U.S. Connection
in Weapons of Mass Destruction

An 8-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraqs war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Persian Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Hussein used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.

This record is no argument for or against waging war against the Iraqi regime, but current U.S. officials are not eager to reconstruct the mostly secret relationship between the two countries. While biological warfare exports were approved by the U.S. government, the first President Bush signed a policy directive proposing "normal" relations with Hussein in the interest of Middle East stability.

Looking at a little U.S.-Iraqi history might be useful on the eve of a fateful military undertaking.

At a Senate Armed Services hearing, Byrd tried to disinter that history. "Did the United States help Iraq to acquire the building blocks of biological weapons during the Iran-Iraq war?" he asked Rumsfeld. Newsweek article reporting these exports, Rumsfeld said, "I have never heard anything like what you've read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt it."

That suggests Rumsfeld also has not read the sole surviving copy of a May 25, 1994, Senate Banking Committee report. In 1985 (five years after the Iraq-Iran war started) and succeeding years, said the report, "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous') and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq, pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."

The report then detailed 70 shipments (including anthrax bacillus) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding, "It was later learned that these micro-organisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

Baghdad having survived combat against Iran's revolutionary regime with U.S. help, President George H. W. Bush signed National Security Directive 26 on October 2, 1989. Classified "secret" but recently declassified, it said: "Normal relations between the United States and Iraq would serve our longer-term interests and promote stability in both the Gulf and the Middle East. The United States government should propose economic and political incentives for Iraq to moderate its behavior and to increase our influence with Iraq."

Bush the elder, who said recently that he "hates" Hussein, saw no reason then to oust the Iraqi dictator. On the contrary, the government's approval of exporting micro-organisms to Iraq coincided with the first Bush administration's decision to save Hussein from defeat by the Iranian mullahs.

The Newsweek article (by Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas) that so interested Byrd reported on Rumsfeld's visit to Baghdad December 20, 1983, that launched U.S. support for Hussein against Iran. Answering Byrd's questions, Rumsfeld said he did meet with Hussein and then-Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, but was dismissive about assisting "as a private citizen . . . only for a period of months." Rumsfeld contended he was then interested in curbing terrorism in Lebanon.

Quite a different account was given in a sworn court statement by Howard Teicher on January 31, 1995. Teicher, a National Security Council aide who accompanied Rumsfeld to Baghdad, said Rumsfeld relayed then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's offer to help Iraq in its war. "Aziz refused even to accept the Israeli's letter to Hussein offering assistance," said Teicher, "because Aziz told us that he would be executed on the spot."

Such recollections of the recent past make for uncomfortable officials in Washington and Jerusalem today.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 27, 2002

Subway Guitars
1800 Cedar Street
Berkeley, California 94703


Telephone: (510) 841-4106
noon til six, Monday thru Saturday
Pacific Time

HOME