"Flashback" ... when Reagan was arming Iran

[docmercer--banned]

1/9/87
The White House releases the finding - signed by President Reagan on January 17, 1986 - authorizing the sale of arms to Iran and ordering the CIA not to tell Congress. Also released is the 2 1/2 page memo justifying the policy, which the President had not read.

1/28/87
"On the surface, selling arms to a country that sponsors terrorism, of course, clearly, you'd have to argue it's wrong, but it's the exception sometimes that proves the rule." - George Bush on Good Morning America.

 

[bblight]

THE UNITED STATES AND THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR
​

STEPHEN R. SHALOM
​

​

The war between Iran and Iraq was one of the great human tragedies of recent Middle Eastern history. Perhaps as many as a million people died, many more were wounded, and millions were made refugees. The resources wasted on the war exceeded what the entire Third World spent on public health in a decade.<1>

The war began on September 22, 1980, when Iraqi troops launched a full-scale invasion of Iran. Prior to this date there had been subversion by each country inside the other and also major border clashes. Iraq hoped for a lightning victory against an internationally isolated neighbor in the throes of revolutionary upheaval. But despite Iraq's initial successes, the Iranians rallied and, using their much larger population, were able by mid-1982 to push the invaders out. In June 1982, the Iranians went over to the offensive, but Iraq, with a significant advantage in heavy weaponry, was able to prevent a decisive Iranian breakthrough. The guns finally fell silent on August 20, 1988.

Primary responsibility for the eight long years of bloodletting must rest with the governments of the two countries -- the ruthless military regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the ruthless clerical regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Khomeini was said by some to have a "martyr complex," though, as U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance wryly observed, people with martyr complexes rarely live to be as old as Khomeini. Whatever his complexes, Khomeini had no qualms about sending his followers, including young boys, off to their deaths for his greater glory. This callous disregard for human life was no less characteristic of Saddam Hussein. And, for that matter, it was also no less characteristic of much of the world community, which not only couldn't be bothered by a few hundred thousand Third World corpses, but tried to profit from the conflict.

France became the major source of Iraq's high-tech weaponry, in no small part to protect its financial stake in that country.<2> The Soviet Union was Iraq's largest weapon's supplier, while jockeying for influence in both capitals. Israel provided arms to Iran, hoping to bleed the combatants by prolonging the war. And at least ten nations sold arms to both of the warring sides.<3>

The list of countries engaging in despicable behavior, however, would be incomplete without the United States. The U.S. objective was not profits from the arms trade, but the much more significant aim of controlling to the greatest extent possible the region's oil resources. Before turning to U.S. policy during the Iran-Iraq war, it will be useful to recall some of the history of the U.S. and oil.
THE GULF WAR

The United States did not have diplomatic relations with either belligerent in 1980 and announced its neutrality in the conflict. One typically humanitarian State Department official explained in 1983: "we don't give a damn as long as the Iran-Iraq carnage does not affect our allies in the region or alter the balance of power."<29> In fact, however, the United States was not indifferent to the war, but saw a number of positive opportunities opened up by its prolongation.

The need for arms and money would make Baghdad more dependent on the conservative Gulf states and Egypt, thereby moderating Iraq's policies and helping to repair ties between Cairo and the other Arab states. The war would make Iran -- whose weapons had all been U.S.-supplied in the past -- desperate to obtain U.S. equipment and spare parts. The exigencies of war might make both nations more willing to restore their relations with Washington. Alternatively, the dislocations of war might give the U.S. greater ability to carry out covert operations in Iran or Iraq. And turmoil in the Gulf might make other states in the area more susceptible to U.S. pressure for military cooperation.

When the war first broke out, the Soviet Union turned back its arms ships en route to Iraq, and for the next year and a half, while Iraq was on the offensive, Moscow did not provide weapons to Baghdad.<30> In March 1981, the Iraqi Communist Party, repressed by Saddam Hussein, beamed broadcasts from the Soviet Union calling for an end to the war and the withdrawal of Iraqi troops.<31> That same month U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he saw the possibility of improved ties with Baghdad and approvingly noted that Iraq was concerned by "the behavior of Soviet imperialism in the Middle Eastern area." The U.S. then approved the sale to Iraq of five Boeing jetliners, and sent a deputy assistant secretary of state to Baghdad for talks.<32> The U.S. removed Iraq from its notoriously selective list of nations supporting international terrorism<33> (despite the fact that terrorist Abu Nidal was based in the country)<34> and Washington extended a $400 million credit guarantee for U.S. exports to Iraq.<35> In November 1984, the U.S. and Iraq restored diplomatic relations, which had been ruptured in 1967.<36>



THE SOVIET THREAT AND THE RAPID DEPLOYMENT FORCE

At the same time that the war was furthering the U.S. position in Iraq, it was also extending U.S. military relations with the other Arab Gulf states.

