The US, UN & Iraq III

Thanks for the "heads-up". I'll try to tune in.

BillW, Actually, GWBush had his middle finger sticking up at all those he fooled. We all know what words he used too! c.i.

Shall we call in the UN? Our government has run amuck!

Don't miss this piece about Bush's "Techniques of Deceit." Hit just gits truer and truer ever' day. http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0302/S00061.htm

I believe your analysis ignores some salient facts. Perhaps you recall the "tanker escort" operation we conducted in the Gulf during the mid-eighties. Iranian militia were attacking commercial tankers transiting the Gulf and the straits of Hormuz, using a variety of small craft and crew served weapons, directly threatening the flow of oil - mostly to Japan and other Asian consumers. (It is surprisingly easy to disable a 300,000 ton tanker with a crew of about 30 on the high seas.) Iraq was just hanging on in the conflict with its much more populous Iranian foe. Iran was then at its militant worst and presented a very real danger in a vital area of the world. The United States, Britain, and France deployed substantial naval forces their to contain this threat, destroy Iranian bases at karg Island and other locations and secure the straits and the exit routes in the Gulf. It was a cooperative effort, involving Britain, France, and the United States, and much of it was coordinated with Iraqi military operations. I was there and very much enjoyed the occasional lunch onboard the French carrier, Clemenceau.

Tartar. The deceits that GWBush used to justify going to war is no longer important to the majority of Americans. They still think we did the right thing to remove Saddam. c.i.

I haven't denied the necessity of the naval operations--i've denied the necessity of allying ourselves to Iraq. I don't accept your characterization of "Iraq was just hanging on in the conflict with its much more populous Iranian foe." That is simply not an accurate statement. The Iranians were depending upon human wave attacks, and that would not have gotten them over the mountains and across the desert to Baghdad. I also don't believe they could have taken Basra--they tried often enough before we were ever involved in supporting Iraq, and failed miserably with very heavy casualties. I maintain my position that nothing in our national interests required us to provide support to Iraq, and certainly nothing justifies giving Saddam access to sophisticated chemical weapons production methods and biologicals for "medical research." Reagan's administration was arrogant and overbearing in its foreign policy, and the American people accepted that without comment--a disgusting comment on the intelligence and responsibility of American citizens.

Evidently we disagree on the military situation between Iran and Iraq in that period. I do know what the contemporaneous intelligence estimates of the situation were then, but then you may not be willing to put much credence in that. After the USS Stark incident we had very strict rules for tracking Iraqi aircraft over the Gulf - they understood that they had to comply or be shot down - they complied.

On what basis do you claim that our government gave Iraq "sophisticated chemical weapon production methods"??

Perhaps you believed our international situation was much better under Jimmy Carter than under Reagan. I believe the unfolding verdict of history gives a very different assessment.

Small price to pay for all that oil!

George, i read about chemical weapons technology being given the Iraqis many years ago in an article about the Bank of Commerce and Whatever in Georgia, through which, it was charged, the first Bush administration channeled funds to Iraq. I didn't mention that "dirty money" incident because it was not germaine to Reagan, and because i never felt the connection was proven. Therefore, on the same basis--and because i'm too damned lazy to do research on the issue--i'll happily withdraw the contention.

I continue to condemn the Reagan administration for that piece of monumental foreign policy blundering. Iraq fought the war from a technological stance, and a command and control superiority stance. They continued to receive direct military aid from the Soviet Union, and didn't need any help from us. Their command and control ability was clearly superior to the Persians, which explains why the Persians eventually had resort to human wave attacks and conscripting adolescent boys. Drafting the human "seed corn" of a nation is hardly consonant of a description of one nation overwhelming another through strength of numbers. In short, Saddam didn't need our help, and the only significant aid he recieved was from the Soviet Union. Getting nasty new toys and cash from the U.S. was just the icing on the cake for him. Reagan's administration willfully defied a congressional mandate on the disbursement of funds, and then tried to cover their tracks--a dangerous precedent for eroding the separation of powers, and a partisan arrogance based upon an aristocratic attitude towards a House of Representatives which was not composed of a membership of which the administration approved. Giving support to Iraq was just one more example of the trend from Nixon onward which the Republican party has displayed of resorting to extra-legal means to achieve the ends of powerful individuals. Don't sing me a song about how bad the Democrats are, either, i've not been praising them here, and pointing fingers to say "Oh yeah, look what he did" is a puerile argument which does not justify bad deeds. The incident in which Starke was attacked ought to have been a valuable lesson in just what kind of new ally we had acquired. Support for Saddam was just plain wrong--just like support for Somoza, for Marcos, for Noriega--for a host of tinpot dictators who have benefited from the foreign policy arrogances of scoff-law administrations--both Democrats and Republicans.

