Who Armed Iraq?
 

Wall Street Journal
February 14, 2003

From 1974, under then-Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, France sold Iraq arms and nuclear technology; in the 1970s and 1980s, France became Iraq's third-largest supplier of weapons after the Soviet Union and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Mr. Chirac also agreed with Mr. Hussein to deliver a 40-megawatt nuclear research reactor and 12.5 kilograms of uranium-235. Israel destroyed the reactor in a bombing raid in 1981, fearing Iraq would use it to develop nuclear weapons.

Germany's arms sales to Iraq were smaller and consisted mainly of helicopters. But Germany was one of Iraq's sources of technology and materials for chemical and biological weapons programs, says Jean Pascal Zanders, head of chemical and biological warfare research at the Stockholm institute.

But the U.S. was also supplying arms to Iraq during the 1980s, delivering 117 Bell, Hughes and other helicopters to the Iraqi Air Force. These are thought to have been used in the Iraq-Iran war, during which the U.S. also gave Iraq real-time satellite intelligence of the battlefield. U.S. companies supplied Iraq with pathogens and specialist equipment that was used to develop chemical and biological weapons, according to the Stockholm institute.

"Each of the major European countries and America are to blame for the arming of Saddam [Hussein]," says Mr. Dodge of Warwick University. "There are no angels in this story."

I have listened to you people on the board blame the United States for arming Iraq, that I was a little surprised by this information.

The French.
Always blame the French.

They smell of garlic :(

iirc 4 out of the top 5 arms exporting nations were actually supplying both sides during the first gulf war.

there wasn't any un problem with iraq at the time, so no big deal.

but i think what people are pointing out is that it is rather hypocritical of the US to sell weapons to a country and then use the fact that they have those weapons as a reason to attack them.

maybe a secondary point is once again we should be more careful who we are selling to.

Always blame the french?

does not compute.

i thought we blamed everything on jboy!

BOOM BOOM! CLASSIC! UNFUNNY CLASSIC!

Re: Who Armed Iraq?
 

I've already discounted his opinions as worthless. Even if they might be true.

If the United States sells weapons to Poland, then Poland attacks Finland, what should the United States do? Should the United States say, well that's ok, we sold them the weapons. That would be the ultimate hypocrisy.

When you sell weapons to your ally who then uses those weapons against your enemy, that's not hypocrisy. When your ally later turns those weapons against another one of your allies, or against his own people, then you have a responsibility to take back those weapons.

Oh now I see. we have a responsibility.

But I'm not sure what definition of hypocrisy makes "not attacking people you actively support" hypocritical.

we never denied that, did we?
the cultures for biological weapons came from the us though.


(btw, on another topic, care to explain me this? )

Putting two negatives in one sentence makes it difficult to understand what you mean.

What definition of hypocrisy makes "not attacking people you actively support" hypocritical. I think this is what you mean.

If you provide support to someone because you think the world will be a better place because of that support, then the person uses your support to make the world a worse place, what should you do. I think it would by hypocritical to continue the support when it runs counter to your original intentions, that is make the world a better place.

We can debate whether the destruction of Iran would make the world a better place, but I suspect that is what the leadership of the United States was thinking at the time they provided weapons to Iraq. What do you think the Soviets, Chinese, French and Germans were thinking when they provided weapons? They were thinking money. The United States was thinking about the downfall of a country that had taken over the U.S. embassy and held employees hostage for a year and a half.

I've been reading posts for months now that seem to indicate the United States was the major exporter of weapons to Iraq back during its war with Iran. I never did any research on the subject. Now I saw that Russia, China and France were the lead exporters. I did not know that before today. I have not researched who exported what to whom back when I was a teenager. If some people only read these forums they would be lead to believe that the United States armed Iraq and no other European or Asian country provided Iraq with anything.

The Der Spiegel article is too difficult to translate. I don't know what Geheimdiensten means, and that is only the first sentence.

the us had the political leadership, i.e. they wanted to support iraq against iran, because they were pissed about that revolution in iran.

Quote:

The Der Spiegel article is too difficult to translate. I don't know what Geheimdiensten means, and that is only the first sentence.

its about the us withdrawing it special units which were searching for bin laden, even though your secret service (= Geheimdienst) thinks bin laden is still in that area

I think I covered this when I said all the countries of Europe were evil capitalist states whose governments should be, as a matter of some haste, prosecuted for crimes against humanity.

Five nations on the UN Security Council = Top 5 arms exporters in the world.

Ironic.

Who armed Iraq? Just about every nation in the west, I'd guess.