointing out that:
"Historian Mark Zepezauer notes that the
equipment to slant drill Iraq's oil illegally was bought from (US
National Security Advisor to President George H.W. Bush) Brent
Scowcroft's old company.
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Kuwait was pumping out around $14-billion
worth of oil from beneath Iraqi territory� Slant-drilling is enough to
get you shot in Texas, and it's certainly enough to start a war in the
Mideast." (vi)
However, it was not just Kuwait targeting Iraq's
frail finances, as Brian Becker wrote in a detailed account.
(vii)
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The U.S., betrayal of their ally in the regional
ravages of the Iran-Iraq war, was total:
"Having weakened Iran, the goal was then to
weaken Iraq and make sure that it could not develop as a regional power
capable of challenging U.S. domination.
�
After the war ended, U.S. policy
toward Iraq shifted, becoming increasingly hostile. The way it shifted
is quite revealing; bearing all the signs of a well-planned conspiracy.
"The cease-fire between Iran and Iraq began on August 20, 1988. On
September 8, 1988, Iraqi Foreign Minister Sa'dun Hammadi was to meet
with U.S. Secretary of State George Schulz.
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The Iraqis had every reason
to expect a warm welcome in Washington and to begin an era of closer
co-operation on trade and industrial development."
In the event, two hours before the meeting,
without warning to Sa'dun Hammadi, State Department spokesman
Charles Redman called a press conference charging that:
"The U.S. Government is convinced that Iraq
has used chemical weapons� against Kurdish guerillas. We don't know the
extent to which chemical weapons have been used but any use in this
context is abhorrent and unjustifiable.
�
We expressed our strong concern to the Iraqi
Government which is well aware of our position that the use of chemical
weapons is totally unjustifiable and unacceptable."
"Redman did not allude to any evidence at all" and further mislead,
since seemingly the Iraqi government was not informed of the charges.
When Hammadi arrived at the State Department for
his meeting with Schulz, he was besieged by the media asking about the
massacre and unable to give coherent answers. Bewildered, he repeatedly
asked the journalists the basis for their questions.
The meeting with Schulz was a dismal:
"with Iraq's expectations of U.S. assistance
in rebuilding after the Iran-Iraq war dashed."
"Within twenty-four hours of Redman's press release, the Senate voted
unanimously to impose economic sanctions on Iraq which would cancel
sales of food and technology."
Whilst the genocidal and ecocidal U.N. blockade
on Iraq from August 1990 is remembered, this previous U.S. stab in the back
to a former ally on its financial knees is forgotten.
Thus, in addition to Kuwait's alleged fiscal sabotage was, from September 9,
1988,
"�a two year record that amounts to economic
harassment of Iraq by the American State Department, media, and
Congress."
However, after the chemical weapons
announcement, the near daily rhetoric regarding Saddam from Washington and
Whitehall was that:
"he gasses his own people", "uses chemical
weapons against his own people."
And the drums of war beat ever louder.
In fact,
"US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped
Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly chemical and biological
weapons�
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As an envoy from President Reagan� he had a secret meeting with
(Saddam) and arranged enormous military assistance for his war with
Iran� a Senate committee investigating the relationship between the U.S.
and Iraq discovered that in the mid-1980s - following the Rumsfeld visit
- dozens of biological agents were shipped to Iraq under licence from
the Commerce Department.
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"They included anthrax, subsequently
identified by the Pentagon as a key component of the Iraqi biological
warfare program� 'The Commerce Department also approved the export of
insecticides to Iraq, despite widespread suspicions that they were being
used for chemical warfare'." (viii)
Pressure on Iraq accelerating, the U.S.-U.K.,
and "coalition" was handed another propaganda coup, when, on 15 March 1990,
Iraq executed Farzad Bazoft, an Iranian born freelance journalist
with a desk at London's Observer newspaper.
After a massive explosion as al-Iskaderia military complex, south of
Baghdad, Bazoft had persuaded Daphne Parrish, a British nurse,
working in Baghdad, to take him to the perimeter of the site of the
explosion.
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There he took photographs and two containers of
soil samples. He attempted to leave Baghdad the following day, but was
arrested, with the samples and photographs at Baghdad airport.
Iraq was again the Western media and governments' mega demon. But an Iranian
acting as he did, after the appalling eight year war would surely have led
any country, in such circumstances to act similarly. Witness U.S. paranoia
after the tragedy of losing three buildings.
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Daphne Parrish's book, "Prisoner
in Baghdad" gives the lie to any claims of Bazoft's innocence.
Just two weeks later America was demanding the chemicals for weapons "by
June."
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On 25 July 1990, at the Presidential Palace in
Baghdad, America's Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie assured Saddam
Hussein:
"We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab
conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James)
Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq
in the 1960′s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with
America." (ix)
On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The response was the reduction of Iraq to a "pre-industrial age", as
threatened by James Baker, in the forty two day blitz from January 17
1991.
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On February 15, in the preamble to cease-fire
proposal, Saddam Hussein said
"The years 1988 and 1989 saw sustained
campaigns in the press and other media and by other officials in the
United States and other nations to pave the way for the fulfillment of
vicious aims (i.e., war.)"
Had there been one more "vicious aim" though?
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Was the urging, indeed the threatening demands
for chemical weapons ingredients been because the plan had been to use them
and blame Iraq?
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Is it possible there was a plan to even sacrifice their own
troops in a ploy that would have likely had U.N., backing invasion and
overthrow Saddam Hussein's government had it been thought to have used such
appalling weapons?
In the event, the chemical companies stood firm and:
"left without the supply of thionyl chloride
necessary to meet the production deadline, five weeks later the Bush
administration 'offered' to halt binary production during chemical
disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union." (x)
The,
"conclusion is that the US chemical
industry's refusal to produce necessary precursor chemicals, left the
Bush administration with no other option than to fully commit to
chemical disarmament."
In the event, the chemical - and radiological -
weapons the U.S., used were in up to 750 tons of depleted uranium weaponry.
We will have to wait for another trove of documents to be "liberated" from
the U.S., Administration to affirm whether the theory regarding the pressure
for the chemical weapons is correct.
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However, given the propaganda parallels in
media, from governments with the current situation with Syria and the near
certainty that chemical horrors are being used by the Western backed
insurgents and blamed on President Assad's policies, the all is well worth
bearing in mind.
As Brian Becker concluded regarding Saddam's accusations:
"The Washington Post's story on the
cease-fire proposal of February 15, 1991 was titled simply: 'Baghdad's
Conspiracy Theory of Recent History.' Some conspiracies theories just
happen to be true."
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References
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http://fpif.org/the_us_and_chemical_weapons_no_leg_to_stand_on/
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http://www.opcw.org/news/article/syria-completes-destruction-activities-to-render-inoperable-chemical-weapons-production-facilities-a/
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http://www.infowars.com/israel-attacks-syria-again/
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http://articles.latimes.com/1988-12-07/news/mn-1054_1_world-leaders
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http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/03/world/confrontation-in-the-gulf-the-oilfield-lying-below-the-iraq-kuwait-dispute.html?src=pm
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http://www.infowars.com/ron-paul-enters-evidence-of-bush-war-crimes-in-congressional-record/
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http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-consp.htm
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-153210/Rumsfeld-helped-Iraq-chemical-weapons.html#ixzz2kRCo4p5S
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http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE5/april.html
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http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/chemical-weapons-us_b_3945933.html
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