Setanta,

The enemy of my enemy,....

There are often blind spots in the media reporting of such events that are of crucial significance.

The conventional criticism of the Reagan administration's policy during this period is our sale, through an Israeli intermediary, of 100 or so Phoenix long range air to air missiles to Iran (not Iraq) for use on the F-14 fighters we had previously sold the Shah. It turns out they were an early model, no longer in use by our forces, and they were sold at several times their original cost. It should not surprise you to learn that, though the Iranians could have used them against the Iraqis, the missiles could never have been used effectively against us.

We did provide some satellite imagry to Iraq, but I simply do not believe our government ever gave them materials or technology related to the production of chemical weapons. That flies in the face of everything I know about the context of those times.

Our real interest in the Iran Iraq war was to prevent either side from achieving a decisive victory. I believe we succeeded.

Consider for a moment the overall texture of the Reagan foreign policy and the confused and dispirited situation and policy which he inherited from the ill-starred Jimmy Carter. From his evil empire speech in the House of Commons in 1983 to the Pershing missile deployments in Europe, to the reinvigoration of our defense establishment, he broke the will and self-confidence of an admittedly stagnant Soviet empire. Recall that just a decade earlier we were pursuing "detente" with the Soviets in order to get what was seen then as a dispirited and failing West some breathing room in the face of a strong Soviet Empire. What a remarkable change!

I had meant that the money game Reagan's administration was playing on Congress was with regard to Iran--but i did not specify it, after all i know that much--and you don't have to beat the dead horse of chemical weapons systems, i conceded that one to you. I no more approve the policy of Iran/Contra than the one which embraced Iraq.

Your contentions, simply stated, which i deny, are that exhaustion and neutralization of Iraq and Iran would not have taken place without Administration meddling, that there was value in the turn to re-embrace the military industrial complex (despite Eisenhower's very accurate, minatory State of the Union) which produced positive effects for both our military capabilities and our economy (that last one is an ugly joke on all of the homeless, formerly hard-working family men of the 1980's)--which military developments would not have taken place otherwise; and then you trot out that jaded old tart about Reagan "winning the Cold War." Please, i don't malign you for the opinion, but don't expect me to swallow it.

Did I get my apology yet?
Hee hee hee. George thinks Clinton was President when Saddam gassed the Kurds in 1988! What else can he blame Bill for? Burnt toast and undercooked eggs at the local deli? Burnt toast and undercooked eggs on the Clemenceau?

Oh, and I said Saddam did it.
(you must have misunderstood my use of the verb 'used')
and I never said there was a conspiracy to taint our hamburger, I don't know where you got that, I don't use the word conspiracy unless I'm talking about one of previous wives, :wink: I think I said warnings about bad processing methods.

In 1988, we had a diplomatic mission in Bagdad not a full fledged embassy, Ronald Reagan fully recognized the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and sent Don Rumsfeld to Bagdad to shake the critter's hand.

So what time is it?

How about now? How about now?

Never mind, I know you are too busy misreading the posts of the others, and I consider their words to be of much more importance than mine.


Joe

I don't suggest that we were necessarily very influential in guiding the outcome of the Iran/Iraq war, only that our interest and intent was to see than neither side gained a decisive victory. That indeed was the result.

Actually I thought using Iranian money to fund the Contras was rather clever. We were tracking Soviet military hardware enroute to Cuba, and from there on to Nicaragua, and across the Gulf of Fonseca at night to the paid guerillas in el Salvador. When we finally cut that supply line the "revolution" in El Salvador just petered out and few even noticed.

I know from contemporaneous personal contacts that the expressed intent of officials in the Reagan administration was to force an economic collapse on the Soviet Union through an escalation of our defense spending. At the time we believed it was costing them about 26% of GDP to match what we were doing with 4%. We later learned they were spending closer to 34% of GDP and the collapse came even quicker than expected. I don't believe this alone caused the collapse of the Soviet empire but it did accelerate it.

I don't expect you to just accept this or anything. However one with such a broad view of history - I mean that sincerely - should at least consider the possibility.

clever, illegal, unconstitutional and a breaking of sworn oaths to defend the constitution.

that is what passes for ethical behavior on the right?

but, of course. yet chasing clinton's penis was an effort to enforce ethical behavior.

Isn't our government just the best!?