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Abz2000
04-07-2017, 07:34 PM
I've begun looking into the history of iraq again and would like to post some information that may be useful to keep in mind when hearing "humanitarian" justification attempts for bombing the people of the region:

CONFRONTATION IN THE GULF;
The Oilfield Lying Below the Iraq-Kuwait Dispute
By THOMAS C. HAYES
Published: September 3, 1990

Percentages Set by Formula

Oil formations frequently run be neath political boundaries, whether they involve unfriendly leaseholders in West Texas or neighboring Arab states, and procedures have existed for years to settle disputes that arise. Typically, participants in the same field share both production costs and revenues, using a formula that sets percentages of ownership.

But Iraq refused to negotiate with Kuwait on such an agreement. So Ku wait produced oil from Rumaila with out any agreement, and then adopted a policy of producing far more oil than it was allowed under the quota system of the Organization of Petroleum Export ing Countries. That policy became an other sticking point in relations with Iraq, which contended that the over production depressed oil prices and revenues for all OPEC members.

Iraq had produced oil from the field before it went to war with Iran. Of a total of 615 wells in Iraq, 225 were in the Rumaila field, according to 1986 fig ures, the latest available, from John S. Herold Inc., an oil industry consulting firm in Greenwich, Conn.

Field Mined During War

But during the Iran war Iraq mined its giant share of the Rumaila field to keep it from falling into Iranian hands, Western political experts say. Kuwait stepped up its total oil production, cap turing some of Iraq's customers and pumping millions of barrels from the Rumaila field. After the war with Iran ended in a cease-fire in 1988, Iraq re sumed drilling in Rumaila.

Iraq's dispute with Kuwait, has its roots in Britain's decision in 1899 to es tablish Kuwait as a British protector ate. The Kuwait royal family had ruled the area since 1756, but Iraq still con sidered it part of its southern province, The dispute flared again more than 30 years ago, shortly after oil was dis covered in 1953 in Iraqi territory in the huge Rumaila reservoir. After the Arab League of States established the Kuwait-Iraq border two miles north of the southern tip of the oilfield, Kuwait erected oil rigs on its own territory and drilled into the rich pool below. Kuwait has never disclosed how much Rumaila oil it has pumped. $2.4 Billion Claim by Iraq But President Saddam Hussein says Kuwait owes Iraq $2.4 billion for oil taken from the field. In addition to as serting that Kuwait owed Iraq for the oil it had produced, Mr. Hussein told an emergency meeting of the Arab League in May that excessive supplies of Kuwaiti oil in the world market in the last two years had undermined OPEC production quotas and de pressed world oil prices. He said that action cost Iraq $14 billion a year, or far more than Kuwait had lent Iraq during Iraq's confrontation with Iran.

His remarks to the Arab League's closed session were reported by the Middle East Economic Survey in an issue that reached American experts after the invasion of Kuwait.

Sounding the alarm over Iraq's mounting grievances against Kuwait, Mr. Hussein told the Arab League that ''we cannot tolerate this type of eco nomic warfare,'' and added, ''We have reached a state of affairs where we cannot take the pressure.''

Assertions Rejected

In a memorandum to the Arab League dated July 19, Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah, the Foreign Minister of Kuwait, rejected Mr. Hussein's as sertions about Kuwait's production from the Rumaila reserves. ''Kuwait has produced oil from wells within its territory south of the Arab League line and far enough away from the interna tional borders to conform with interna tional standards,'' he wrote in the memo.

The Kuwaiti royal family did not re spond to a request made Friday to a spokesman in Taif, Saudi Arabia, where the family is in exile, for com ment on Kuwait's production at the Rumaila field.

Kuwait's overall production in 1989, an average of 1.8 million barrels a day, exceeded its OPEC quota by 700,000 barrels. The Kuwaiti Government's hope was to force Mr. Hussein to the bargaining table, and then extract from him a border truce that included Rumaila drilling rights, as well as a non-aggression pact. Instead, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and drove its ruling family into exile.

'Economic Warfare'

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 eco nomic warfare.''

''Whether he's Hitler or not, he has some reason on his side,'' Mr. Schuler said of President Hussein. He added that American officials needed to ap preciate the economic and psychologi cal significance the Rumaila field holds for the Iraqis and why Kuwait's exploi tation of Rumaila, in addition to its high oil output in the 1980's, was an afront 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. ''So do many of those who are thinking, in telligent 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.''

Some Middle East experts dismiss Iraq's complaints about Kuwait's ac tivities in the Rumaila field. They say Mr. Hussein has voiced these and other charges to justify a long-held desire to plunder Kuwait's financial wealth and give his nearly landlocked country con trol of more than 200 miles of Persian Gulf coastline.

'Only a Smokescreen'

''The issue of oil taken from the Rumaila field is only a smokescreen to disguise Iraq's more ambitious inten tions,'' said Marvin Zonis, a professor of political economy at the University of Chicago's Graduate Business School. ''The Iraqis will claim anything to jus tify the incorporation of Kuwait.''

Some Iraqi officials have accused Kuwait in the past of using advanced drilling techniques developed by Amer ican oilfield specialists to siphon oil from the Rumaila field, a charge that American drillers deny, noting that the oil flows easily from the Rumaila field without any need for these techniques.

The Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, with headquarters in London, acquired American drilling expertise when it bought the Santa Fe International Cor poration in 1981 for $2.4 billion. Santa Fe, based in Alhambra, Calif., has separate divisions that specialize in oil field drilling and rig operations, pri marily in offshore areas around the world, as well as in exploration and production, mostly in the Gulf of Mexi co, Texas and Louisiana.

Six American Workers

John J. Mika, Santa Fe's vice presi dent of administration, said six Santa Fe employees, all Americans, were among the oil workers captured by Iraqi troops in the early moments of the Aug. 2 invasion. All of the men were believed taken to Baghdad, he added.

The Santa Fe employees worked on several rigs ''immediately adjacent'' to the Iraqi border, Mr. Mika said. He added that he was unaware of any well that might have utilized the ''slant'' drilling technique along the Iraqi border.

W. C. Goins, senior vice president of OGE Drilling Inc., a Houston company that provided oilfield supervisors and workers for Kuwait in the same area, said he was ''positive'' all of the wells his employees drilled and operated ran vertically down to the Rumaila pay zone. ''That field crosses the border in north Kuwait,'' he added. ''Iraqis were drilling on one side, and Kuwaitis on the other side.''

He said that Iraqi border guards would come over to the Kuwaiti oil wells occasionally and shared the rig workers' lunches - but under Kuwaiti law the workers were not allowed to drink the beer that the Iraqis brought with them, to the Iraqis' delight.

Now those lunches are a thing of the past. Of the 18 Americans employed by OGE in Kuwait, six have been missing since the invasion. At least two were ''taken to Baghdad right away,'' Mr. Goins said.

