Yes. but none of the facilities were operable. And we did not get our intelligence from the sources that the PNAC-run Bush Administration stated. They only knew that Saddam had ever possessed WMD's, because
we GAVE them to him along with the cowboy boots and pistols
Iraq got germs for weapons program from U.S. in '80s
OMG you are SUCH a tool! The US, which had zero diplomatic ties with Iraq, was engaged in a unilateral embargo of Iraq for more than a decade before the Iran-Iraq war -while France, USSR, East and West Germany and Czechoslovakia were busy, busy, busy bees with Iraq making as much money off it as possible. It is why France opposed the removal of Saddam
I like the way you shift time here. Before 1979 straight to 2002. The USSR and it proxies were allied with Iraq and supplied them with weapons to counter the US involvment with Iran. The USSR embargoed weapon sales to Iraq after the start of the Iran/Iraq war, which is one of the reasons Raygun had to intercede on Iraq behalf.
-they had a 50 billion dollar oil deal with Saddam that would only put money in their pocket as long as Saddam stayed in power! Surely you aren't stupid enough to believe France had noble reasons for opposing his removal or for opposing the UN forcing Saddam to live up to the ceasefire agreement at the end of the Gulf War -a ceasefire agreement that if Saddam reneged, would justify the resumption of hostilities again? I mean really, are you THAT ignorant about what was really going on with France stabbing us in the back in order to support Saddam -for OIL? Its the reason the Iraqi government, when issuing new oil contracts deliberately cut France out the deal entirely and granted two contracts with international non-France participating conglomerates and ALL the rest went to Arab owned companies. France is a dirty word in Iraq because the entire population is aware of France's complicity in refusing to step up to the plate and stop the mass murder taking place in Iraq by Saddam and his spawn. France is an amoral cesspool.
So let's get back to your IDIOTIC claim that the US supplied Saddam with chemical weapons -which only proves you have an EVIL need to believe the worst about your own country because where Saddam got them is a KNOWN matter of FACT. But let's think through your STUPID ASS LYING claim that we gave them to him -the very country who sponsored the worldwide ban on chemical weapons and was among the very first signatory nations. But oh SURE, we turned around and GAVE chemical weapons to a ******* dictator whose nation we were unilaterally embargoing (when Europe and USSR were NOT) and had NO diplomatic ties!!! And that makes all kinds of sense in YOUR deviant mind somehow. ROFL Yeah right, if we were even going to do something like that, we'd do it with a nation that was NO friend or ally of OURS and had already hunted down and slaughtered more than 200 Americans living in Iraq when Saddam grabbed power, had already slaughtered more than 2000 Iraqis for the "crime" of being too westernized or for having ties to people in the US. To say nothing of the thousands slaughtered after being falsely accused of being US spies. Yeah, THIS is the guy we are going to VIOLATE our own US initiated worldwide chemical weapons ban for, right? Because he was so trustworthy and all? ROFL
It was Raygun taking Iraq off the list of nations who support terrorism that allowed our allies to supply them with the technology to make the more deadly chemical weapons (they already had mustered gas), and even his clandestine nuclear program. I think it was a German company that supplied them with the precusor chemicals. But it was the US State Department that approved the sale of the technlology. The list of companies that made a profit off Iraq was published some years ago.
After war broke out in the Iran-Iraq war, the US extended a very limited dialogue with Iraq. Full diplomatic relations never happened, there was still no US embassy in Iraq and no discussion to build one. The ONLY thing the US shared with Saddam was intelligence on Iranian troop movements while testing the waters with Saddam. And we sold him TWO commercial airplanes as part of this tentative dialogue. Then Saddam used chemical weapons and the US broke off even this very limited contact they had initiated with Saddam. After the Iranian claim of being hit with chemical weapons had been verified, the US was THE first country to go to the UN about it and demand Saddam be sanctioned for the use of chemical weapons. Now does that really make sense to you if they got them from us? Gee all he had to do was turn around and accuse the US of crimes against humanity for giving them to him and what a major fiasco that would have been to the US! Saddam kept meticulous records and if it were true, he would have had plenty of supporting documents to back that up!
