Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Recovered History: When Donald Met Saddam

Recovered History: When Donald Met Saddam
Thursday, 12 December 2002, 4:01 pm
Article: The Scoop Editor  
As diplomats and weapons inspectors in New York, Washington, London,
Paris, Moscow, and Beijing pour over the 12,000 pages of Iraq’s weapons
declaration it is a good time to resurrect a key part of un-told story
of Iraq’s relationship with weapons of mass destruction, and their
inventors, the military industrial complexes of the UNSC permanent five.
In Mo Abbas’s investigation, exclusively published here at Scoop earlier
this year, (See…The Dirty And Deadly Secrets Of Khamisiyah and
Khamisiyah Investigation: Operation Bury The Truth ) we discovered that
most of the permanent members of the United Security Council may well be
now reading some dirty and deadly secrets concerning themselves in
Iraq's declaration.
And below we learn more - from Bartcop.com and the excellent people at
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) - about Donald Rumsfeld’s 1983
visit to Baghdad.
Image From Bartcop.com
“Five years before Saddam's now infamous 1988 gassing of the Kurds, a
key meeting took place in Baghdad that would play a significant role in
forging close ties between Saddam and Washington.
It happened at a time when Saddam was first alleged to have used
chemical weapons. The meeting in late December 1983 paved the way for an
official restoration of relations between Iraq and the US, which had
been severed since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
With the Iran-Iraq war escalating, Reagan dispatched his Middle East
envoy, a former secretary of defense, to Baghdad with a hand-written
letter to Saddam and a message that Washington was willing at any moment
to resume diplomatic relations. That envoy was Donald Rumsfeld. “ –
Bartcop
The following article from: 
http://d55292.new24.yourserver.net/extra/9505/iraqgate.html
sheds a fair bit of light on what Rumsfeld’s mission was.
Extra!
May/June 1995 
Iraqgate: Confession and Cover-Up
By Robert Parry 
While the O.J. Simpson trial gobbled up endless TV hours and countless
news pages, a concurrent criminal trial in Miami went almost unnoticed
by the national media, even though it called into question the judgment
of three U.S. presidents.
President Clinton's Justice Department had put on trial Teledyne
Industries, a major military contractor, and two of its mid-level
employees, on charges of selling cluster-bomb parts to a Chilean arms
manufacturer, Carlos Cardoen. Cardoen, in turn, allegedly shipped
finished bombs to Iraq.
Defense attorneys for the Teledyne employees argued that the CIA, as
part of a secret operation that has come to be known as "Iraqgate," had
authorized the shipments--a claim that the Reagan/Bush administration
had long denied. Since taking office in 1993, the Clinton team has
continued that GOP position, stating as recently as Jan. 16 that the
administration "did not find evidence that U.S. agencies or officials
illegally armed Iraq."
But on Jan. 31, this bipartisan dike finally sprang a leak. Howard
Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered
an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director
William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, "authorized, approved
and assisted" delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In
These Times, 3/6/95).
Teicher also described a still-secret National Security Decision
Directive signed by President Reagan in June 1982 that set forth a U.S.
policy of preventing Iraq from losing its war with Iran. "CIA Director
Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had
sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the
Iran-Iraq war," Teicher stated.
Clinton's Justice Department reacted angrily to the new disclosures.
Federal prosecutors attacked Teicher's affidavit as a lie--and then
classified it as a state secret. They then succeeded in convincing the
trial judge to block Teicher's testimony as irrelevant to the trial of
the two Teledyne employees.
One would think that a high-level confession that confirms controversial
allegations made against two past presidents might be big
news--especially when a third president tries to suppress it. But with
the Washington press corps apparently tired of the Reagan/Bush scandals,
the Miami trial received scant notice. The Teicher affidavit merited
only a brief reference in a "defense & diplomacy" round-up in the
Washington Post (2/4/95). The New York Times also published a cursory
account of the new information (2/5/95); almost all other major
newspapers ignored it. Indeed, among America's major papers and
networks, only the Miami Herald has given the trial regular coverage.
Beyond the Teledyne case itself, the affidavit raises questions about
the credibility of leading Reagan/Bush figures. During the 1991 hearings
to confirm William Gates as CIA director, Gates denied under oath that
he had played a role in Cardoen cluster bomb sales to Iraq, as arms
dealers had charged. Teicher's affidavit provides new evidence that
Gates misled the Senate.
Teicher's affidavit also bolsters a New Yorker article (11/2/92) by
reporters Murray Waas and Craig Unger, which asserted that Vice
President George Bush in 1986 urged Saddam Hussein to intensify his air
war against Iran--in order to increase Iran's demand for U.S.- made
anti-aircraft weapons. Appearing two weeks before the '92 election, the
New Yorker article was attacked in the conservative press. On the Wall
Street Journal's editorial page (10/28/94), Steven Emerson mocked the
article as a "Byzantine conspiracy theory."
In one of those post-modern political moments, fictional reporters in
the "Doonesbury" comic strip questioned Bush about the New Yorker story.
But no real-life reporter covering the Bush campaign asked the president
about his tactical air-war advice to Saddam. Now, however, Teicher has
corroborated much of the Waas/Unger story.
Given the significance of the Teledyne trial and Teicher's affidavit in
judging the actions and integrity of the Reagan/Bush and Clinton
administrations, why the near-total press blackout?
Part of it is the power of "conventional wisdom"--Washington insiders
have decided that Iraqgate didn't happen, so any evidence to the
contrary doesn't register. Another reason might be the residual fear of
conservative attacks against journalists who plumb the crimes of the
Reagan/Bush era too deeply. It's easier to dismiss such issues as
"ancient history"--a term that somehow doesn't get applied to stories
about 15-year-old Arkansas land deals.
There's also the media's expectation of star-quality in the age of O.J.
After all, the two Teledyne defendants were just anonymous mid-level
corporate officials. And besides, the federal judiciary does not permit
cameras into the courtrooms.
Robert Parry, who has covered Washington since 1977, is the author of
Fooling America and Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery.
Trick or Treason can be ordered by calling 
1-800-462-6420
.
 
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 Recovered History: When Donald Met Saddam
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