Map: Iraq and Kuwait indicating the Rumaila oil field (The New York Times)
Another take:

After the First World War in 1921 Sir Percy Cox of the British Colonial Office drew new borders between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, establishing Kuwait as a small kingdom that took away most of Iraq's coastline. The rich oil deposits in the region were exploited and controlled by seven oil companies from England, France, and the United States until Iran's Mossadegh government nationalized their oil in 1951, taking it from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now British Petroleum). Western nations imposed sanctions on Iran until 1953, when the CIA helped overthrow Mossadegh. Then General Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. helped Shah Reza Pahlevi set up the oppressive SAVAK state police. The Hashemite monarchy in Iraq was overthrown in 1958 by a nationalist revolution led by Abdel Karim Kassem, and two years later the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded to counter the western oil monopolies. In 1963 a CIA-backed coup killed Kassem and thousands of his supporters.
Five years later the secular Ba'ath Party gained power in Iraq, and they nationalized Iraq's oil in 1972. In May of that year President Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the Shah of Iran began instigating the Kurds in northern Iraq to rebel by giving them weapons. When Iraq agreed to share the disputed Shatt-al-Arab waterway with Iran in 1975, the Shah stopped supporting the Kurds. The Shah was overthrown by the Iranian revolution in February 1979. Saddam Hussein replaced al-Bakr as president of Iraq in June, After the Americans in the Tehran embassy were taken hostage by the Iranian radicals in November, US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski began urging Iraq to attack Iran to take back the waterway. A year later Iraq's Saddam Hussein, guided by US intelligence, went to war against Iran, a war that would last eight years and kill about a million people. Weaker Iraq was supported in this war effort at first by the Soviet empire, Arab states including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and then by the western powers Britain, France, West Germany, and the United States, which provided satellite and AWACS intelligence. Egypt, which was receiving $2 billion per year in US aid, sent Iraq troops, tanks, and heavy artillery. Another US aid recipient, Turkey, helped Iraq by fighting its Kurdish rebels. Saudi Arabia provided money, and Kuwait alone loaned Iraq $30 billion.
The US sold arms worth $20 billion to Gulf states, and the Reagan administration illegally allowed Saudi Arabia to transfer weapons to Iraq. In 1972 the US had declared Iraq a nation that supports terrorism, but the Reagan regime took Iraq off that list. How the White House illegally armed Iraq is explained in detail by investigative reporter Alan Friedman in Spider's Web. In December 1983 President Reagan sent special envoy Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad to restore diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein's government and to offer US loan guarantees to Iraq. The next spring the Export-Import Bank sent Iraq $500 million. The US also became Iraq's major trading partner by increasing its purchases of Iraqi oil. Vice President Bush, the State Department, and the CIA urged the Export-Import Bank to finance US exports to Iraq. The Atlanta branch of the Italian Banca Nazionale del Lavoro arranged for $5.5 billion in fraudulent loans that were guaranteed by the Commodity Credit Corporation. In 1986 a CIA team was sent to Baghdad as military advisors. Meanwhile Oliver North had been secretly shipping arms to Iran until this illegal trade was exposed in late 1986. The next year the US helped Iraq by protecting Kuwaiti oil tankers. In the late 1980s CIA fronts in Saudi Arabia and Chile sent 73 weapons transactions to Baghdad that included weapons-grade anthrax and equipment to repair rockets.

The Iraq-Iran War ended with a cease-fire on August 7, 1988, and the next day Kuwait drastically increased its oil production, breaking OPEC agreements and driving the price from $21 a barrel down to $11. this would cost Iraq $14 billion a year. While Iraq had been preoccupied fighting Iran, Kuwait had moved the border to the north and, using slant-drilling technology supplied by the US, was pumping oil from Iraq's Rumaila oil field. Iraq needed peace to rebuild and pay its $80 billion war debt, but it was being economically squeezed; Iraq's inflation was at 40% as the dinar sank. During an Arab summit meeting at Amman in February 1990 Saddam Hussein asked the US to withdraw from the Gulf and alerted others that the US wanted to dominate the Gulf region and fix oil prices. The next month Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) refused to follow OPEC production limits. Israel had bombed Iraq's nuclear power complex in 1981, and in April 1990 Saddam Hussein proposed that the Middle East become a nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons-free zone. In May, Saddam Hussein complained of economic warfare, and on July 17 he publicly accused Kuwait and the US of conspiring to destroy Iraq's economy. He warned them, and the next day Iraqi troops moved to the Kuwaiti border.
Only after the Iraq-Iran War ended did the US complain that Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons on the Kurds six months before. Yet the US had helped supply such weapons that also had been used against Iran. The US Senate voted to cancel technology and food sales to Iraq. In 1989 CENTCOM's war plan 1002 was revised to make Iraq the enemy instead of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War meant that the US was no longer deterred from being aggressive in this region. Early in 1990 the CENTCOM commander General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. told Congress that Middle Eastern oil is the West's lifeblood, and he recommended a permanent military presence in the region. He also conducted four war games directed at Iraq; some of these were based on an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. On July 25 the US announced more Gulf war exercises; but US ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam Hussein that State Department policy was that the US had no position on Arab-Arab conflicts.
On August 2, 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. President Bush immediately prohibited US trade with Iraq and froze $30 billion in Iraqi assets, making Iraq unable to pay its UN dues. The US insisted that Iraq's vote be taken away even though the US owed the UN $1.6 billion in unpaid dues at the time. The same day a US battle group of seven warships was dispatched, and the next day the United Nations Security Council condemned Iraq. Saddam Hussein told Jordan's King Hussein that he would withdraw if the Arab League did not condemn Iraq. King Hussein tried to persuade Egypt's Hosni Mubarak; but Egypt was pressured by the US and introduced the condemnation resolution. So instead of withdrawing, Saddam Hussein claimed that Kuwait was part of Iraq. On August 6 the UN Security Council imposed international sanctions on Iraq, and the next day the US persuaded King Fahd to let the US military use territory in Saudi Arabia. The US claimed that Iraqi troops were near the Saudi border, but satellite photos later refuted this. On August 8 President Bush ordered 40,000 troops to defend Saudi Arabia. Four days later Saddam Hussein offered to withdraw from Kuwait if Israel would pull out of the occupied territories. Then he made another offer without linking it to Israel, but the US rejected these. Saddam Hussein even offered to debate President Bush and Prime Minister Thatcher on television. In September embargoed Iraq began rationing food supplies. Chomsky considered Iraq's invasion of Kuwait roughly comparable to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1978 or 1982 and the US invasion of Panama in 1989.

In the United States the media began demonizing Saddam Hussein, and Secretary of State James Baker even argued that the war was necessary to provide jobs for the sagging economy. When a poll showed that Americans would support an invasion to prevent Iraq from getting nuclear weapons, that argument was used even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimated that Iraq was at least three years away from having even one atomic bomb. A girl, who turned out to be the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, testified before a Congressional committee that Iraqi soldiers had taken babies from incubators, but this was later exposed as a hoax devised by the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton. By October, Bush had massed 400,000 US troops in the region, and this increased to 573,000 before the war began. President Bush refused to negotiate except to give Iraq an ultimatum to withdraw by January 15, 1991, the UN deadline. The United States used bribery and threats to get the United Nations Security Council to give it authorization for the war. Ethiopia, Zaire, and Colombia got new aid. China got a loan from the World Bank and better diplomatic relations. After its vote, the Soviet Union was loaned $4 billion by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. Egypt altogether had $14 billion of debt canceled. Cuba and Yemen were punished for not voting in favor. The UN allowed the US and its allies to act without any limitation, and the US never even reported what it did. Essentially the UN had relinquished its authority to the US.
On January 16 Bush ordered General Schwarzkopf to begin the attack. Iraq was immediately hit with thousands of missiles and bombs that destroyed 85% of its power and vital services within two days. This attack on the civilian infrastructure that destroyed Iraq's energy, sewage, and water systems has been considered a form of biological warfare because of the diseases caused. This was probably the most one-sided war in history, and it is more accurate to call it a massacre or genocide. Iraq had between 125,000 and 150,000 soldiers killed, while the US lost only 148 killed in combat, 37 of them by "friendly fire." In six weeks the US flew 109,000 sorties over Kuwait and Iraq. Although the purpose was supposed to be to drive the Iraqi soldiers out of Kuwait, 88,500 tons of explosives were dropped on Iraq; only 6,520 tons were the precision-guided "smart bombs," which were so well publicized.
On February 13 a US bomb killed 1,500 civilians in a Baghdad bomb shelter, and two days later President Bush urged the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein. On February 21 Soviet diplomats announced that Iraq had agreed to withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait. The US gave them two days to do so before starting the ground attack. On February 26 as Iraqi troops tried to retreat or surrender along the Basra road, thousands were slaughtered during the "turkey shoot" on the "highway of death." Two days later Iraq and the US agreed on a cease-fire; but two days after that, thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed in another battle that did not kill a single American.
Ramsey Clark estimated that the bombing killed at least 25,000 Iraqi civilians directly and another 25,000 indirectly. American bombing hit 28 hospitals, 52 community clinics, and 676 schools, completely destroying 38 schools. Civilian vehicles on highways were strafed. The Pentagon admitted that civilian targets were attacked to demoralize the people and make the sanctions more effective. Modern Iraq was reduced to a pre-industrial condition as sewage and sanitation systems were destroyed; power was scarce, and most communications systems could not operate. The Iraqi people were held hostage as the US and its allies hoped that Saddam Hussein would be overthrown, causing tens of thousands to die of starvation and disease. After President Bush had repeatedly urged the southern Shi'is and northern Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein, he let them be slaughtered by the ruthless dictator, further weakening the country.
The embargo imposed to get Iraq to leave Kuwait was not lifted, and continuing sanctions prevented recovery. Oil-exporting Iraq had been importing 70% of its food.