In November 1984, the US and Iraq officially restored diplomatic relations. In 1983, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters to Iraq in 1983 "for civilian use". However, as Phythian pointed out, these aircraft could be "weaponised" within hours of delivery. A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.
The report also noted that US exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment. US firms supplied advanced and specialised computers, lasers, testing and analysing equipment. Among the better-known companies were Hewlett Packard, Unisys, Data General and Honeywell.
But did you EVER hear Saddam even ONCE claim the US supplied him with chemical weapons when that would have been SUCH a wonderful bargaining chip? And surefire guarantee the US would be forced to stop dead in its tracks to go to war with Iraq? If it had been true. Saddam NEVER made any such claim -ever. And NO Iraqi EVER made such a claim -only leftwing LYING ASS LOONS! Saddam stood up in court at his trial railing and ranting about all sorts of things -but never once accused the US of that THEN either! He never claimed the US supplied with him ANYTHING AT ALL except intelligence about Iranian troop movements on a few occasions! And it only could have been a few occasions given the very brief contact between the two before it was broken off again. Your problem is your intense hatred of this country and are so anti-American you WANT and NEED to believe the absolute worst about it -while giving known mass murderers AND their REAL supporting cohorts every benefit of the doubt instead. I'd say that proves what a mental defect you really have.
On the other hand, documents found during the war PROVED that Saddam threatened to expose the corrupt ties between France and Iraq and the huge payoffs Saddam had paid out to French government officials if France EVER failed to protect Saddam again -after France abstained from voting prior to the Gulf War for UN participation in liberating Kuwait which infuriated Saddam -when Saddam had counted on France to cast a no vote. But THAT bothers the left not at all, right? Nooo, they want to pretend it was the US so filthy and corrupt that it actually gave Saddam chemical weapons, violating its OWN initiated ban for a MONSTER like Saddam. Who never once claimed any such thing and went to his death still never claiming any such thing. That makes ANYTHING anti-American you claim immediately suspect and untrustworthy -because this information is NOT a big secret and your lying ass claim is so easily disproved!
UN inspectors determined EXACTLY where Saddam got his chemical weapons and that is laid out in DETAIL by UN inspectors in MULTIPLE interim and final reports that have been released to the public -documented and verified with Iraq's own meticulous records! He built them himself after East Germany, the USSR and a couple of eastern European countries helped him build chemical weapons labs starting back in the late 50s and get them up and running. He had about two decades of production in his own chemical weapons labs even before the Iran-Iraq war. Which is why he was able to use them just months into the Iran-Iraq war. While the US made its first tentative contact with him a matter of WEEKS before he used them -you REALLY want to pretend Cheney was sent over there with chemical weapons hiding in his briefcase? LOL Saddam played hide-and-seek with UN inspectors with his chemical and biological weapons labs for a decade. When UN inspectors left in 1998 they estimated, based on purchasing records and disbursement records, that they had accounted for, discovered and destroyed -only about 25% of their estimates of his chemical weapons stockpiles and even less than that of his biological agents. UN inspectors NEVER discovered his biological weapons labs which were carrying out lethal experiments on human beings even with UN inspectors on the ground -and never would have discovered it if Saddam's own son-in-law, who headed it up -had not fled the country and revealed its existence and locations. To the great embarrassment of UN inspectors who had already decided Saddam didn't have any at all.
France and the USSR helped him build his nuclear plants and provided technical expertise to get it off the ground -the same facilities the Israelis bombed and destroyed.
The same France that sold Israel the exact same type of light-water reactor.
He never got a damn thing like that from the US which cut off all ties and returned to the full unilateral embargo of Iraq once again after Saddam used chemical weapons.
Bold face lie. Iraq remain a "value trading partner until months after he invaded Kuwait and it became clear he was renigging on the Loans Raygun/Bush gave him.