Washington typically justified its desire for military ties in the Gulf and the development of forces for use there by warning of the Soviet threat. In January 1980, President Carter proclaimed the "Carter Doctrine," declaring that the U.S. was willing to use military force if necessary to prevent "an outside power" from conquering the Gulf. As Michael Klare has noted, however, the real U.S. concern was revealed five days later when Secretary of Defense Harold Brown released his military posture statement. Brown indicated that the greatest threat was not Soviet expansionism but uncontrolled turbulence in the third world. "In a world of disputes and violence, we cannot afford to go abroad unarmed," he warned. "The particular manner in which our economy has expanded means that we have come to depend to no small degree on imports, exports and the earnings from overseas investments for our material well-being." Specifically, Brown identified the "protection of the oil flow from the Middle East" as "clearly part of our vital interest," in defense of which "we'll take any action that's appropriate, including the use of military force."<37>

Brown did not explicitly state that the United States would intervene militarily in response to internal threats, like revolution, but after he left office he explained what could be said openly and what could not: "One sensitive issue is whether the United States should plan to protect the oil fields against internal or regional threats. Any explicit commitment of this sort is more likely to upset and anger the oil suppliers than to reassure them."<38>

Gulf touchiness on explicit U.S. commitments to "defend" the oil fields had two sources. First, the sheikdoms do not like to be seen as dependent on U.S. force against their own populations. And, second, the Gulf states were made nervous by the frequent talk in the United States about taking over the oil fields in the event of another embargo.<39> There was even a Congressional study of the feasibility of seizing the oil fields; and though the study concluded that such an operation would be unlikely to succeed militarily, the mere fact that this was considered a fit subject for analysis did not instill confidence in Gulf capitals.<40>

Given this sensitivity, Brown advised that the United States should prepare plans and capabilities for intervention -- against coups and other threats -- but should avoid an explicitly declared policy to this effect.<41>

The Carter administration began the formation of a Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) to project U.S. military power into the Gulf region. Originally proposed in 1977, the planning did not make much progress until after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The fundamental purpose of the RDF was always, in the words of Carter's National Security Adviser, "helping a friendly government under a subversive attack";<42> nevertheless, to justify the RDF the Soviet threat had to be magnified. Accordingly, Carter spoke in apocalyptic terms about the strategic significance of the invasion of Afghanistan, even though U.S. military experts were aware that a "thrust through Afghanistan would be of marginal advantage to any Soviet movement through Iran or the Gulf."<43>

In 1980, the Army conducted a gaming exercise called "Gallant Knight" which assumed an all-out Soviet invasion of Iran. The Army concluded that they would need 325,000 troops to hold back the Soviet colossus. According to a former military affairs aide to Senator Sam Nunn, the Army deliberately chose this scenario to guarantee that immense forces would be required.<44> And though an RDF of this size might seem unnecessarily large for combating Third World troublemakers, the Pentagon noted that in the mid-1980s Third World armies were no longer "barbarians with knives." The U.S. could no longer expect to "stabilize an area just by showing the flag."<45>

When Reagan became president, he added what became known as the "Reagan Codicil" to the "Carter Doctrine," declaring at a press conference that "we will not permit" Saudi Arabia "to be an Iran."<46> The codicil did not represent new policy, but merely made explicit what had always been policy.

Under Reagan, the CIA secretly concluded that the possibility of a Soviet invasion of Iran was "remote"<47> -- not surprisingly, given that the Red Army was hardly having an easy time with the Afghanis, who had half the population and were much less well equipped.<48> The remoteness of the Soviet threat, however, did not slow down the build up of the RDF.