With its assets frozen it had little revenue to purchase food. In June 1992 the US even bombed grain and wheat fields near Mosul in northern Iraq. The United States dominated the UN committee that severely restricted Iraq's importation of food and medicine. These conditions caused several thousand Iraqis, many of them children, to die each month and would continue for at least a dozen years. The sanctions were not lifted because Iraq was expected to pay at least $70 billion in reparations despite its previous debt and ruined country. The cost of rebuilding Iraq was estimated at $200 billion. The United Nations offered to let Iraq sell $1.6 billion worth of oil each six months; but 30% of this was to go for reparations and 5% for weapons destruction and border decisions, leaving Iraq with $1.04 billion over six months for food and medicine even though that would only cover food alone for four months. Iraq considered the offer so unfair that they declined. The UN committee gave most of the disputed Ramaila oil field to Kuwait.
The US Congress estimated that the first Gulf War cost the US $61.1 billion; but the superpower had become a mercenary and was reimbursed for $54 billion of this in cash and services. Kuwait contributed $16 billion, Saudi Arabia $16 billion, Japan $10 billion, Germany more than $6 billion, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) $4 billion. Japan and Germany did not participate militarily in the coalition because of their treaties made at the end of World War II. The United Kingdom spent $4.1 billion.
The intensive bombing also caused an environmental disaster.

In August 1990 the Bush administration had signed a waiver to exempt the military operations from the National Environmental Protection Act. In December 1990 the United Nations passed a resolution to prohibit attacks on nuclear facilities; but Gen. Schwarzkopf announced that these were primary targets, and on January 23 General Colin Powell confirmed that Iraq's two nuclear reactors had been destroyed. A week later Schwarzkopf said that eighteen chemical, ten biological, and three nuclear plants had been attacked. The US and British aircraft launched some 50,000 rockets and missiles containing depleted uranium (DU), and the US forces fired a total of 944,000 rounds of the DU armor-piercing shells. The uranium-238 causes cancer and birth defects and will remain in those areas indefinitely. Iraq did spill and burn oil, but Saudi scientists estimated that 30% of the oil spilled was caused by the bombing. The oil spilled into the Gulf was estimated to be twenty times that of the Exxon Valdez spill, by far the worst in history. University of Toronto Peace Institute researchers have estimated that 30% of all environmental degradation in the world is caused by military activities.

Posted 11th May 2011 by PL OrG


http://hazzanalche.blogspot.com/2011...nt-to.html?m=1

IV.II The International Scene

Meanwhile in the Middle East, conflict was brewing between Iraq and Kuwait. The historical context of Iraq-Kuwait conflict lies in the fact that Kuwait was once a district of Iraq during Ottoman rule, before the British carved it off to form an independent state. This had never been accepted by Iraq as a legitimate division, and thus established a context of political tension between the two entities. Yet the main cause of Iraq-Kuwait tension just prior to the Gulf War was far more contemporary, originating in the policies of Kuwait. Iraq was incensed at Kuwait for around three reasons: during the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait was apparently stealing $2.4 billion worth of oil from the Rumaila oil-field beneath the Iraq-Kuwait border; Kuwait had built various structures, including military structures, on Iraqi territory; after the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait had been colluding with the United Arab Emirates to exceed the production quotas fixed by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), resulting in the reduction of oil prices.

Kuwait decided to drastically increase oil production on 8 August 1988, only one day after Iran agreed to a ceasefire with Iraq. [13] Stable oil prices were essential to finance postwar reconstruction at this critical time. Yet Kuwait’s violation of OPEC agreements sent crude oil prices plummeting from $21 to $11 a barrel. Consequently Iraq was losing $14 billion a year. [14] This was only the beginning. In March 1989, Kuwait demanded a 50 percent increase in the OPEC quotas it was already flagrantly violating. Although OPEC rejected the demand in a June 1989 conference, Kuwait’s oil minister declared that Kuwait would not be bound by any quota at all. Kuwait then went on to double production to over a million barrels per day. [15]


Rumaila oil field located on Iraq-Kuwait border.
On top of this, as Pierre Salinger recorded, Kuwait “intended to extract more from the oil fields at Rumaila”, which lie on the disputed Iraq-Kuwait border. [16] During the Iran-Iraq War, Kuwait had illegally extended its border northward, thus grabbing hold of 900 square miles of the Rumaila oil field. U.S.-supplied slant drilling technology allowed Kuwait to steal oil from the part of Rumaila that was indisputably within Iraq’s borders. Additionally, Kuwait’s rulers had lent Iraq $30 billion during its war with Iran, and was now demanding that Iraq recompense them. Yet Kuwait’s own behaviour towards Iraq had made this impossible.

The Iran-Iraq War had already cost Iraq over $80 billion. With oil prices plummeting thanks to Kuwaiti intransigence, it became impossible for Iraq to generate the necessary funds to recompense Kuwait. Iraq’s response between 1988 and 1990 was to endeavour to resolve these problems through diplomatic means. Yet all attempts at negotiation were rebuffed. [17] One senior U.S. official in Bush’s administration remarked: “Kuwait was overproducing, and when the Iraqis came and said, ‘Can’t you do something about it?’ the Kuwaitis said, ‘Sit on it.’ And they didn’t even say it nicely. They were nasty about it. They were stupid. They were arrogant. They were terrible.” [18]

Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Henry M. Schuler described these policies as “economic warfare” against Iraq. [19] Iraq complained that Kuwait’s policies were “tantamount to military aggression”. [20] By now Iraq was losing a billion dollars a year for each reduction of one dollar in the oil price. By 1990, these policies had decimated Iraq’s economy to such an extent that it was in worse condition than during its war with Iran, with inflation at 40 per cent and its currency plummeting. [21] Considering that Iraq had always espoused a historical claim to Kuwait, Saddam’s reaction to Kuwait’s policies is notable. Rather than immediately utilising the crisis as a pretext for acquiring Kuwaiti territory by force, Iraq appeared to be anxious to resolve the situation swiftly and peacefully. The late King Hussein of Jordan, a friend of the Western powers particularly admired by the United States and Israel, found Kuwait’s response perplexing. He testified to the San Francisco Chronicle:


Saddam Hussein
“He [Saddam Hussein] told me how anxious he was to ensure that the situation be resolved as soon as possible. So he initiated contact with the Kuwaitis... this didn’t work from the beginning. There were meetings but nothing happened... this was really puzzling. It was in the Kuwaitis’ interest to solve the problem. I know how there wasn’t a definite border, how there was a feeling that Kuwait was part of Iraq.” [22]

Indeed, after having fought for eight devastating years with Iran, war was the last thing on Saddam’s mind. A study by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, issued in early 1990, found that:

