WHO ARMED IRAQ? MYTH VS. FACT (Charles Smith Alert!)

I have offered that challenge to dozens of so-called anti-war activists who claim that the U.S. armed Iraq. According to these protesters for "peace" George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan supplied Iraq with tons of weapons.

None have been able to name the specific weapon; missile, bomb, fighter, tank or shell that is U.S. made or has the U.S. equipment installed in it. None have been able to name any specific weapon system.

All of them have failed the challenge, providing no more than allegations that U.S. parts are in Iraqi missiles or U.S. electronics are being used by the Iraqi military. One protester even claimed that Iraq was armed with U.S. made trucks.

Since when is a truck a weapon? Are the Iraqis going to drive backwards, fuel tank first, into the U.S. Army?

Time to separate the myth from the reality. The propaganda spun by the far left is false. The facts show that Iraq is armed with a wide range of weapons-none of which came from the U.S.

The Iraqi air force does not fly Falcons or Eagles. The majority of the Iraqi air force is made in Russia. The Russian MiG and Sukhoi design bureaus supplied Iraq with hundreds of advanced strike-fighters and the Mach 3 Foxbat interceptor.

Saddam could field a force of advanced MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters if they had not chickened out of combat during the Gulf war, flying to Iran for asylum. The Iranians, who love Saddam even less than we do, never returned the MiGs.

The remainder of the Iraqi air force comes from France and China. The Chinese supplied Saddam with the Chengdu F-7, a copy of the Russian MiG-21. The F-7 can fly from unimproved runways and is known to be a vicious in-close dog fighter.

However, the French Mirage F-1 is reportedly the best jet fighter in Iraqi hands. You can view an Iraqi F-1 in action on the State Department web site, testing a chemical spraying system. If you still believe that the Iraqis have no chemical weapons, think again. Iraq did not modify its best multi-million dollar fighter jet to spray for fruit flies.

Anyone with half of a brain knows that you cannot keep a modern jet fighter in the air without spare parts. Thus, the Russian, Chinese and French jets should be museum pieces after 12 years of a so-called U.N. ban on weapons sales to Iraq. Somehow, Saddam has his air force flying over 1,000 sorties a month.

Thanks to the excellent reporting by Bill Gertz we now know that France has been supplying spare parts for Saddam's Mirage fighters. The French spare parts arrived in Baghdad not 20 years ago during the Cold War but last year, just in time to face our forces today.

Perhaps the Iraqi missile force has some U.S. made weapons? Not. The primary Iraqi missile is the Russian made SCUD. Other missiles include the FROG-7 from Russia, the Exocet from France and the Silkworm from China.

The Iraqi air defense has plenty of missiles... from Russia, China and France. The SA-2 Guideline, SA-3 Goa and SA-6 Gainful SAM missiles are all of Russian or Chinese manufacture. The French also supplied Baghdad with a number of Roland air defense missile systems.

Even the missile parts are from Chinese, German and French sources. Israeli authorities know full well what is inside Iraqi made SCUD missiles since many of them fell on Tel Aviv during the Gulf war. The Israelis found that the SCUD warhead electronics were made in Germany - not the U.S.A.

In addition, William Safire recently wrote a column noting that a Chinese chemical company had supplied rocket fuel to Iraq through a French front company. Safire identified the fuel, the companies and the Iraqi missile facility where it was mixed into new Iraqi rockets.

Again, the missile fuel sale was made within the last year, just in time to make new Iraqi missiles pointed at Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Saddam sends his love to Paris and Beijing. Without your help he certainly could not threaten his neighbors with nerve gas and Anthrax.

Okay, if not jet fighters and missiles-then how about tanks? Certainly the biggest weapons seller in the world, the U.S.A., sold tanks to Iraq.

The Iraqi armor force is made up of Chinese and Russian models familiar to any "cold" warrior. The Iraqi T-72 and T-55 tanks are all of Russian manufacture. The Iraqis also have a large number of Type-59 Chinese tanks and Russian made BMP armored troop carriers. No M-1 Abrams here.

How about attack helicopters? The Iraqis have a number of choppers they used against the Kurds and Shiites.

So sorry, the Iraqi attack chopper force is Russian and French. The Russians supplied Iraq with a large number of the Mil-24 Hind attack helicopters, armed to the teeth with cannon, missiles and even chemical weapon sprayers.

The French supplied Saddam with a large number of Gazelle attack helicopters. The same French also managed to keep Saddam's attack helicopter force flying today with spare parts.

Nope. The main Iraqi artillery is the French 155mm howitzer. The remainder of Iraq's artillery is 122mm Russian made cannons and Russian made short-range rocket launchers. Even the Iraqi foot soldier is armed with the venerable AK-47 of Russian and Chinese make.

The facts are that during the Iran-Iraq war the U.S. supplied Iraq with something much more valuable than guns. Satellite information on when and where the Iranians were going to attack.

Of course, current anti-war activists seize this piece of information without putting it into historical context. The information was supplied during the height of the Cold War. The main threat to America was the Soviet Union and the biggest fear in the Gulf was the Ayatollah Khomeni.

You remember the chant "death to America"? It almost seems that the Ayatollah invented it. Ironically, the Ayatollah made his way to Tehran from his home in exile - Paris.

The Reagan administration, aware that the Iranian Ayatollah had threatened to turn the Gulf into a sea of fire, assisted Saddam so that he would not lose the war. The assistance stopped short of helping Saddam win the war.

