Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00053)

Bart Lidofsky wrote:

>Jerry Hejka-Ekins wrote:
> 
>
>>1. That the CIA assisted in deposing Kassim and bringing Hussain to power. 
>> 
>>
>
>	Here's a UPI story on the subject. Note that, in 1958, there was a real 
>possibility of the Soviet Union taking control of the oil in the Middle 
>East, and that Abd al-Karim Qasim was in their pocket. This was on the 
>heels of the Soviet invasion of Hungary because is people were geting 
>too much freedom.
>
>http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030410-070214-6557r
>
Yes, your UPI report exactly confirms other accounts I have read. The 
part where the CIA provided lists of suspected communists for Saddam's 
National Guardsmen to assassinate, is also reported in other sources. 
One mentions a CIA operative, William McHale, who produced the longest 
list. McHale, at the time was operating under the cover of a news 
correspondent for the Beirut bureau of Time magazine. Other accounts 
add that in addition to suspected communists, the CIA also targeted for 
extermination were left leaning intellectuals. 

>
> 
>
>>2. That April Glaspie, US Ambassador to Baghdad, in a meeting with 
>>Saddam Hussain, in effect, indicated that the US would be neutral 
>>concerning the pending Iraqi-Kuwait war. 
>> 
>>
>
>	April Glaspie claims that the transcript of the interview was a 
>fabrication.
>
Where is the source of your information that Glaspie claims the 
transcript to be a fabrication? The article you provided below does not 
anywhere make such a claim. However, the document in question is 
consistent with Glaspie's interview. While the article you provide is 
basically a defense of Glaspie's actions, it does concede that Glaspie 
did not specifically warn Saddam against taking military action and 
concludes that "it is therefore quite possible that he [Saddam] wrongly 
interpreted Glaspie's remarks as a green light to attack Kuwait. I 
would agree with that. Since, according to this article, Glaspie's own 
records of the meeting are "classified" and therefore not available to 
the public, we may not live long enough to get all sides of this. 

>
>Here is a pretty balanced article:
>http://www.fact-index.com/a/ap/april_glaspie.html
>
> 
>
>>3. That it is very questionable whether Saddam had gassed a Kurd village 
>>in 1988. 
>> 
>>
>
>Here's an article from the Physicians for Human Rights:
>
>http://www.phrusa.org/research/chemical_weapons/chemiraqgas2.html
>
> 
>
These five articles are very informative, but it is also obvious from 
the article that the doctors are just repeating what the public was 
told, that Saddam was working to exterminate the Kurds with chemical 
weapons. Their investigation is not in context with the time that the 
incident occurred. Further, Pelletiere was addressing an incident that 
occurred on March 1988 in Halabja. The link you give below is about an 
investigation of an incident occurring on August 1988 in Birjinni (four 
people were killed), also near the Iraqi-Iranian border. Pelletiere 
affirmed in his account that both sides were using chemical weapons, and 
since both incidences occurred during the Iraq-Iran conflict, it would 
follow that Pelletiere's conclusion that Kurdish deaths in March were 
"collateral damage" would also apply to the August incident, regardless 
of which side was using chemical weapons in which incident. Since it is 
clear that the CIA and the US Government were backing Iraq in their war 
with Iran, the question arises in my mind as to what extent, if any, 
the US supplied arms to Iraq, and whether those arms included chemical 
weapons. 

-jhe





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