“Baghdad should not be expected to deliberately provoke military confrontations with anyone. Its interests are best served now and in the immediate future by peace ... Revenues from oil sales could put it in the front ranks of nations economically. A stable Middle East is conducive to selling oil; disruption has a long-range adverse effect on the oil market which would hurt Iraq ... Force is only likely if the Iraqis feel seriously threatened. It is our belief that Iraq is basically committed to a nonaggressive strategy, and that it will, over the course of the next few years, considerably reduce the size of its military. Economic conditions practically mandate such action ... There seems no doubt that Iraq would like to demobilize now that the war has ended.” [23]

Yet Kuwait’s provocative – and for Iraq devastating – behaviour, continued to generate increasing tension between the two countries. The international community ignored the growing tension. By July 1990, Kuwait had continued to ignore Iraq’s territorial and economic demands - including its OPEC-assigned quota. Subsequently, Iraq prepared for a military venture, amassing large numbers of troops along the border. A significant indication of the U.S. role in this can be discerned from a crucial discovery that occurred after the invasion, when the Iraqis found a confidential memorandum in a Kuwaiti intelligence file. The document (dated 22 November 1989) was a top secret report to the Kuwaiti Minister of the Interior by his Director General of State Security, informing him of a meeting with the Director of the CIA in Washington, William Webster. The document stated:

“We agreed with the American side that it was important to take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in order to put pressure on that country’s government to delineate our common border. The Central Intelligence Agency gave us its view of appropriate means of pressure, saying that broad cooperation should be initiated between us on condition that such activities be coordinated at a high level.” [24]

In response, the CIA accused Iraq of forging the memo. Yet the Los Angeles Times disagrees with the CIA allegation, pointing out that: “The memo is not an obvious forgery, particularly since if Iraqi officials had written it themselves, they almost certainly would have made it far more damaging to US and Kuwaiti credibility.” [25] There is further evidence demonstrating the memo’s authenticity. When the Iraqi foreign minister confronted his Kuwaiti counterpart with the document at an Arab summit meeting in mid-August, his Kuwaiti colleague found it so sufficiently authentic – and indeed damaging – that he fainted. [26] And as noted by Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney-General under the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, “many experts affirm that it is genuine. It is telling evidence, documenting the economic warfare waged against Iraq by Kuwait and the United States”. [27]

There are further reasons to believe that the U.S. encouraged Kuwait not to come to a peaceful compromise with Iraq. Indeed, this is what has been asserted by the head of the Palestine Authority, Yasser Arafat, in relation to the events at an Arab summit in May. Arafat stated that the U.S. pressured Kuwait to refuse any deal when Saddam offered to negotiate a mutually acceptable border with Kuwait at the summit to resolve the issue. “The U.S. was encouraging Kuwait not to offer any compromise which meant that there could be no negotiated solution to avoid the Persian Gulf crisis.” [28]

Astute observers have noted that Kuwait’s behaviour was plainly irrational and could not have been conducted without external encouragement from a more powerful ally. Dr. Mussama al-Mubarak, a Professor in Political Science at Kuwait University, for instance, commented: “I don’t know what the [Kuwaiti] government was thinking, but it adopted an extremely hard line, which makes me think that the decisions were not Kuwait’s alone. It is my assumption that, as a matter of course, Kuwait would have consulted on such matters with Saudi Arabia and Britain, as well as the United States.” [29]

The testimony of King Hussein of Jordan, who had been an intermediary in negotiations between Iraq, Kuwait and other Arab states at that time, confirms the U.S. role. American investigative journalist Dr. Michael Emery, using King Hussein as his pre-eminent source, found that:


President George Bush Sr. conferring with Emir of Kuwait, 1990.
“Parties to the Arab negotiations say the Kuwaitis... had enthusiastically participated in a behind-the-scenes economic campaign inspired by Western intelligence agencies against Iraqi interests. The Kuwaities even went so far as to dump oil for less than the agreed upon OPEC price ... which undercut the oil revenues essential to cash hungry Baghdad. The evidence shows that President George Bush, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and other Arab leaders secretly cooperated on a number of occasions, beginning August 1988, to deny Saddam Hussein the economic help he demanded for the reconstruction of his nation.... However, Washington and London encouraged the Kuwaitis in their intransigent insistence.” [30]

As a consequence, Kuwait adopted a hard-line policy of no-compromise with Iraq, refusing to negotiate and intransigent in the face of Iraq’s threat of using military means to put a stop to Kuwait’s policies. According to senior Kuwaiti officials, this was because the U.S. had already promised to intervene in case of an Iraqi attack. The Kuwaiti foreign minister, who is also brother of the ruling Emir, declared just before the Iraqi invasion: “We are not going to respond to [Iraq]... if they don’t like it, let them occupy our territory... we are going to bring in the Americans.” According to King Hussein, the Kuwaiti Emir commanded his senior military officers to hold-off the Iraqis for 24 hours in the event of an invasion, by which time “American and foreign forces would land in Kuwait and expel them.” [31] Middle East expert Milton Viorst interviewed both U.S. and Kuwaiti officials for a report in the New Yorker. He was informed by Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem al-Sabah that General Schwarzkopf was a regular visitor to Kuwait after the Iran-Iraq War: “Schwarzkopf came here a few times and met with the Crown Prince and Minister of Defense. These became routine visits to discuss military cooperation, and by the time the crisis with Iraq began last year, we knew we could rely on the Americans.” [32]

Schwarzkopf’s role has been corroborated by other sources, particularly the testimony of a U.S. official in Kuwait who stated: “Schwarzkopf was here on visits before the war, maybe a few times a year. He was a political general, and that was unusual in itself. He kept a personally high profile and was on a first-name basis with all the ministers in Kuwait.” [33] The American-Kuwaiti plot was also confirmed after the Gulf War. The Kuwaiti Minister of Oil and Finance stated: “But we knew that the United States would not let us be overrun. I spent too much time in Washington to make that mistake, and received a constant stream of visitors here. The American policy was clear. Only Saddam didn’t understand it.” [34] As Francis Boyle thus notes, reviewing this sequence of events, the United Stated encouraged Kuwait in “violating OPEC oil production agreements to undercut the price of oil to debilitate Iraq’s economy”; “extracting excessive and illegal amounts of oil from pools it shared with Iraq”; “demanding immediate repayment of loans Kuwait had made to Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War”; and “breaking off negotiations with Iraq over these disputes.” In doing so, the U.S. “intended to provoke Iraq into aggressive military actions against Kuwait that they knew could be used to justify U.S. military intervention into the Persian Gulf for the purpose of destroying Iraq and taking over Arab oil fields.” [35]

When Iraq began preparing for a military incursion into Kuwait, the U.S. did not publicise its official position of willingness to intervene on behalf of Kuwait. Instead the United States presented a green light to Saddam Hussein by consistently asserting a position of neutrality on the issue, contrary to its actual policy. On 25 July, while Saddam’s troops were amassed on Kuwait’s border in preparation to attack, after hearing the Iraqi dictator inform her that Kuwait’s borders were drawn in the colonial era April Glaspie, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, told Saddam:

“We studied history at school. They taught us to say freedom or death. I think you know well that we ... have our experience with the colonialists. We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait... [Secretary of State] James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction.”....


http://www.voltairenet.org/article162816.html
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Scimitar
04-07-2017, 07:42 PM
What were the Iraq wars about?

An old score to settle with Babylon - the spiritual enemy of the Israelites.

See thru the BS people, this is living history we are witnessing.