In 1982 the Pentagon's secret _Defense Guidance_ document stated that the Soviet Union might extend its forces into the Gulf area "by means other than outright invasion." It continued: "Whatever the circumstances, we should be prepared to introduce American forces directly into the region should it appear that the security of access to Persian Gulf oil is threatened...."<49> In the Senate, many argued that there was too much emphasis on countering the USSR, whereas the focus should be on "deterring and, if necessary, fighting regional wars or leftist or nationalist insurgencies that threatened U.S. and allied access to the region's oil supplies."<50>

The official line was that the RDF would be deployed when a government invited it in to repel a Soviet attack. But, as a Library of Congress study noted, this view was belied by "guidance documents which say that the forces must be capable of coercive entry without waiting for an invitation."<51> Senators Tower and Cohen stated that they favored greater emphasis on marines who could shoot their way ashore against military opposition. The administration pointed out that RDF plans all along had included a "forcible entry" option, relying on Marines. "We must be able to open our own doors," the Marine Commandant testified in March 1982.<52> In short, these folks are not just "barbarians with knives."

To support the RDF, the Pentagon needed a network of bases, and not just in the Middle East, but worldwide. "To all intents and purposes," a former senior Defense Department official observed, "'Gulf waters' now extend from the Straits of Malacca to the South Atlantic."<53> Nevertheless, bases nearer the Gulf had a special importance, and Pentagon planners urged "as substantial a land presence in the <54> as can be managed."<55> The Gulf states were reluctant to have too overt a relationship with the United States, but the Iran-Iraq war served to overcome some of this reluctance. In 1985, as Iranian advances seemed ominous, the _New York Times_ reported that Oman "has become a base for Western intelligence operations, military maneuvers and logistical preparations for any defense of the oil-producing Persian Gulf."<56> A few months later, a secret U.S. report was leaked indicating that Saudi Arabia had agreed to allow the United States to use bases in its territory in a crisis.<57> The doors to U.S. influence were opening wider.

 

[bblight]

What I really get a laugh from is Docs two faced twisting of the facts by presenting only a part of the picture to further his hate mongering objectives.

US interference in the region has gone on through all administrations since FDR. The way Doc is trying to revise historical fact is comedic.

Doc says he only hates Bush - but now his hate has reached out to Reagan and just about anyone who doesn't march lockstep to his Reichfuhrer drumming.

 

[docmercer--banned]

what facts do I twist??

 

[docmercer--banned]

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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Ronnie & Saddam
Under Reagan, Secret Deals Brokered by Donald Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein Secured the Dictator an Arsenal of WMD
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[font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]<!-- #BeginEditable "author" -->by Neil Mackay <!-- #EndEditable -->[/font]​

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It was just before Christmas 1983 that Donald Rumsfeld, then US presidential envoy to Iraq, slipped quietly into Baghdad to come face to face with the man who would become one of America's greatest enemies within two decades.

The trip by the current US defense secretary, to pledge US support for Saddam Hussein, marked one of the lowest points of the entire Reagan presidency, and symbolically represents the real legacy of the "Great Communicator". For Reagan was a president who allowed the US to secretly arm the Iraqi dictator with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), supported Iraq's military expansion, turned a blind eye to Saddam using chemical weapons against Iran and thereby set in train the events that would lead to George W Bush's disastrous decision to invade the country in 2002.

While America was selling WMD to Iraq, Reagan was also telling Saddam to increase his brutal campaign against the Iranian fundamentalist regime, even while Iraqi poison gas was falling on Persian battlefields. The Reagan presidency made America complicit in Saddam's war crimes.

Just weeks before Rumsfeld's meeting with Saddam, Reagan had underlined the importance of securing US relations with Iraq, which was engaged in a bloody war with Iran at the time. The Iran-Iraq war began when an opportunistic Saddam decided to attack his neighboring country, following the Islamic revolution which installed the Ayatollah Khomeini as leader.

Reagan's November 26, 1983, National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 114), entitled US Policy Toward The Iran-Iraq War, stated: "Because of the real and psychological impact of a curtailment in the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf on the international economic system, we must assure our readiness to deal promptly with actions aimed at disrupting that traffic."

The secret State Department account of the Rumsfeld-Saddam meeting, written in a staccato telegram-style, reads: "Saddam Hussein showed obvious pleasure with ... Rumsfeld's visit ... Rumsfeld told Saddam US and Iraq had shared interests in preventing Iranian and Syrian expansion. He said the US was urging other states to curtail arms sales to Iran and believed it had successfully closed off US-controlled exports by third countries to Iran."

