Horowitz Blog (or who armed Iraq)

Front Page Magazine ^ | 4/4/2003 | David Horowitz

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Kerry's delusion; America's Palestinian Enemy; Astounding Historians - Friday, April 04, 2003 5:55 PM

Kerry's Delusion

Those who say that the Bush Administration's failed diplomacy caused the war in Iraq -- people like Senator John Kerry and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle -- should have their heads examined as this chart shows. (Be warned: the title of the chart is ironic.) Their presumption is that if President Bush and Secretary Powell had been more patient and given inspectors more time to show that Saddam was not cooperating in disarming his regime, permanent Security Council members France, Russia and China -- all wielding a veto power -- would have voted to go to war or least agreed not to obstruct a UN resolution to that effect.

The chart, which is sourced from the Stockholm International Peace Research Initiative site, should quickly dispel all such delusions. Russia, France and China accounted for 82% of all weapons sales to Saddam Hussein's regime between 1973 and 2002. These are Saddam's allies. What diplomacy would persuade them to expose their role in arming Saddam and jeopardize their multi-billion dollar oil contracts with the regime?

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

[so_real]

Awesome graph ! Thanks !

[Hugin]

What are you doing confusing the lefties with facts that contradict their talking points?

[Symix]

Wow - I wish they showed this chart on tv!

[EaglesUpForever]

Well, I can see how the french are a "peace-loving" people. I guess they figured that if they could clear Israel out of the middle east, the world would be free of war. With peace lovers like that, who needs serial killers?

[BushMeister]

That's an amazing chart! The situation is far worse and more transparent than I thought.

Despite the claims that "we (the U.S.) armed Iraq", I think the aid we offered to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war was mostly in the form of satellitle imagery and other forms of intelligence. I think that (as is usually the case) a few private American companies sold pre-cursor material to Iraq, but I've not heard anything about U.S. govt.-sponsored waepons/components to Iraq.

[Valin]

Like THAT'S gonna happen.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

We sold them things like fertilizer.

[inquest]

It should be noted, however, that the chart shows "Share of SALES by Country". Where the money came from for those sales may be a different matter.

[Eva]

Read this old satire peace from, January 2002. CLICK HERE

[Tempest]

The problem is, is that this chart only refers to conventional weapons.

But according to the Riegle Report submitted to the Senate in 1994, it shows rather disturbing evidence that the US is in a way responsible for Iraq getting possesion of the means to produce WMD.

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/medsearch/FocusAreas/riegle_report/report/report_index.htm

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Granted, I only skimmed the report, but where exactly does it claim that the US is responsible for them weaponizing dual-use chemicals.

[Tempest]

True it doesn't. And I found further evidence that would most likely exclude the US's participation in aiding Saddam with his attempts to aquire WMD's.

http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/research/factsheet-1984.html

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Interesting. This seems to describe active attempts by the US to prevent certain chemicals from being sold to Iraq.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Jeez, I'm going to try to avoid (re)reading that Zero-point energy thread on your profile page...