Scimi
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Abz2000
04-07-2017, 07:44 PM
Iran–Iraq War


Belligerents
Iran
KDP
PUK
ISCI

Support:
Islamic Dawa Party
Syria[1]
Libya
North Korea[2]
Israel[3]
United States: Iran–Contra affair
(For other forms of foreign support, see here)




Iraq
PMOI
KDPI[4]

Support:
Soviet Union[5][6]
France [7][8]
Qatar[9][10]
United States [11][12]
United Kingdom[13]
Kuwait[14]
Jordan[15]
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Romania
(For other forms of foreign support, see here)

Casualties and losses

Iran:

123,220–160,000 KIA and 60,711 MIA (Iranian claim)[25][26]
200,000–600,000 killed (other estimates)[25][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]
800,000 killed (Iraqi claim)[25]
320,000–500,000 WIA[28][35][36]
40,000–42,875 POW[35][36]
11,000–16,000 civilian dead[25][26]

Economic loss of US$627 billion[27][37]

Iraq:

105,000–375,000 killed[35][37][38][39][40]
250,000–500,000 (other estimates)[41]
400,000 WIA[39]
70,000 POW[28][39]

Economic loss of $561 billion[27][37]


Half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers, with an equivalent number of civilians, are believed to have died, with many more injured; however, the war brought neither reparations nor changes in borders. A number of proxy forces participated in the war, most notably the Iranian People's Mujahedin of Iran siding with Ba'athist Iraq and Iraqi Kurdish militias of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan siding with Iran—all suffering a major blow by the end of the conflict.

The Iran–Iraq War was the deadliest conventional war ever fought between regular armies of developing countries.[56] Iraqi casualties are estimated at 105,000–200,000 killed,[25][35][39][40] while about 400,000 had been wounded and some 70,000 taken prisoner.[28][39] Thousands of civilians on both sides died in air raids and ballistic missile attacks.[49] Prisoners taken by both countries began to be released in 1990, though some were not released until more than 10 years after the end of the conflict.[44] Cities on both sides had also been considerably damaged. While revolutionary Iran had been bloodied, Iraq was left with a large military and was a regional power, albeit with severe debt, financial problems, and labor shortages.[108]

According to Iranian government sources, the war cost Iran an estimated 200,000–220,000 killed,[25][26][28][35] or up to 262,000 according to the conservative Western estimates.[25][27] This includes 123,220 combatants,[25][26] 60,711 MIA[25] and 11,000–16,000 civilians.[25][26] Combatants include 79,664 members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and additional 35,170 soldiers from regular military.[26] In addition, prisoners of war comprise 42,875 Iranian casualties, they were captured and kept in Iraqi detention centers from 2.5 to more than 15 years after the war was over.[36] According to the Janbazan Affairs Organization, 398,587 Iranians sustained injuries that required prolonged medical and health care following primary treatment, including 52,195 (13%) injured due to the exposure to chemical warfare agents. From 1980 to 2012, 218,867 Iranians died due to war injuries and the mean age of combatants was 23 years old.[36] This includes 33,430 civilians, mostly women and children.[36] More than 144,000 Iranian children were orphaned as a consequence of these deaths.[36] Other estimates put Iranian casualties up to 600,000.

Peace talks and postwar situation Edit
With the ceasefire in place, and UN peacekeepers monitoring the border, Iran and Iraq sent their representatives to Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate a peace agreement on the terms of the ceasefire. However, peace talks stalled. Iraq, in violation of the UN ceasefire, refused to withdraw its troops from 7,800 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi) of disputed territory at the border area unless the Iranians accepted Iraq's full sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab waterway. Foreign powers continued to support Iraq, which wanted to gain at the negotiating table what they failed to achieve on the battlefield, and Iran was portrayed as the one not wanting peace.[156] Iran, in response, refused to release 70,000 Iraqi prisoners of war (twice as many compared to Iranian prisoners of war in Iraq). They also continued to carry out a naval blockade of Iraq, although its effects were mitigated by Iraqi trade with its Arab neighbors. Iran also began to improve relations with many of the states that opposed it during the war. Because of Iranian actions, by 1990, Saddam had become more conciliatory, and in a letter to the now President Rafsanjani, he became more open to the idea of a peace agreement, although he still insisted on full sovereignty over the Shatt al-Arab.[156]


Iranian POW in 1983 near Tikrit, Iraq
By 1990, Iran was undergoing military rearmament and reorganization, purchasing from the USSR and China $10 billion worth of heavy weaponry, including aircraft, tanks, and missiles. Rafsanjani reversed Iran's self-imposed ban on chemical weapons, and ordered the manufacture and stockpile of them (in 1993, Iran ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, and subsequently destroyed them).[157] As war with the western powers loomed, Iraq became concerned about the possibility of Iran mending its relations with the west in order to attack Iraq. Iraq had lost its support from the West, and its position in Iran was increasingly untenable.[156] Saddam realized that if Iran attempted to expel the Iraqis from the disputed territories in the border area, it was likely they would succeed.[52] Shortly after his invasion of Kuwait, Saddam wrote a letter to Rafsanjani stating that Iraq recognised Iranian rights over the eastern half of the Shatt al-Arab, a reversion to the status quo ante bellum that he had repudiated a decade earlier,[158] and that he would accept Iran's demands and withdraw Iraq's military from the disputed territories. A peace agreement was signed finalizing the terms of the UN resolution, diplomatic relations were restored, and by late 1990-early 1991, the Iraqi military withdrew. The UN peacekeepers withdrew from the border shortly afterward. Most of the prisoners of war were released in 1990, although some remained as late as 2003.[156] Iranian politicians declared it to be the "greatest victory in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran".[156]

Most historians and analysts consider the war to be a stalemate. Certain analysts believe that Iraq won, on the basis of the success of their 1988 offensives which thwarted Iran's major territorial ambitions in Iraq and persuaded Iran to accept the ceasefire.[52] Iranian analysts believe that they won the war because although they did not succeed in overthrowing the Iraqi government, they thwarted Iraq's major territorial ambitions in Iran, and that, two years after the war had ended, Iraq permanently gave up its claims to the Shatt al-Arab as well.[52]

On 9 December 1991, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, UN Secretary General at the time, reported that Iraq's initiation of the war was unjustified, as was its occupation of Iranian territory and use of chemical weapons against civilians:
Reply

Scimitar
04-07-2017, 07:47 PM
That's all political narratives bro - you won't find any truth in that rabbit hole.

The Children of Israel have had a beef with Babylon ever since their enslavement - they never forgot because after Cyrus freed them, things were never the same in Jerusalem afterwards - they (the Jews) still hold a deep hatred for Iraq due to Babylon.

All else is just, unnecessary details bro.

See thru the mire - see the truth - history is a living timeline.

Scimi
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Abz2000
04-07-2017, 07:54 PM
But london is the spiritual mother of harlots, while it's daughter america is the dajjal, and is creating real crises in order to further a long term corrupt world kufr agenda.
Whilst the arab puppets bicker over trifles, the Muslims bleed.
Reply

Abz2000
04-07-2017, 08:13 PM
Here's the "take your share, turn a blind eye and, it's ok to shut up now" crumbs:

Those who claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to get control of the country's giant oil reserves will be left scratching their heads by the results of last weekend's auction of Iraqi oil contracts: Not a single U.S. company secured a deal in the auction of contracts that will shape the Iraqi oil industry for the next couple of decades. Two of the most lucrative of the multi-billion-dollar oil contracts went to two countries which bitterly opposed the U.S. invasion — Russia and China — while even Total Oil of France, which led the charge to deny international approval for the war at the U.N. Security Council in 2003, won a bigger stake than the Americans in the most recent auction. "[The distribution of oil contracts] certainly answers the theory that the war was for the benefit of big U.S. oil interests," says Alex Munton, Middle East oil analyst for the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, whose clients include major U.S. companies. "That has not been demonstrated by what has happened this week."

http://content.time.com/time/world/a...948787,00.html
Reply

Abz2000
04-07-2017, 08:17 PM
The jews are not a factor other than their function as a political pawn to keep the bible bashers confused.
the jews were moved there via murder and massacres, it is the usurers with kabbalistic and masonic backgrounds however that are a different story.
Reply

Abz2000
05-30-2017, 01:51 PM
US intelligence helped Saddam's Ba`ath Party seize power for the first time in 1963. Evidence suggests that Saddam was on the CIA payroll as early as 1959, when he participated in a failed assassination attempt against Iraqi strongman Abd al-Karim Qassem. In the 1980s, the US and Britain backed Saddam in the war against Iran, giving Iraq arms, money, satellite intelligence, and even chemical & bio-weapon precursors. As many as 90 US military advisors supported Iraqi forces and helped pick targets for Iraqi air and missile attacks.





