Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il cattivo Saddam che usa le armi chimiche...

Non che fosse una novita'.   Il fatto significante e' che sia sulla
1ma pagina di un giornale fazioso come il NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/18/international/middleeast/18CHEM.html?pagewanted=print&position=top
August 18, 2002
Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq in War Despite Use of GasBy PATRICK E.
TYLER
 
WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 - A covert American program during the Reagan
administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance
at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi
commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive
battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers
with direct knowledge of the program.
 Those officers, most of whom agreed to speak on the condition that
they not be identified, spoke in response to a reporter's questions
about the nature of gas warfare on both sides of the conflict between
Iran and Iraq from 1981 to 1988. Iraq's use of gas in that conflict is
repeatedly cited by President Bush and, this week, by his national
security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, as justification for "regime
change" in Iraq.
 The covert program was carried out at a time when President Reagan's
top aides, including Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense
Secretary Frank C. Carlucci and Gen. Colin L. Powell, then the
national security adviser, were publicly condemning Iraq for its use
of poison gas, especially after Iraq attacked Kurds in Halabja in
March 1988.
During the Iran-Iraq war, the United States decided it was imperative
that Iran be thwarted, so it could not overrun the important
oil-producing states in the Persian Gulf. It has long been known that
the United States provided intelligence assistance to Iraq in the form
of satellite photography to help the Iraqis understand how Iranian
forces were deployed against them. But the full nature of the program,
as described by former Defense Intelligence Agency officers, was not
previously disclosed.
 Secretary of State Powell, through a spokesman, said the officers'
description of the program was "dead wrong," but declined to discuss
it. His deputy, Richard L. Armitage, a senior defense official at the
time, used an expletive relayed through a spokesman to indicate his
denial that the United States acquiesced in the use of chemical
weapons.
The Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment, as did Lt. Gen.
Leonard Perroots, retired, who supervised the program as the head of
the agency. Mr. Carlucci said, "My understanding is that what was
provided" to Iraq "was general order of battle information, not
operational intelligence."
 "I certainly have no knowledge of U.S. participation in preparing
battle and strike packages," he said, "and doubt strongly that that
occurred."
Later, he added, "I did agree that Iraq should not lose the war, but I
certainly had no foreknowledge of their use of chemical weapons."
 Though senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly
condemned Iraq's employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other
poisonous agents, the American military officers said President
Reagan, Vice President George Bush and senior national security aides
never withdrew their support for the highly classified program in
which more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency were
secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments,
tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage
assessments for Iraq.
 Iraq shared its battle plans with the Americans, without admitting
the use of chemical weapons, the military officers said. But Iraq's
use of chemical weapons, already established at that point, became
more evident in the war's final phase.
Saudi Arabia played a crucial role in pressing the Reagan
administration to offer aid to Iraq out of concern that Iranian
commanders were sending waves of young volunteers to overrun Iraqi
forces. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United
States, then and now, met with President Saddam Hussein of Iraq and
then told officials of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense
Intelligence Agency that Iraq's military command was ready to accept
American aid.
In early 1988, after the Iraqi Army, with American planning
assistance, retook the Fao Peninsula in an attack that reopened Iraq's
access to the Persian Gulf, a defense intelligence officer, Lt. Col.
Rick Francona, now retired, was sent to tour the battlefield with
Iraqi officers, the American military officers said.
He reported that Iraq had used chemical weapons to cinch its victory,
one former D.I.A. official said. Colonel Francona saw zones marked off
for chemical contamination, and containers for the drug atropine
scattered around, indicating that Iraqi soldiers had taken injections
to protect themselves from the effects of gas that might blow back
over their positions. (Colonel Francona could not be reached for
comment.)
 C.I.A. officials supported the program to assist Iraq, though they
were not involved. Separately, the C.I.A. provided Iraq with satellite
photography of the war front.
 Col. Walter P. Lang, retired, the senior defense intelligence officer