In fact, when it appeared the Iraqis were on the verge of victory, the Reagan administration transferred real weapons to the Iranians. The infamous Iran-Contra scandal involved a large number of badly needed U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles that were sold to Iran.

The U.S. missiles proved to be critical to the Iranian defense against Iraq's superior Russian tank force. The result was a stalemate and the war ended.

The fact is that Saddam owes billions to France, Russia and China for weapons purchases. Clearly, Iraq is buying more weapons from Paris and Beijing despite a U.N. arms embargo. Perhaps one reason why Paris, Moscow and Beijing oppose a war in Iraq is because they would lose their best customer.

The propaganda spun by the far-left that the U.S. armed Iraq is false and backed by no facts. The so-called anti-war types are more interested in slamming Bush than stopping a war. None have been able to name one American made weapon in the Iraqi arsenal.

More importantly, none of them can give one good reason why Saddam should stay in power.

The Jeff Rense show on the Talk Radio Network Wednesday, 3/19/03, at 10 p.m. Eastern time.

The American Freedom Network with NewsMax contributor Dr. James Hirsen on Friday, 3/21/03, at 11 a.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.amerifree.com.

The Jerry Hughes show on Friday, 3/21/03, at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Show information at http://www.cilamerica.com.

The Phil Paleologos "American Breakfast" show on Tuesday, 3/25/03, the Langer Broadcast Network, at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time. Show information at www.dinershow.com.

The Ken Bagwell show on Wednesday, 3/27/03, WISE - from North Carolina - at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Yes, I have read all about the dual use stuff. That's a big difference from "WE GAVE THE IRAQI'S NERVE GAS".

I agree, most of the stuff was funneled through the University of Baghdad and the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

Iraq acknowledged that it procured, through the Technical and Scientific Materials Import Division (TSMID),very large quantities of complex growth media in 1988 but failed to provide an accounting for the purposes of this importation and for the use of a significant portion of it. Iraq claimed that, while the media was imported by TSMID, the import was on behalf of the Ministry of Health for the purposes of hospital diagnostic laboratories. This importation of media by types, quantities and packaging is grossly out of proportion to Iraq‘s stated requirements for hospital use. Iraq explained the excessive quantities imported and the inappropriate size of the packaging as being a one-of-a-kind mistake and attempted to justify the import as appropriate and required for medical diagnostic purposes. However, for hospital diagnostic purposes, only small quantities are needed. According to Iraq‘s declarations, which were imprecise and changing, over the period 1987-1994 Iraq‘s total hospital consumption of all such media was less than 200 kg per annum. But in 1988 alone, TSMID imported nearly 39,000 kg of such media, which has a manufacturer‘s guarantee of 4 to 5 years. A further incongruity was that, of all the types of media required for hospital use, only a select few were "mistakenly" imported by TSMID in large quantities. These did not include those most frequently used in hospitals. Furthermore, the packaging of TSMID imports was inconsistent with declared hospital usage: diagnostic assays use very small quantities of media and so, because the media deteriorates rapidly once a package has been opened, media for diagnostic purposes is normally distributed in 0.1-1 kg packages. However, the media imported by Iraq in 1988 was packaged in 25-100 kg drums. This style of packaging is consistent with the large-scale usage of media associated with the production of biological agents. The types of media imported are suitable for the production of anthrax and botulinum, known biological warfare agents researched by Iraq in its declared biological military program. [S/1995/284]

Iraq acknowledged the purchase by TSMID in 1989 of four filling machines, ostensibly for a biopesticide project at the Salman Pak site. Until this acknowledgement, Iraq, while declaring Salman Pak to be the site of its biological military research programme, had not declared any biopesticide activity there. Filling machines, while having many uses, are required for filling bacterial warfare agent into munitions or containers. TSMID procured a spray dryer in 1989. Again, it was claimed that this was for the above-mentioned biopesticide project at Salman Pak. This spray dryer has technical specifications which provide a capability of drying the bacterial slurry resulting from the fermentation process to produce dry matter with particle sizes in the range of 1 to 10 m. This particle size is associated with efficient dispersion of biological warfare agents, not with the production of biopesticides. Furthermore, dry bacterial matter is easier to store for longer periods. Such spray dryers, therefore, would be a crucial component in acquiring an indigenous capability to produce viable and durable biological weapons. TSMID attempted to order various named and virulent anthrax strains, known to be particularly appropriate for biological warfare purposes. Iraq flatly denied this, despite confirmation to the Commission by the potential supplier. [S/1995/284]

After intensive inspection efforts and accumulation of further findings by UNSCOM, on 01 July 1995, Iraq finally admitted for the first time that it indeed had had an offensive biological weapons program from April 1986 to September 1990. While acknowledging an offensive program that included the production of large quantities of two warfare agents at the Al Hakam facility, Iraq nevertheless firmly denied weaponization of these or any other biological warfare agents.

The weaponization and the broader scope of the biological warfare programme was disclosed only in August 1995, after the departure from Iraq of Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamel, former Minister of Defence and Minister Supervisor of the Military Industrialization Corporation. [S/1996/848] On 17 August 1995 Iraq informed UNSCOM that the full, final and complete disclosure of 04 August should not be considered valid. Iraq then presented a vastly different account of Iraq‘s past biological warfare program that included weaponization, additional agents and additional sites involved in the program. [S/1995/864]

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