US Intelligence Helps Saddam's Party Seize Power in 1963 | US and British Support for Saddam in the 1970s and 1980s
US Intelligence Helps Saddam's Party Seize Power in 1963

Saddam Key in Early CIA Plot (April 10, 2003)
According to former US intelligence officials and diplomats, the CIA's relationship with Saddam Hussein dates back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad that attempted to assassinate Iraqi Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim. (United Press International)
A Tyrant Forty Years in the Making (March 14, 2003)
Roger Morris writes of the "regime change" carried out by the CIA in Iraq forty years ago. Among the CIA's actions were attempted political assassinations and the handing over of a list of suspected communists and leftists that led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis at the hands of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party. (New York Times)
CIA Lists Provide Basis for Iraqi Bloodbath
In this excerpt from his classic study of Iraqi politics, Hanna Batatu discusses how the Ba`ath Party seized power for the first time in a military coup in February 1963. He speaks of lists, provided by US intelligence, that enabled the party to hunt down its enemies, particularly the Communists, in a terrible bloodletting.
US and British Support for Saddam in the 1970s and 1980s

The Riegle Report (1994)
This report by the Senate Banking Committee analyzes the US's exports of warfare-related goods to Iraq and their possible impact on the health consequences of the Gulf War. The report concludes that the US provided Iraq "with 'dual-use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs." (Gulflink)
Officers Say US Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of Gas (August 18, 2002)
According to senior military officials, a covert program carried out during the Reagan Administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when US intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons against Iran. (New York Times)

Did Saddam Die for Our Sins? (January 9, 2007)
The US-backed Iraq Tribunal sentenced Saddam Hussein to death for his role in the 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites in Dujail, Iraq. But the same court has dropped all charges against Hussein, post mortem, for the killing of 180,000 Kurds during the 1980s – crimes committed with Western complicity. The author of this TomPaine piece concludes that if the tribunal does not look into US and British involvement " the genocide case, it will fail "to educate the world about Saddam and his barbarous regime.

US Military Assistance to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War (April 20, 2006)
This material highlights the various military, intelligence, and financial assistance given to Saddam's regime by the US. In 1986, former Vice President George H.W. Bush traveled to the Middle East, repeatedly encouraging Saddam to step up Iraq's bombing campaign against Iran. In addition, the US supplied Saddam with several big orders of helicopters and provoked a diversionary engagement with the Iranian navy in coordination with a major Iraqi offensive. (Global Policy Forum)
https://www.globalpolicy.org/iraq-co...ss-regime.html
Reply

Abz2000
05-30-2017, 02:06 PM
In the summer of 1990, concerns were growing that Saddam Hussein, who was massing troops near the border with Kuwait, was preparing an all-out invasion. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990 to convey the United States’ position. While she did not have a demarche from Washington, she reiterated U.S. policy that border disputes should be resolved peacefully. However, her meeting did not forestall an Iraqi invasion; Saddam invaded just a few days later, on August 2.

Soon thereafter and several years since the end of the Gulf War, Ambassador Glaspie was widely blamed for allowing or even encouraging an Iraqi invasion. The New York Times on September 23, 1990 quotes Glaspie as saying, “We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

“I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 1960s. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America…We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi (Chedli Klibi, Secretary General of the Arab League) or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly.”

Some contended that such statements were interpreted by Saddam as giving free rein and that he had a de facto green light to handle his disputes with Kuwait as he saw fit. It was also argued that Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait had he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met with force by the United States.

However, other top-ranking State Department officials take issue with that interpretation. They believe that Glaspie gave exactly the message she was supposed to, based on long-standing U.S. policy, and that there was no misunderstanding as Saddam knew exactly where the U.S. stood. Moreover, Joseph Wilson, who served as Ambassador Glaspie’s Deputy Chief of Mission at Embassy Baghdad, asserts that the real wrong message was sent during a public Congressional hearing on Iraq, in which Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs John Kelly was put in the awkward position of having to confirm that the U.S. had no obligation of defending Kuwait from an attack.

Wilson served at Embassy Baghdad from 1988-1991 and describes the meeting between her and Saddam Hussein on July 25th. Kelly, for his part, believes that Saddam was emboldened by his belief that the U.S. defeat in Vietnam would prevent it from taking action in Kuwait.

You can read Ambassador Wilson’s account of the evacuation of Embassy Kuwait and freeing American hostages. Read about how Ambassador Hume Horan was hung out to dry after delivering a demarche the Saudis did not appreciate. Go here for other Moments on Iraq and the Middle East.



“The U.S. Congress forced the U.S. Executive Branch to say that we have no legal obligation to come to the defense of Kuwait in the event of an invasion”

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy Baghdad, 1988-1991

WILSON: On July 25th or 26th, April Glaspie was scheduled to go talk to the Foreign Minister. She went over to the Foreign Ministry, but was then put into a car and taken over to the President’s office to meet Saddam. During the course of that meeting, Saddam said to her, “We will not take any action military so long as there is a negotiation process ongoing.”

(Three U.S. representatives meet with Saddam Hussein in February 1990: Edward W. “Skip” Gnehm, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian Affairs (not shown); April Glaspie, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq; and John Kelly, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.)

Just before the meeting began, Saddam was called out of his office to take a phone call from [Egyptian] President [Hosni] Mubarak. He took the phone call from Mubarak, and then came out and told April — I wasn’t there; this is how it was reported back to me — that he had just told Mubarak that there would be no military action as long as the diplomatic process was ongoing. That was July 25th or 26th. All the Arabs were telling us this was a bluff. Saddam had told both us and Mubarak on the same day at essentially the same time that he wasn’t going to take military action. The Arabs were telling us not to do anything.

We were getting nervous. We cabled Washington to ask for another presidential letter to Saddam requesting him to lower the tension level. During the course of the meeting I just mentioned, of course, April Glaspie told Saddam what American policy had been vis-à-vis the Arab borders since the beginning of the division of the Arab region into the nation states, i.e., that the United States doesn’t take a position on the merits of a particular border dispute but wants only that such disputes be resolved diplomatically or through international arbitration. That had been the U.S. position; it had been the Western position, and it had been most everybody’s position since the beginning.

http://adst.org/2016/02/a-bum-rap-fo..._switcher=true
Reply

Karl
05-30-2017, 10:48 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Abz2000
The jews are not a factor other than their function as a political pawn to keep the bible bashers confused.
the jews were moved there via murder and massacres, it is the usurers with kabbalistic and masonic backgrounds however that are a different story.
The Zionists are behind it. An ex-Zionist said "Zionism is Judaism hijacked by Satan". So originally Zionism started out as some Jews wanting a homeland being Israel, (even though the real homeland of the Hebrews was east of the Euphrates river not too far from Babylon, but that was ages ago), so they wanted Palestine back. But Zionism has grown way beyond this now and wants to rule the whole planet. Religion is not important anymore as Zionism is now Godless.
Reply

MuhammadHamza1
06-05-2017, 07:56 AM
I have just posted an article named "Deception of 2003 Iraqi war."
Theres your answer.
Reply

Abz2000
06-05-2017, 01:31 PM
The explanations provided do shed light on the subject, but his view that it was all about money is flawed, there's more to it than mo ey - as can be seen from the purposeful state of turmoil and divisions caused so as to weaken the region - however,they plot and plan, and Allah too plots and plans, and Allah is the best of planners.
The Muslims of not just the region - but people all around the world, are more awake, aware, and mature than ever before.
They know but the outer things of the life of this world, but of the inner things - they are heedless.
Take the 9/11 false flag for example, it appeared that the scularist regime got a whole load of political capital - however, they have lost that capital more than a thousandfold once the fog began to clear and all the effort and resources they spent on propaganda turned to work against them and they ended up vilifying themselves.
People now have the ability to think many more steps ahead and also to evaluate events and situations through a more critical lens.

