From: jac54@cas.org ()
Subject: Re: **** ANOTHER COVER-UP - Please read this... ****
Organization: Chemical Abstracts Service, Columbus, Ohio
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 14:04:14 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.062617.24781@dbsun.uucp> harbison%dbsun.uucp@wupost.wustl.edu writes:
>In article <1992Oct8.163413.26804@cas.org> jac54@cas.org () writes:
>> Having thought about this overnight I see no reason why
>> the Iraqis should have been stopped from:
>> 1. Manufacturing chlorine gas for water treatment,
>> 2. Manufacturing organophosphorus pesticides for crop protection,
>> ...
>> Dual-use technologies are a terrible dilemma when it comes to
>> export regulation and it's no surprise that people are now
>> claiming that bad decisions were made.  At the time they probably
>> looked like good decisions for reasons that are a little
>> embarrasing now.
>
>The fact that the sales were being made to the Iraqi military
>establishment, or known agents of said establishment, should
>have been a major clue to the Reagan/Bush administration.

	The regime in Iraq is the Arab Ba'athist Socialist Party, a
	totalitarian government with military trappings, not the
	Iraqi military _per se_.  The decision to go into chemical
	weapons was most probably made by the party rather then the
	military.  When a civilian representative of a nominally friendly
	comes to you and explains the following:

a.      We are having problems with pathogens surviving in our drinking
	water supply and we need to increase our capacity to manufacture
	chlorine to prevent outbreaks of water-borne disease.

b.      We are having problems with insect-borne disease and insect crop
	pests.  They can be controlled with applications of Sevin to breeding
	areas.

c.      It would strengthen our economic base and be easier for all
	concerned if we could build plants for manufacture in our own
	country rather than by these materials abroad and import them.
	As they have applications to agriculture, could we use the
	agricultural credits you have extended to help with payment?


	In the absence of hindsight, I suggest that it would not be
	particularly unreasonable to accede to these requests, especially
	if they are well argued.  The ABSP in its present incarnation
	came to power in 1968 (I think, or thereabouts) and until SH took
	over in the late 70's it was primarily concerned with internal
	social change.  This was achieved in part by limited but genuine
	attempts to improve the standard of living and by social engineering
	by repression.  It is conceivable that these plants could have been
	ordered with an eye to the future but without any immediate plans
	for conversion to military use.

	Don't take this as an apologia for the Iraqis or any Republican
	or Democratic administration (Thinks... Iran-Iraq war broke when
	Carter was President).  It is just an attempt to prevent simplistic
	arguments from starting again.

>
>Another problem is the sales were being financed using money that
>was intended to subsidize the purchase of American agricultural
>products.  Money that should have been used to purchase American
>grain to feed hungry Iraqis was instead used to bolster the Iraqi
>military, which now oppresses thoses same Iraqis.

	Don't confuse the ABSP with the Army, the Army is as much under
	the gun as the rest of the population.

>Your tax dollars at work!  :-)
>
	I wasn't paying U.S. taxes at the time.

	Alec Chambers.
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