Posted on 08/18/2002 12:58:47 PM PDT by Libloather
Report: Reagan Aided Iraq Despite Chemical Weapons
Sat Aug 17, 9:31 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States gave Iraq vital battle-planning help during its war with Iran as part of a secret program under President Ronald Reagan even though U.S. intelligence agencies knew the Iraqis would unleash chemical weapons, The New York Times reported on its Web site on Saturday.
The highly classified covert program involved more than 60 officers of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency who provided detailed information on Iranian military deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq, the Times said.
The Times said it based its report on comments by senior U.S. military officers with direct knowledge of the program, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
Iraq and neighboring Iran waged a vicious and costly war from September 1980 to August 1988, with estimates of 1 million people killed and millions more left as refugees.
U.S. intelligence officers never encouraged or condoned the use of chemical weapons by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces, but also never opposed such action because they considered Iraq to be struggling for its survival and feared that Iran would overrun the crucial oil-producing Gulf states, the Times reported.
It has been known for some time that the United States provided intelligence assistance to Iraq during the war in the form of satellite photography to help the Iraqis understand how Iranian forces were deployed. But the complete scope of the program had not been known until now, the Times said.
The Times noted that Iraq's deployment of chemical weapons during its war with Iran has been invoked by President Bush and Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, as justification for seeking "regime change" in Iraq.
'A CATASTROPHIC EFFECT'
"Having gone through the 440 days of the hostage crisis in Iran, the period when we were the Great Satan, if Iraq had gone down it would have had a catastrophic effect on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the whole region might have gone down. That was the backdrop of the policy," the Times quoted an unidentified former Defense Intelligence Agency official as saying.
While senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly condemned Iraq's use of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other chemical weapons, Reagan, Vice President George Bush -- the father of the current U.S. president -- and senior national security aides never withdrew their support for the covert program, the Times quoted military officers as saying.
Current Secretary of State Colin Powell, who at the time served as national security adviser, was among the Reagan administration officials who publicly condemned Iraq for its use of poison gas, especially one incident in March 1988.
The Times said that in early 1988, after the Iraqis, with U.S. planning assistance, retook a key peninsula in an attack that restored Iraqi access to the Gulf, defense intelligence officer Lt. Col. Rick Francona was dispatched to tour the battlefield with Iraqi officers.
Francona found that Iraq had used chemical weapons to secure its victory, observing zones marked off for chemical contamination and seeing unmistakable evidence that Iraqi soldiers had taken injections to guard against the effects of poison gas used against the Iranians, the Times said.
Powell, through a spokesman, called the Times account of the program "dead wrong," but declined to discuss it, the newspaper said. Both the Defense Intelligence Agency and retired Lt. Gen. Leonard Perroots, who supervised the program as the head of the agency, refused to comment, the Times said.
The Times - "all the news we want to tell you about..."
Expect much, MUCH more of the same.
By the November elections, the NYT will be comparing Bush to either Hitler or Satan, or both.
It's all in the timing. This report didn't come out last summer. This report wasn't planned to come out next summer. The Times decided to report this 20-year-old information - now.
I really don't give a damn if it happened. That was in the '80's and the *Crintons cured everything that's happened since then. That's what I'm told.
Gas compared to intercontinental nukes? C'mon...
We know two things about the Iran/Iraq war, and we've known these things for well over a decade: 1) we leaned toward Iraq in that war and 2) Iraq used chemical weapons.
Nothing in the Times article is anything new, it just repeats stuff we've known for a good 15 years. The question is why it's on the front page now, and why are the networks playing it up?
I think we know the answer to that question. The attempts by the Times to propagandize against this war before it starts almost makes the case for going to war stronger. Can you imagine what the Times will do next if they succeed?
I can't help giggling when I see a leftist paper saying "This is TOP secret, you know" when they're trying to tell an obvious lie.
The "real" world uses gas. The "real" world uses nukes.
Which is worse, liberallarry?
Sad but true, LL.
I surprised that no one has posted
Report: FDR Aided U.S.S.R. Despite Gulags/Mass Murder By Stalin
As my cousin Naczeslaw says "Principle is for bankers and fairy tales".
If it's true. If. Unnamed sources. I never trust any report, especially from the NYT, that relies on unnamed sources.
If they can prove it, print it. Otherwise, they should shut the hell up.
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