Chapter Name:Fatir Verse No:43

اسْتِكْبَارًا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَمَكْرَ السَّيِّئِ وَلَا يَحِيقُ الْمَكْرُ السَّيِّئُ إِلَّا بِأَهْلِهِ فَهَلْ يَنظُرُونَ إِلَّا سُنَّتَ الْأَوَّلِينَ فَلَن تَجِدَ لِسُنَّتِ اللَّهِ تَبْدِيلًا وَلَن تَجِدَ لِسُنَّتِ اللَّهِ تَحْوِيلًا {43


035:043 Yusufali
:
On account of their arrogance in the land and their plotting of Evil, but the plotting of Evil will hem in only the authors thereof. Now are they but looking for the way the ancients were dealt with? But no change wilt thou find in Allah's way (of dealing): no turning off will you find in Allah's way (of dealing).


Chapter Name:Al-Anaam Verse No:123

وَكَذَلِكَ جَعَلْنَا فِي كُلِّ قَرْيَةٍ أَكَابِرَ مُجَرِمِيهَا لِيَمْكُرُواْ فِيهَا وَمَا يَمْكُرُونَ إِلاَّ بِأَنفُسِهِمْ وَمَا يَشْعُرُونَ {123

006:123 Yusufali
:
Thus have We placed leaders in every town, its wicked men, to plot (and burrow) therein: but they only plot against their own souls, and they perceive it not.
Reply

Abz2000
06-07-2017, 01:18 AM
Here's a very well sourced and detailed description of the events, the author relies totall on source material from declassified documents and court case papers and refrains from using non official sources or conjecture, the analysis is therefore incomplete but undeniably solid in terms of fending off incredulity pro u.s gov shills or trolls who would attempt to discredit:

All documents are in pdf format and can be found at the bottom of the article.






Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 82

Edited by Joyce Battle

February 25, 2003



The Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) was one of a series of crises during an era of upheaval in the Middle East: revolution in Iran, occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by militant students, invasion of the Great Mosque in Mecca by anti-royalist Islamicists, the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, and internecine fighting among Syrians, Israelis, and Palestinians in Lebanon. The war followed months of rising tension between the Iranian Islamic republic and secular nationalist Iraq. In mid-September 1980 Iraq attacked, in the mistaken belief that Iranian political disarray would guarantee a quick victory.
The international community responded with U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire and for all member states to refrain from actions contributing in any way to the conflict's continuation. The Soviets, opposing the war, cut off arms exports to Iran and to Iraq, its ally under a 1972 treaty (arms deliveries resumed in 1982). The U.S. had already ended, when the shah fell, previously massive military sales to Iran. In 1980 the U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Iran because of the Tehran embassy hostage crisis; Iraq had broken off ties with the U.S. during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. was officially neutral regarding the Iran-Iraq war, and claimed that it armed neither side. Iran depended on U.S.-origin weapons, however, and sought them from Israel, Europe, Asia, and South America. Iraq started the war with a large Soviet-supplied arsenal, but needed additional weaponry as the conflict wore on.
Initially, Iraq advanced far into Iranian territory, but was driven back within months. By mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive against Iranian human-wave attacks. The U.S., having decided that an Iranian victory would not serve its interests, began supporting Iraq: measures already underway to upgrade U.S.-Iraq relations were accelerated, high-level officials exchanged visits, and in February 1982 the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism. (It had been included several years earlier because of ties with several Palestinian nationalist groups, not Islamicists sharing the worldview of al-Qaeda. Activism by Iraq's main Shiite Islamicist opposition group, al-Dawa, was a major factor precipitating the war -- stirred by Iran's Islamic revolution, its endeavors included the attempted assassination of Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.)
Prolonging the war was phenomenally expensive. Iraq received massive external financial support from the Gulf states, and assistance through loan programs from the U.S. The White House and State Department pressured the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing, to enhance its credit standing and enable it to obtain loans from other international financial institutions. The U.S. Agriculture Department provided taxpayer-guaranteed loans for purchases of American commodities, to the satisfaction of U.S. grain exporters.
The U.S. restored formal relations with Iraq in November 1984, but the U.S. had begun, several years earlier, to provide it with intelligence and military support (in secret and contrary to this country's official neutrality) in accordance with policy directives from President Ronald Reagan. These were prepared pursuant to his March 1982 National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 4-82) asking for a review of U.S. policy toward the Middle East.

One of these directives from Reagan, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 99, signed on July 12, 1983, is available only in a highly redacted version [Document 21]. It reviews U.S. regional interests in the Middle East and South Asia, and U.S. objectives, including peace between Israel and the Arabs, resolution of other regional conflicts, and economic and military improvements, "to strengthen regional stability." It deals with threats to the U.S., strategic planning, cooperation with other countries, including the Arab states, and plans for action. An interdepartmental review of the implications of shifting policy in favor of Iraq was conducted following promulgation of the directive.
By the summer of 1983 Iran had been reporting Iraqi use of using chemical weapons for some time. The Geneva protocol requires that the international community respond to chemical warfare, but a diplomatically isolated Iran received only a muted response to its complaints [Note 1]. It intensified its accusations in October 1983, however, and in November asked for a United Nations Security Council investigation.
The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war [Document 24]. The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well [Document 25].
What was the Reagan administration's response? A State Department account indicates that the administration had decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality in the Gulf war, the sensitivity of sources, and the low probability of achieving desired results." But the department noted in late November 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq ha[d] become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use. Given its desperation to end the war, Iraq may again use lethal or incapacitating CW, particularly if Iran threatens to break through Iraqi lines in a large-scale attack" [Document 25]. The State Department argued that the U.S. needed to respond in some way to maintain the credibility of its official opposition to chemical warfare, and recommended that the National Security Council discuss the issue.

Following further high-level policy review, Ronald Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114, dated November 26, 1983, concerned specifically with U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The directive reflects the administration's priorities: it calls for heightened regional military cooperation to defend oil facilities, and measures to improve U.S. military capabilities in the Persian Gulf, and directs the secretaries of state and defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take appropriate measures to respond to tensions in the area. It states, "Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic." It does not mention chemical weapons [Document 26].
Soon thereafter, Donald Rumsfeld (who had served in various positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including as President Ford's defense secretary, and at this time headed the multinational pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle & Co.) was dispatched to the Middle East as a presidential envoy. His December 1983 tour of regional capitals included Baghdad, where he was to establish "direct contact between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein," while emphasizing "his close relationship" with the president [Document 28]. Rumsfeld met with Saddam, and the two discussed regional issues of mutual interest, shared enmity toward Iran and Syria, and the U.S.'s efforts to find alternative routes to transport Iraq's oil; its facilities in the Persian Gulf had been shut down by Iran, and Iran's ally, Syria, had cut off a pipeline that transported Iraqi oil through its territory. Rumsfeld made no reference to chemical weapons, according to detailed notes on the meeting [Document 31].
Rumsfeld also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, and the two agreed, "the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests." Rumsfeld affirmed the Reagan administration's "willingness to do more" regarding the Iran-Iraq war, but "made clear that our efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us, citing the use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights." He then moved on to other U.S. concerns [Document 32]. Later, Rumsfeld was assured by the U.S. interests section that Iraq's leadership had been "extremely pleased" with the visit, and that "Tariq Aziz had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld as a person" [Document 36 and Document 37].
Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad in late March 1984. By this time, the U.S. had publicly condemned Iraq's chemical weapons use, stating, "The United States has concluded that the available evidence substantiates Iran's charges that Iraq used chemical weapons" [Document 47]. Briefings for Rumsfeld's meetings noted that atmospherics in Iraq had deteriorated since his December visit because of Iraqi military reverses and because "bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use, despite our repeated warnings that this issue would emerge sooner or later" [Document 48]. Rumsfeld was to discuss with Iraqi officials the Reagan administration's hope that it could obtain Export-Import Bank credits for Iraq, the Aqaba pipeline, and its vigorous efforts to cut off arms exports to Iran. According to an affidavit prepared by one of Rumsfeld's companions during his Mideast travels, former NSC staff member Howard Teicher, Rumsfeld also conveyed to Iraq an offer from Israel to provide assistance, which was rejected [Document 61].