The State Department said: "Our initial assessment is that meeting marked a positive milestone in development of US-Iraqi relations and will prove to be of wider benefit to US posture in the region."

Rumsfeld then told Saddam: "Our understanding of the importance of balance in the world and the region was similar to Iraq's." The briefing goes on: "Regarding war with Iran, Rumsfeld said, US agreed it was not in interests of region or the West for conflict to create greater instability or for outcome to be one which weakened Iraq's role or enhanced interests and ambitions of Iran. We thought conflict should be settled in a peaceful manner which did not expand Iran's interests and preserved sovereignty of Iraq."

After discussing the possibility of two oil pipelines, Rumsfeld and Saddam moved on to discussions about nations selling arms to Iran. Rumsfeld told Saddam: "Countries which acted in such a manner were short-sighted, looking at a single commercial transaction while their more fundamental interests were being harmed."

The US had publicly declared itself "officially neutral" in the Iran-Iraq conflict when Saddam attacked the newly Islamic state, but investigative research undertaken at George Washington University's National Security Archive shows that this declaration was a complete lie.

In 1982, as the Iran-Iraq war began to hot up, the USA quietly took Iraq off the State Department's list of states that supported terrorism. This allowed money to start flowing from America into Saddam's coffers.

Both the White House and the State Department bullied the Export-Import Bank to provide Iraq with financing. This made Saddam's balance sheet look so healthy that he was able to get loans from other international banks. Unsurprisingly, Saddam spent most of his new-found wealth on weapons - which he bought from Britain and America. Joyce Battle, of the National Security Archive, says: "Although official US policy still barred the export of US military equipment to Iraq, some was evidently provided on a ‘don't ask, don't tell' basis."

When a Congressional aide asked in March 1983, whether heavy trucks sold to Iraq were intended for military purposes, a State Department official said: "We presumed that this was Iraq's intention and had not asked." America officially restored full formal relations with Saddam's Ba'athist Iraq in November 1984, despite months of Iranian complaints to the world that its troops were being attacked with chemical weapons by Iraq's army. Some 600,000 Iranians died in the war, compared with 300,000 Iraqis.

America was fully aware of Saddam's war crimes. A November 1983 US memorandum from the bureau of politico-military affairs to the then secretary of state George Shultz, headed Iraqi Use Of Chemical Weapons, confirms that America knew that Saddam was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily basis". Another State Department memo, also written in November 1983 - this time from the office of the assistant secretary for near Eastern and South Asian affairs - says the US should tell Saddam that America knows about the use of poison gas, as that would "avoid unpleasantly surprising Iraq through public positions we may have to take on this issue". However, State Department documents also reveal that America decided to limit its "efforts against the Iraqi CW [chemical weapon] program to close monitoring because of our strict neutrality".

Other State Department cables sent around this time show that America knew Iraq used chemical weapons in October 1982 and in July and August 1983, "and more recently against Kurdish insurgents". Reagan also knew by the end of 1983 that "with the essential assistance of foreign firms, Iraq has become able to deploy and use CW and probably has built up large reserves of CW for further use".

Iraq's use of chemical weapons was not discussed at all during Rumsfeld's meeting, an omission entirely consistent with US policy. On November 1, 1983, the State Department noted in a memo that Saddam had acquired "CW capability", possibly from the USA. But two sentences later, the same memo says: "Presently Iraq is at a disadvantage in its war of attrition against Iran. After a recent meeting on the war, a discussion paper was sent to the White House for a National Security Council meeting, a section of which outlines a number of measures we might take to assist Iraq."

Rumsfeld was accompanied on his Baghdad trip by Howard Teicher, the then US National Security Advisor. In 1995, Teicher lodged a sworn declaration in the US district court in the Southern district of Florida, saying: "While a staff member to the National Security Council, I was responsible for the Middle East and for political-military affairs. During my five years' tenure on the National Security Council, I had regular contact with both CIA director William Casey and deputy director Robert Gates … Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war ... In 1986, President Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein telling him that Iraq should step up its air war and bombing of Iran. Similar strategic advice was passed to Saddam Hussein through meetings with European and Middle Eastern heads of state."

After Rumsfeld's visit, a buoyant Saddam issued a public threat in February 1984, to use CW against the Iranians, saying: "The invaders should know that for every harmful insect there is an insecticide capable of annihilating it, whatever the number, and Iraq possesses the annihilation insecticide."

