I find myself agape at how history is repeating itself.
In September 1992 Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Al Gore addressed the Center for International Policy and articulated a comprehensive dissertation on the inconsistencies, fabrications and collaboration between the Reagan/Bush I administrations and Saddam Hussein.
Below are extended relevant excerpts from his speech and the entire speech, in PDF format, may be downloaded from the link at the end. In today's Bush administration, in which Saddam is vilified as Hitler reincarnate, it is telling to remember that the cast of characters is largely unchanged from the period reviewed by Gore. (It is important to remind that the 'President Bush' Gore refers to is, of course, George H.W. Bush.)
President Bush, in his handling of our policy toward Iraq [has shown] poor judgment, moral blindness and bungling policies led directly to a war that should never have taken place. U.S. taxpayers are now stuck with paying the bill for $1.9 billion President Bush gave to Saddam Hussein even though top administration officials were repeatedly told Saddam was using our dollars to buy weapons technology. [The Persian Gulf War] had deep roots, and if George Bush's prosecution of the war is part of his record, so too is his involvement in the diplomacy which led to it, both in the Reagan/Bush era, and more so, during his presidency when he accelerated foreign aid and the sale of weapons technology to Iraq -- right up until the invasion of Kuwait -- in spite of repeated warnings that anyone with common sense would have had no difficulty understanding.
Nineteen months ago [January 1991 - the onset of the Iraq war], President Bush called Saddam Hussein a new Hitler who had to be stopped at all costs. Yet today, that same tyrant remains firmly in power, resisting by every means the will of the international community. George Bush wants the American people to see him as the hero who put out a raging fire. But new evidence now shows that he is the one who set the fire. He not only struck the match, he poured gasoline on the flames. So give him credit for calling in the fire department, but understand who started the blaze.
In September of 1980, Iraq invaded Iran. Iraq was the odds-on favorite to win the war in short order. However, by May 1982, Iraq was clearly in trouble. It had lost a major battle with Iran. Our policymakers began to imagine Iran under a radical Islamic government emerging as the dominant regional power: a nightmare. I believe that is why, in February 1982, President Reagan took Iraq off the list of states that sponsored terrorism. By doing so, President Reagan opened the way for Iraq to receive US credits through subsidized agricultural loan guarantees and Export-Import Bank credits.
In other words, for strategic reasons, the Reagan/Bush Administration would overlook virtually any unpleasant reality in Iraq, and apparently subvert US laws in order to prop up Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.
George Bush cannot even claim ignorance where policy toward Iraq was concerned. Not only was he directly in the loop, he was a principal architect of the policy from its earliest days. For example, in April of 1984, Bush personally lobbied the Ex-Im Bank's chairman--a friend from college days--to disregard the views of his own economists, and extend credits to Iraq. Doubts about Iraq's credit-worthiness were very well-founded. But the overriding issue was whether Iraq could continue to hold on in the war with Iran. That's all that seemed to matter.
In pursuit of that objective, the Reagan/Bush Administration was prepared to overlook the fact that the terrorist who masterminded the attack on the Achille Lauro and the savage murder of American Leon Klinghoffer fled with Iraqi assistance.
Iraq not only stayed off the terrorist list, but in November 1984, full diplomatic relations were established with the country. The US government continued to exert every effort to channel assistance to Saddam Hussein--even with evidence that he was not only promoting terrorism, but was also pursuing a nuclear weapons program. As early as May of 1985, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle warned about the suspected diversion of US exports of dual-use technology to the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. But Bush ensured that the flow of technology continued.
In March 1987, Bush again took a prominent role: when Iraq's ambassador complained that our Defense Department was taking too long and being too cautious about export licenses for high tech items, Bush apparently agreed with him that the Defense Department was being capricious and had to get with the program.
There might have been a moment's pause for reflection when Iraqi aircraft intentionally attacked the USS Stark in May 1987, killing 37 sailors -- but the Administration smoothed it over very fast. This was the spring when the Ex-Im Bank staff resisted another $200 million loan for Iraq, but again the loan was granted after Bush again personally intervened to stress its political importance. The loan went through in May, just two days before the attack on the Stark.
The outrage and disgust at Saddam's use of poison gas against the Kurds ignited an intensification of efforts to pull the plug on US assistance to Iraq. I myself went to the Senate floor twice demanding tough action. But these efforts were resisted to the bitter end by the Reagan/Bush and Bush/Quayle Administrations. For example, they pulled out all the stops to defeat the Prevention of Genocide Act, after the US Senate had passed it unanimously in September of 1988.
Most significant of all, in [April 1989], the CIA reported to Secretary of State James Baker and other top Bush administration officials that Iraq was clandestinely procuring nuclear weapons technology through a global network of front companies.
Now, in the midst of this flood of highly alarming information, on October 2, 1989, President Bush signed a document known as National Security Directive 26, which established policy toward Iraq under his Administration.
NSD-26 mandated the pursuit of improved economic and political ties with Iraq on the assumption that Iraqi behavior could be modified by means of new favors to be granted. Perhaps so, if this were a state not under the complete control of a single man whose ruthlessness was already totally apparent. The text of NSD-26 blindly ignores the evidence already at the Administration's disposal of Iraqi behavior in the past regarding human rights, terrorism, the use of chemical weapons, and the pursuit of advanced weapons of mass destruction.
It leaps from the page, that George Bush, both as Vice President and President, had done his utmost to make sure that no such sanctions would ever apply to Saddam Hussein. Consequently, the question is unavoidable: why should Saddam Hussein be concerned about a threat of action in the future from the same man who had resolutely blocked any such action in the past? To the contrary Saddam had every reason to assume that Bush would look the other way -- no matter what he did.
In January of 1990, President Bush issued a determination that exempted Iraq from section 512 of the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act of November 1989 prohibiting further loans to Iraq [o]n grounds of "national security".
In February 1990, Saddam Hussein called for the removal of US military forces from the Persian Gulf. And yet, the same month, the Administration actually apologized to Saddam for the content of a Voice of America broadcast criticizing Iraq's human rights record.
n July, as Iraqi tanks and soldiers massed on the Kuwaiti border, the Senate tried to pass another sanctions bill against Iraq...and the Administration opposed it. Not only that, but on the eve of the invasion, the Bush/Quayle Administration kept selling Saddam dual- use technology such as sophisticated computers, flight simulators, and equipment to manufacture gun barrels.
President Bush has explicitly denied that his policies enhanced Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities. He denied this, not only in an official report to Congress in the fall of 1991, but as recently as June 13th and July 1st of this year, when Bush said: "We did not enhance Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons capability." But as I have just mentioned, his own Secretary of State knew differently at least as of July 1990.
And incredibly, immediately following the war, President Bush reverted to form. At President Bush's encouragement, an armed resistance to Saddam Hussein sprang up in Iraq. But at the critical moment, it was George Bush's decision to betray that resistance by tolerating Saddam Hussein's use of attack helicopters to put down the rebellions. That was a clear violation of the terms of the ceasefire, and it was a violation we had more than enough power to suppress.
Saddam is a Bush Man