Although official U.S. policy still barred the export of U.S. military equipment to Iraq, some was evidently provided on a "don't ask - don't tell" basis. In April 1984, the Baghdad interests section asked to be kept apprised of Bell Helicopter Textron's negotiations to sell helicopters to Iraq, which were not to be "in any way configured for military use" [Document 55]. The purchaser was the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In December 1982, Bell Textron's Italian subsidiary had informed the U.S. embassy in Rome that it turned down a request from Iraq to militarize recently purchased Hughes helicopters. An allied government, South Korea, informed the State Department that it had received a similar request in June 1983 (when a congressional aide asked in March 1983 whether heavy trucks recently sold to Iraq were intended for military purposes, a State Department official replied "we presumed that this was Iraq's intention, and had not asked.") [Document 44]
During the spring of 1984 the U.S. reconsidered policy for the sale of dual-use equipment to Iraq's nuclear program, and its "preliminary results favor[ed] expanding such trade to include Iraqi nuclear entities" [Document 57]. Several months later, a Defense Intelligence Agency analysis said that even after the war ended, Iraq was likely to "continue to develop its formidable conventional and chemical capability, and probably pursue nuclear weapons" [Document 58]. (Iraq is situated in a dangerous neighborhood, and Israel had stockpiled a large nuclear weapons arsenal without international censure. Nuclear nonproliferation was not a high priority of the Reagan administration - throughout the 1980s it downplayed Pakistan's nuclear program, though its intelligence indicated that a weapons capability was being pursued, in order to avert congressionally mandated sanctions. Sanctions would have impeded the administration's massive military assistance to Pakistan provided in return for its support of the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.)
In February 1984, Iraq's military, expecting a major Iranian attack, issued a warning that "the invaders should know that for every harmful insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it whatever the number and Iraq possesses this annihilation insecticide" [Document 41]. On March 3, the State Department intervened to prevent a U.S. company from shipping 22,000 pounds of phosphorous fluoride, a chemical weapons precursor, to Iraq. Washington instructed the U.S. interests section to protest to the Iraqi government, and to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that "we anticipate making a public condemnation of Iraqi use of chemical weapons in the near future," and that "we are adamantly opposed to Iraq's attempting to acquire the raw materials, equipment, or expertise to manufacture chemical weapons from the United States. When we become aware of attempts to do so, we will act to prevent their export to Iraq" [Document 42].
The public condemnation was issued on March 5. It said, "While condemning Iraq's chemical weapons use . . . The United States finds the present Iranian regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims" [Document 43].

Later in the month, the State Department briefed the press on its decision to strengthen controls on the export of chemical weapons precursors to Iran and Iraq, in response to intelligence and media reports that precursors supplied to Iraq originated in Western countries. When asked whether the U.S.'s conclusion that Iraq had used chemical weapons would have "any effect on U.S. recent initiatives to expand commercial relationships with Iraq across a broad range, and also a willingness to open diplomatic relations," the department's spokesperson said "No. I'm not aware of any change in our position. We're interested in being involved in a closer dialogue with Iraq" [Document 52].
Iran had submitted a draft resolution asking the U.N. to condemn Iraq's chemical weapons use. The U.S. delegate to the U.N. was instructed to lobby friendly delegations in order to obtain a general motion of "no decision" on the resolution. If this was not achievable, the U.S. delegate was to abstain on the issue. Iraq's ambassador met with the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick, and asked for "restraint" in responding to the issue - as did the representatives of both France and Britain.
A senior U.N. official who had participated in a fact-finding mission to investigate Iran's complaint commented "Iranians may well decide to manufacture and use chemical weapons themselves if [the] international community does not condemn Iraq. He said Iranian assembly speaker Rafsanjani [had] made public statements to this effect" [Document 50].
Iraqi interests section head Nizar Hamdoon met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Placke on March 29. Hamdoon said that Iraq strongly preferred a Security Council presidential statement to a resolution, and wanted the response to refer to former resolutions on the war, progress toward ending the conflict, but to not identify any specific country as responsible for chemical weapons use. Placke said the U.S. could accept Iraqi proposals if the Security Council went along. He asked for the Iraqi government's help "in avoiding . . . embarrassing situation[s]" but also noted that the U.S. did "not want this issue to dominate our bilateral relationship" [Document 54].
On March 30, 1984, the Security Council issued a presidential statement condemning the use of chemical weapons, without naming Iraq as the offending party. A State Department memo circulating the draft text observed that, "The statement, by the way contains all three elements Hamdoon wanted" [Document 51].
On April 5, 1984, Ronald Reagan issued another presidential directive (NSDD 139), emphasizing the U.S. objective of ensuring access to military facilities in the Gulf region, and instructing the director of central intelligence and the secretary of defense to upgrade U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities. It codified U.S. determination to develop plans "to avert an Iraqi collapse." Reagan's directive said that U.S. policy required "unambiguous" condemnation of chemical warfare (without naming Iraq), while including the caveat that the U.S. should "place equal stress on the urgent need to dissuade Iran from continuing the ruthless and inhumane tactics which have characterized recent offensives." The directive does not suggest that "condemning" chemical warfare required any hesitation about or modification of U.S. support for Iraq [Document 53].
A State Department background paper dated November 16, 1984 said that Iraq had stopped using chemical weapons after a November 1983 demarche from the U.S., but had resumed their use in February 1984. On November 26, 1984, Iraq and the U.S. restored diplomatic relations. Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, in Washington for the formal resumption of ties, met with Secretary of State George Shultz. When their discussion turned to the Iran-Iraq war, Aziz said that his country was satisfied that "the U.S. analysis of the war's threat to regional stability is 'in agreement in principle' with Iraq's," and expressed thanks for U.S. efforts to cut off international arms sales to Iran. He said that "Iraq's superiority in weaponry" assured Iraq's defense. Shultz, with presumed sardonic intent, "remarked that superior intelligence must also be an important factor in Iraq's defense;" Tariq Aziz had to agree [Document 60].
Conclusion

The current Bush administration discusses Iraq in starkly moralistic terms to further its goal of persuading a skeptical world that a preemptive and premeditated attack on Iraq could and should be supported as a "just war." The documents included in this briefing book reflect the realpolitik that determined this country's policies during the years when Iraq was actually employing chemical weapons. Actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve U.S. interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent an Iranian victory. Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The Iraqi government's repressive internal policies, though well known to the U.S. government at the time, did not figure at all in the presidential directives that established U.S. policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. The U.S. was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing.
Most of the information in this briefing book, in its broad outlines, has been available for years. Some of it was recorded in contemporaneous news reports; a few investigative reporters uncovered much more - especially after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. A particular debt is owed to the late representative Henry Gonzales (1916-2000), Democrat of Texas, whose staff extensively investigated U.S. policy toward Iraq during the 1980s and who would not be deterred from making information available to the public [Note 2]. Almost all of the primary documents included in this briefing book were obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act and were published in 1995 [Note 3].


http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/
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