Iraq remained France's client state throughout. Interestingly in the last few weeks before the Iraq War, Russian and French chemical and nuclear specialists rushed to Iraq -many believe to convince Saddam that invasion really was imminent and of the need to hurry and destroy his own stockpiles because being caught red-handed with them would cost him all global sympathy which he could only manipulate as long as no stockpiles were found. Which is probably why the Euphrates was found to have cyanide and mustard agents in it and why sudden, nighttime multiple military flights to Syria took place -an event Israeli agents on the ground insist were planes loaded with chemical weapons and even detailing where they were warehoused. Syria simply denied it but it is now believed that Syria is a chemical weapons force to be reckoned with. Want to blame the US for that too? Interestingly not a single US made weapons was used against us by the Iraqis in that war -but plenty of Soviet, Chinese and French made ones were!
We know he had them for a fact -when UN inspectors were kicked out they left stockpiles of chemical weapons they had already discovered and tagged but had not yet been able to destroy -in his declaration to the UN prior to the Iraq War, Saddam had the balls to claim even THOSE had never existed and UN inspectors were lying. In fact, Saddam reverted to his initial declaration after the Gulf War, word-for-word, starting his whole charade over again claiming that he never even had chemical weapons labs EVER -going back to his standby strategy of deny everything until something was discovered, then admit he had those but that was all -until the next discovery. Saddam amended his initial declaration after the Gulf War 9 times but only in the face of new discoveries -going from a declaration that he had no chemical weapons or labs and never had -to the last one showing he had a massive, widespread chemical weapons program that had been ongoing even while UN inspectors were on the ground in Iraq. And each time insisting there was no more -until the next discovery. It worked well for a decade buying him time so no surprise that prior to the Iraq War -he decided to start from scratch and do a re-run of his same old tactics -once again claiming he didn't have any and NEVER DID at any time. When forced to move on, he then claimed he destroyed the chemical weapons left beyind by the UN inspectors -yet in an anally-retentive country like Iraq known for its obsessive record keeping, Saddam could provide NO document showing he ordered the destruction, NO record it had been done, NO record of the location where it had been done and not a SINGLE witness to that destruction -when the UN would have accepted ANY as proof he was telling the truth. Yet dolts like you insisted that was to be considered true until proven otherwise -regardless of the fact UN inspectors already had the documents proving the man was a pathological liar! He fell back on his first lying ass declaration of denying he ever had chemical weapons to manipulate and drum up support from BOOBS LIKE YOU who think a mass murdering thug dictator deserves every benefit of the doubt even when blatantly and provably lying - while you insisted and STILL insist the US President, for the "crime" of having an R behind his name instead of a D -deserved absolutely none.
That speaks volumes about YOU.
BTW -interesting you focus on one of the rare photos of any American official with Saddam while ignoring the THOUSANDS of photos of one French government official after another with Saddam taken all over the place in that country -including HUNDREDS of French President Jacques Chirac being embraced and as the guest of one big bash after another thrown in his honor. Hmm. The same filthy, corrupt man who bent over backwards trying to protect Saddam AND France's $50 billion oil contract. But sure -it was the US who gave him chemical weapons. What a moron you are! Guess it never crossed your mind that Saddam wasn't interested in close ties with the US anymore than we were with him and during his entire rule for all but a matter of WEEKS, the US exchanged NO word at all with Saddam, much less huge stockpiles of chemical weapons! And France, which controlled 85% of Iraq's export business -wanted and encouraged no relationship between the two countries because it hugely financially benefited them. And I guess you never noticed that every year on the anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait Saddam would publicly denounce the US, declaring it to be Iraq's number one enemy. But never once accused the US of giving him even one chemical weapon, much less stockpiles of them! ROFL
Every source you can find trying to pretend US was a major player with Saddam and held the greatest and primary culpability somehow in spite of the fact the US was for Saddam's entire rule minus a few scant WEEKS, had been Saddam's greatest enemy -has an agenda and is deliberately trying to distort the record. And part of it is not only to smear the US -but to do so in order to cover up, ignore, minimize the roles of the TRUE culprits who were MAJOR, MAJOR players in supporting and supplying and assisting Saddam with his chemical, biological and nuclear facilities -all of whom have the blood of Saddam's estimated half million murdered, tortured and butchered victims on their hands while they turned a blind eye and would have continued turning a blind eye to this monster and his evil spawn all because doing so enriched them. For numbnuts like you, who need very little excuse to get sidetracked if it means wallowing in your irrational hatred of the US and displaying the depths of your anti-Americanism -it really worked.