After this, America was compelled to issue a condemnation of Iraq's CW program A month later the USA put out this rather weak reprimand: "While condemning Iraq's chemical weapons use - the United States finds the present Iranian government regime's intransigent refusal to deviate from its avowed objective of eliminating the legitimate government of neighboring Iraq to be inconsistent with the accepted norms of behavior among nations and the moral and religious basis which it claims."

Joyce Battle said that after this gentle scolding, the State Department was asked if Iraq's CW program would have "any effect on US recent initiatives to expand commercial relationships with Iraq across a broad range". A State Department official said: "No. I'm not aware of any change in our position. We're interested in being involved in a closer relationship with Iraq."

That was quite evident from a US State Department memo dated May 9, 1984, which said that the US was reviewing its policy "on the sale of certain dual-use items to Iraq nuclear entities" and that "preliminary results favor expanding such trade to include Iraqi nuclear entities". A dual-use item can be a part for a heart machine, which is also used in the construction of nuclear bomb s.

By September 1984, the USA's Defense Intelligence Agency found Iraq was continuing to develop its "formidable" CW arsenal and would "probably pursue nuclear weapons".

Iran lodged a draft resolution with the UN asking the world to condemn Saddam for his use of poison gas, banned internationally by the Geneva Protocols. US diplomats began asking friendly nations to go for a "no decision" ruling. The US also said it was ready to abstain.

Iraqi diplomat Nizar Hamdoon, who later became Iraq's ambassador to the UN, met the US deputy assistant secretary of state, James Placke, telling him that Saddam could live with a Security Council presidential statement which did not name any individual country for using chemical weapons.

That was exactly what happened . Battle trawled the National Security archives for secret documents like these, which detail the hidden history of American support for Saddam. She says that during the years when Iraq really was using WMD "actual rather than rhetorical opposition to such use was evidently not perceived to serve US interests; instead, the Reagan administration did not deviate from its determination that Iraq was to serve as the instrument to prevent Iranian victory". She adds: "Chemical warfare was viewed as a potentially embarrassing public relations problem that complicated efforts to provide assistance. The US was concerned with its ability to project military force in the Middle East, and to keep the oil flowing."

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[bblight]

Doc, gimmee a break willya! The Reagan codicil was added onto the Carter Doctrine - it's all one line started during WWII and flowing right through to today.

The Carter Doctrine. Reflecting his concern over the Persian Gulf area, Carter, in his 1980 State of the Union address warned: "Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America. And such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
The doctrine was further enhanced a few days later when Secretary of Defense Harold Brown released his military posture statement. Brown indicated that the greatest threat was not Soviet expansionism but uncontrolled turbulence in the third world. "In a world of disputes and violence, we cannot afford to go abroad unarmed," he warned. "The particular manner in which our economy has expanded means that we have come to depend to no small degree on imports, exports and the earnings from overseas investments for our material well-being." Specifically, Brown identified the "protection of the oil flow from the Middle East" as "clearly part of our vital interest," in defense of which "we'll take any action that's appropriate, including the use of military force."

When Reagan became president, he added what became known as the "Reagan Codicil" to the "Carter Doctrine," declaring at a press conference that "we will not permit" Saudi Arabia "to be an Iran." The codicil did not represent new policy, but merely made explicit what had always been policy.

 

[kayaman+]

It's amazing that people still defend ronnie, the only plausible defense is that perhaps he wasn't totally aware of what was going on because of alzheimer's.

 

[PatPatriot]

kaya...its guys like you why the only way a democrat will see the white house is through a post card.

by the way...."Wish you were here" bwahahahahahaha!

 

[kayaman+]

pat you still pissy about what I said about you supposedly being Irish huh? A lot of attacks from you lately, thanks for the comic relief.

ronnie held an illegal war under the noses of the American public if a democrat had done the same thing you right wing nut balls would be outraged. Just look at the fact that there more indictments and convictions in ronnie's administration than any other in history yet you all go on and on about Clinton being the most corrupt president in history. Right wing hypocrisy is amusing to say the least.

 

[PatPatriot]

pat you still pissy about what I said about you supposedly being Irish huh?

what are you talking about?

 

[docmercer--banned]

kaya:

thats funny!!

At least "Liberals" have a sense of humor and can laugh about things ....

Your comments are great ...