Seven years ago I contacted Congress rep D. Riegle of Michigan who had headed
an investigation of US corporate sales to Iraq. He sent me a summary of the
hearings, in which were listed some of the biological agents shipped by US
corporations to Iraq, with George H.W. Bush's approval as head of the CIA and
later as Vice President under Ronald Reagan.
These included anthrax, brucellosis, gas gangrene, and toxic varieties of
E.Coli and Salmonella bacteria.
I do not recall seeing West Nile Virus on that list, although some officials
have recently inserted it there.
Now, the White House is using the excuse of the existence of these biological
agents, which Bush SOLD TO IRAQ, to bomb the hell out of them, and to
inoculate 500,000 US troops with experimental, genetically engineered anthrax
and smallpox vaccines.
In addition, uniforms were soaked in Permethrin pesticide, and soldiers (as
well as civilians on the ground) were subjected to aerosalized depleted
uranium. All contributed to Gulf War Syndrome, which has affected tens of
thousands of US veterans. I wrote about this in numerous green and leftist
journals, including Synthesis/Regeneration, Fifth Estate, Green Politics, Z
magazine, and elsewhere.
Now, Iraq releases its report to the UN, which the US literally stole and
distributed heavily censored copies. Over 9,000 of the 12,000 pages in the
report were deleted by the United States before distributing to non-Permanent
members of the UN.
But did they really think they could keep such a report secret? Certainly,
Iraq would have put the report onto computer disks, which could be made
available via email DIRECTLY to anyone who wanted it. So why would the US go
to such great lengths to censor it? Did they think no one would notice?
Well, someone has, and now a reporter from Germany has further documented the
evidence of massive US collusion with Saddam Hussein in sending biological
material as well as nuclear weapons materiel and assistance to Iraq. Please
read the story below.
If the US officials are, like Bush, not really as stupid as they appear
(obvious attempts at censorship), what game are they playing. Of course, the
possibility is that they really ARE that stupid -- and dangerous.
One note: Germany will be entering the Security Council with four other
countries as part of the non-Permanent members contingent, on January 1 for
the next two years. German companies feature heavily in the sale of chemical
weapons to Iraq. The pressure will be on Germany to go along with US pressure
to bomb. So it is interesting that this article first appeared in a leading
German progressive daily newspaper, before it was featured Wednesday on
Democracy Now.
- Mitchel Cohen
*** A Democracy Now! exclusive ***
Top-secret Iraq Report Reveals U.S. Corporations, Gov't Agencies and
Nuclear Labs Helped Illegally Arm Iraq
Hewlett Packard, Dupont, Honeywell and other major U.S. corporations,
as well as governmental agencies including the Department of Defense
and the nation's nuclear labs, all illegally helped Iraq to build its
biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.
On Wednesday, December 18, Geneva-based reporter Andreas Zumach broke
the story on the US national listener-sponsored radio and television
show "Democracy Now!" Zumach's Berlin-based paper Die Tageszeitung
plans to soon publish a full list of companies and nations who have
aided Iraq. The paper first reported on Tuesday that German and U.S.
companies had extensive ties to Iraq but didn't list names.
Zumach obtained top-secret portions of Iraq's 12,000-page weapons
declaration that the US had redacted from the version made available
to the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council.
"We have 24 major U.S. companies listed in the report who gave very
substantial support especially to the biological weapons program but
also to the missile and nuclear weapons program," Zumach said.
"Pretty much everything was illegal in the case of nuclear and
biological weapons. Every form of cooperation and suppliesS<caron> was
outlawed in the 1970s."
The list of U.S. corporations listed in Iraq's report include Hewlett
Packard, DuPont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Tectronics, Bechtel,
International Computer Systems, Unisys, Sperry and TI Coating.
Zumach also said the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, Commerce,
and Agriculture quietly helped arm Iraq. U.S. government nuclear
weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia
trained traveling Iraqi nuclear scientists and gave non-fissile
material for construction of a nuclear bomb.
"There has never been this kind of comprehensive layout and listing
like we have now in the Iraqi report to the Security Council so this
is quite new and this is especially new for the U.S. involvement,
which has been even more suppressed in the public domain and the U.S.
population," Zumach said.
The names of companies were supposed to be top secret. Two weeks ago
Iraq provided two copies of its full 12,000-page report, one to the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva, and one to the United
Nations in New York. Zumach said the U.S. broke an agreement of the
Security Council and blackmailed Colombia, which at the time was
presiding over the Council, to take possession of the UN's only copy.
The U.S. then proceeded to make copies of the report for the other
four permanent Security Council nations, Britain, France, Russia and
China. Only yesterday did the remaining members of the Security
Council receive their copies. By then, all references to foreign
companies had been removed.
According to Zumach, only Germany had more business ties to Iraq than
the U.S. As many as 80 German companies are also listed in Iraq's
report. The paper reported that some German companies continued to do
business with Iraq until last year.
Democracy Now! has published translations of Andreas Zumach's
articles from Die Tageszeitung at
http://www.democracynow.org/Zumach.htm .
Democracy Now!'s interview with Andreas Zumach is archived online
(link at http://www.democracynow.org/Zumach.htm).
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