Reply #26: Isn't the lack of basic knowledge about US foreign policy amazing?

[Octafish]

What's worse is that some citizens say: "I don't want to know."

Iraqgate: Saddam Hussein, U.S. Policy and the Prelude to the Persian Gulf War, 1980-1994

Friends in Deed: The United States and Iraq Before the Persian Gulf War

The scandal that came to be called "Iraqgate" first attracted widespread public attention in 1990, in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the ensuing Persian Gulf war. The invasion followed a decade in which two successive U.S. administrations had viewed improvement of U.S.-Iraq relations as an important tenet of U.S. foreign policy, and had engaged in extensive trade with that country in pursuit of that goal. The policy had been adopted at least in part as a way to increase influence with Iraq. The fact that it failed to deter the invasion of Kuwait led to congressional and media criticism, including allegations that the U.S. had contributed, chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs. These were not accusations that the Bush administration was pleased to confront as U.S. and allied troops faced Iraqi forces in the Persian Gulf region, nor after the war, when the White House would have preferred to savor a military victory which, it hoped, would be perceived as a great foreign policy success.

The full range of Iraqgate allegations involves a complex cast of characters and an intricate and intertwining succession of events. The personages involved include an international array of arms dealers, bankers, merchants, lawyers, military officers, foreign agents, and government officials. It is impossible to describe the affair in brief: therefore, only a few key elements of the story will be discussed here.

Economic Assistance Programs and Exports to Iraq

In 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department’s list of countries regarded as supporters of international terrorism (despite doubts that Iraq had created its relationships with terrorist groups). This action eliminated legal restrictions that would otherwise have prevented Iraq from receiving credit guarantees from the Export-Import Bank (Eximbank), enabling it to obtain credit for the purchase of U.S. products and technology. Eximbank began to provide short-term cover to Iraq in 1985. In December 1982, the Agriculture Department (USDA) authorized Iraq’s participation in Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) export credit guarantee programs. (These programs were set up to help expand the U.S. agriculture market, by offering credit to countries otherwise lacking in sufficient resources to import U.S. commodities.) The authorization enabled Iraq to obtain financing to import U.S. food products, a significant benefit for a country that experienced growing financial difficulties throughout the 1980s, and encountered increasing problems in obtaining credit from private banks.

Iraq’s economic difficulties resulted in part from its commitment to intensive and expensive civilian and military industrialization programs, a commitment which was maintained throughout and after the war with Iran (1980-1988). To support these programs, it was most interested in obtaining western technology, and was therefore eager to expand trade with the U.S. The U.S. government, fully aware that Iraq had active programs in the areas of chemical and biological warfare and missile development, was concerned about providing it with U.S. technology. (Available documents seem to reflect some disagreement regarding the aggressiveness of Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs, and the level of sophistication of these efforts.) The U.S. had a system of export controls and an export review policy intended to prevent countries like Iraq from obtaining technology useful for nonconventional weapons programs. In addition, the official U.S. policy of neutrality disallowed the export of weapons to either protagonist in the Iran-Iraq war (a policy not always followed, as the Reagan administration’s attempts to exchange weapons with Iran in return for American hostages in Lebanon demonstrated).

Nevertheless, a great deal of dual-use equipment and technology made its way to Iraq from the U.S. throughout the 1980s. Commerce Departments records, disclosed as a result of Iraqgate investigations, confirmed this. The investigations revealed that exports had been approved for military recipients and others involved in military research and development, including the Iraqi Air Force, Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, the Saad General Establishment (missile research), the State Organization for Technical Industries (military production), and al-Qaqaa Stater Establishment (explosives and propellants research and production). 1 Further evidence of this became available after the Persian Gulf war, when U.N. teams inspecting Iraqi sites found U.S. dual-use technology, along with that of other western countries, at facilities involved in Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs.2

CONTINUED BIG TIME...

http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/igessayx.htm

Someone who doesn't know his shinola from deja vu.