at the time, said he would not discuss classified information, but
added that both D.I.A. and C.I.A. officials "were desperate to make
sure that Iraq did not lose" to Iran.
 "The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of
deep strategic concern," he said. What Mr. Reagan's aides were
concerned about, he said, was that Iran not break through to the Fao
Peninsula and spread the Islamic revolution to Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia.
 Colonel Lang asserted that the Defense Intelligence Agency "would
have never accepted the use of chemical weapons against civilians, but
the use against military objectives was seen as inevitable in the
Iraqi struggle for survival." Senior Reagan administration officials
did nothing to interfere with the continuation of the program, a
former participant in the program said.
 Iraq did turn its chemical weapons against the Kurdish population of
northern Iraq, but the intelligence officers say they were not
involved in planning any of the military operations in which those
assaults occurred. They said the reason was that there were no major
Iranian troop concentrations in the north and the major battles where
Iraq's military command wanted assistance were on the southern war
front.
The Pentagon's battle damage assessments confirmed that Iraqi military
commanders had integrated chemical weapons throughout their arsenal
and were adding them to strike plans that American advisers either
prepared or suggested. Iran claimed that it suffered thousands of
deaths from chemical weapons.
The American intelligence officers never encouraged or condoned Iraq's
use of chemical weapons, but neither did they oppose it because they
considered Iraq to be struggling for its survival, people involved at
the time said in interviews.
 Another former senior D.I.A. official who was an expert on the Iraqi
military said the Reagan administration's treatment of the issue -
publicly condemning Iraq's use of gas while privately acquiescing in
its employment on the battlefield - was an example of the
"Realpolitik" of American interests in the war.
 The effort on behalf of Iraq "was heavily compartmented," a former
D.I.A. official said, using the military jargon for restricting
secrets to those who need to know them.
"Having gone through the 440 days of the hostage crisis in Iran," he
said, "the period when we were the Great Satan, if Iraq had gone down
it would have had a catastrophic effect on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia,
and the whole region might have gone down. That was the backdrop of
the policy."
 One officer said, "They had gotten better and better" and after a
while chemical weapons "were integrated into their fire plan for any
large operation, and it became more and more obvious."
A number of D.I.A. officers who took part in aiding Iraq more than a
decade ago when its military was actively using chemical weapons, now
say they believe that the United States should overthrow Mr. Hussein
at some point. But at the time, they say, they all believed that their
covert assistance to Mr. Hussein's military in the mid-1980's was a
crucial factor in Iraq's victory in the war and the containment of a
far more dangerous threat from Iran.
 The Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas," said one
veteran of the program. "It was just another way of killing people -
whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference," he
said.
 Former Secretary of State Shultz and Vice President Bush tried to
stanch the flow of chemical precursors to Iraq and spoke out against
Iraq's use of chemical arms, but Mr. Shultz, in his memoir, also
alluded to the struggle in the administration.
 "I was stunned to read an intelligence analysis being circulated
within the administration that `we have demolished a budding
relationship (with Iraq) by taking a tough position in opposition to
chemical weapons,' " he wrote.
Mr. Shultz also wrote that he quarreled with William J. Casey, then
the director of central intelligence, over whether the United States
should press for a new chemical weapons ban at the Geneva Disarmament
Conference. Mr. Shultz declined further comment.

they not be identified,
Come al solito! :)  Cosi' poi non ti prendi nessuna responsabilita' di
quello che dici :))
-Stefano

 wrote in message
news:3D5FCEDA...@interfree.it

Eggia'...  L'articolo deve essere veritiero visto che ai fascistelli
(variante statunitense) sembra aver fatto venire la bava alla bocca.
Vedere, per esempio,
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2424
dove si chiede che il crimine di dire un po' di verita agli americani
venga punito con l'alto tradimento.
GT
-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - 
http://www.Mailgate.ORG

venga punito con l'alto tradimento.
*ROTFL*
Se vuoi ti prendo siti dove dicono che bisogna ammazzare tutti gli
americani e uccidere tutti gli infedeli :)
Dovrebbero avere un qualche significato? :))
-Stefano

 (variante statunitense) sembra aver fatto venire la bava alla bocca.
Ah, un'altro nota: la diffusione di materiale confidenziale e riservato
e' quello che succede pure in Italia con certe procure dove i giornali
pubblicano le notizie prima ancora che lo sappiano i diretti interessati
:)
Ma mai che qualcuno sia finito in galera per "violazione degli atti
d'ufficio".
-Stefano