The
NY Times played a key role in driving the US into two wars against
Iraq. America’s leading newspaper is finally facing part of the ugly
truth over Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the pretext
used by the US to bomb, then invade Iraq. Perhaps it’s trying to atone,
or clear its besmirched name.
Iraq
had no nuclear weapons, as the US falsely claimed. But it did have an
arsenal of chemical and biological weapons – delivered by the western
powers. All were battlefield arms, not strategic, weapons. None could be
delivered more than 100 kms.
According
to the “New York Times,” after the second war against Iraq in 2003, 17
US servicemen and seven Iraqis were injured by mustard and nerve gas
after they dug up buried caches of Iraq’s 1980’s chemical weapons.
Shamefully, their plight was kept secret by the Pentagon; the soldiers
were refused adequate medical care in order to cover up this sordid
story.
But what I uncovered in Baghdad was far worse.
I
found two British scientists who had been employed at Iraq’s top secret
Salman Pak chemical and biowarfare laboratory near Baghdad. The Brits
confided to me they were part of a large technical team secretly
organized and “seconded” to Iraq in the mid-1980’s by the British
government and the MI6 Secret Intelligence Service. Their goal was to
develop and “weaponize” anthrax, plague, botulism and other pathogens
for use as tactical germ weapons.
The
US and Saudi Arabia feared Iran’s Islamic revolution would sweep the
Mideast and overthrow its oil monarchs. So Washington and its Arab
allies convinced Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, to invade Iran and
overthrow its new government. Arms and money flowed to Iraq from the US,
Britain, Kuwait and the Saudis.
After
three years of WWI-style warfare, Iraq found its outnumbered troops
could not stop Iranian human-wave attacks. Iran was slowly winning its
bloody war against Iraq.
So
the US and Britain supplied Saddam Hussein with chemical and biological
weapons to break the waves of attacking Iranians. Chemical warfare
manufacturing equipment – disguised as insecticide plants – came from
Germany, France and Holland. The feed stock for the germ weapons came
from a US laboratory in Maryland –approved by the US government.
Over
500,000 soldiers and civilians died in the eight-year Iran-Iraq
conflict. To this day, Iran blames the US and the Saudis for instigating
the war and causing some 250,000 Iranian casualties.
By
contrast, in the Anglo-American view, chemical and biological weapons
were fine – so long as used to kill Muslim Iranians. Used against
westerners, they would be denounced as “terrorism.” In 2013, US
President Barack Obama threatened Syria with war over unfounded claims
that Damascus planned to use chemical weapons on US-backed insurgents.
My
dispatches from Baghdad in 1990 were the first to reveal the US-British
plan for Iraq to use biowarfare weapons like anthrax and plague on the
Iranians. The US media never reported this story any more than
Washington’s secret backing for old ally Saddam Hussein.
Few
Americans know anything about their nation’s support for the demonized
Saddam Hussein or the secret biological weapons story. Or that the
deadliest biowarfare weapon used in the region was the destruction by
the US airpower of Iraq’s water and sewage systems, a crime that led to
the deaths, according to UN officials, of over 500,000 Iraqis, mostly
children, from contaminated water. Iraq is still poisoned by depleted
uranium munitions fired by US forces.
The
Western powers prevented Iraq from importing chlorine to purify filthy,
pest-ridden water, claiming the chlorine could be used in chemical
weapons! Lead for school pencils was also banned as a possible nuclear
plant component. This from the same nations that had been covertly
supplying Iraq with germs and poison gas for use against Iran.
Why are these events of a quarter century ago relevant today?
Because
the current horrible mess in Iraq and Syria is a direct result of the
US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. ISIS is a manufactured monster that
could have crawled out of the germ warfare plant at Salman Pak.
Eric
S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist.
His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International
Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times,
the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times
Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. http://ericmargolis.com
copyright Eric S. Margolis 2014
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