First they came for ConsortiumNews, and I did not speak out—

[Octafish]

450. Know Your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

The American news media have betrayed the American people by overlooking the crimes of the Bushes*. Some of the biggest lies of ommission concern how, as Vice President and then as President, George Herbert Walker Bush helped arm Iraq and its strongman, Saddam Hussein. In their work to create a counterbalance to the Ayatollahs of Iran, Bush and his cronies created a Frankenstein. Today, Bush's son, installed as president by a partisan and thus crooked Supreme Court, continues to use the threat of this Bush-made Frankenstein as justification for the illegal invasion of Iraq.

First: George Herbert Walker Bush and his toadie Donald Rumsfeld led the charge to arm Saddam Hussein... of course, their "work" was done on behalf of Ronald "Can't Recall" Reagan...

In the Loop: Bush's Secret Mission

by Murray Waas and Craig Unger
The New Yorker Magazine - November 2, 1992

EXCERPT…

Iraq desperately needed American aid. On February 26th, the State Department sent a memo, classified "Confidential," to Bush's national-security adviser, Donald P. Gregg, who is now Ambassador to South Korea. The memo was intended to prepare the Vice-President for a March 2nd meeting with Nizaar Hamdoon, the Iraqi Ambassador, and was accompanied by "talking points for Bush to use in conversations first with John Bohn, the new chairman of the Export-Import Bank, and then with Hamdoon. "Iraqi Ambassador Hamdoon is calling on me soon," Bush's first script read, "and I expect him to raise the issue of short-term Exim credit insurance for Iraq...I urge you and your colleagues on the Board to give that favorable consideration... Exim's support for continued trade with Iraq would be a powerful timely signal... of U.S. interest in stability in the Gulf."

The bank's economists had already concluded that Iraq had little chance of repaying the loan. Nevertheless, Bohn agreed to Bush's request, overriding the advice of the bank's professional staff, and when the Vice-president met with Hamdoon he was able to relay the good news. He was scripted to say, the memo notes, "I am pleased that Commerce has recently issued licenses for some long pending items" - high-technology exports -for Iraq. "You should take that as a sign of our seriousness in addressing the issue." Many of those items, it is now known, were examples of dual-use technology -helpful to Iraq's programs to develop ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, and nuclear weapons.

By this time, the Iran-Contra investigations were under way in Congress. But one of the key witnesses, William Casey, was unable to appear, he was in Georgetown hospital, being treated for a malignant brain tumor. He died on May 6th. Amiram Nir, who was also expected to be a witness in the Iran-Contra trials, died in the crash of a small plane in Mexico in 1988. Meanwhile, Vice-President Bush was trying to escape the political fallout of the Iran-Contra disclosures. He told the Washington Post that he had not been aware that serious objections were raised by Shultz and Weinberger to selling weapons to Iran. "If I had sat there, and heard George Shultz and Cap express it strongly, maybe I would have had a stronger view. But when you don't know something it's hard to react... We were not in the loop."

On August 6, 1987, the day the Post article appeared, Weinberger telephoned Shultz, incredulous that Bush had denied knowledge. "He was on the other side," Weinberger said, according to notes taken by Shultz's executive secretary, Charles Hill. "It's on the record! Why did he say that?"

More recently, Howard Teicher, the former national Security Council adviser who worked closely with Casey and Bush on the covert arms sales, had come forward to dispute Bush's story. "Bush definitely knew almost everything about the Iranian arms-sales initiative," Teicher told us. "I personally briefed him in great detail many times. Like so many others, he got premature Alzheimer's after the arms sales became public."

CONTINUED…

http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2002/111402.htm

Gee. One would think the American people would be, uh, angry to discover their government was arming a nutjob? Maybe that's why most people don't know this stuff.

U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup

Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds

by Michael Dobbs

High on the Bush administration's list of justifications for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally.

Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.

The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait -- which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors -- is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Throughout the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq was the sworn enemy of Iran, then still in the throes of an Islamic revolution. U.S. officials saw Baghdad as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan -- a Middle East version of the "domino theory" in Southeast Asia. That was enough to turn Hussein into a strategic partner and for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad to routinely refer to Iraqi forces as "the good guys," in contrast to the Iranians, who were depicted as "the bad guys."

CONTINUED…

ARCHIVED: https://web.archive.org/web/20040215203712/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1230-04.htm

Here's more to remember: The same technology we sold to Saddam were used to justify the illegal invasion of 2003.

Saddam Hussein: Made in the USA

by Mike Burke
[e-mail], February 14, 2003

"The Bush administration sent U.S. technology to the Iraqi military and to many Iraqi military factories, despite over-whelming evidence showing that Iraq intended to use the technology in its clandestine nuclear, chemical, biological, and long-range missile programs."

No this quotation is not pulled from a conspiracy-minded website, but from the Congressional Record from July 27, 1992. They are the words of the late Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas.

For months in the early 1990s Gonzalez released hundreds of documents that outlined how the highest levels of the U.S. government - including Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - had secretly and illegally helped arm Saddam Hussein. The scandal was known as Iraqgate.

In 1991, Charles Schumer, then a New York Congressman, now the New York Senator, said Hussein was Bush's Frankenstein: "He had been created in the White House laboratory with a collection of government programs, banks, and private companies." At the time, future Vice President Al Gore said, "Bush is presiding over a cover up significantly worse than Watergate."

SNIP...

In December, the White House boldly seized Iraq's 12,000-page weapons document in order to censor parts for the non-permanent Security Council states.

Among the information deleted was a list of U.S. corporations, government agencies and laboratories that aided Iraq. The companies included Honeywell, Kodak, Bechtel, Dupont and Hewlett-Packard. Among the government agencies were the Departments of Defense, Energy, Commerce and Agriculture. And then there were government nuclear weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia, which all offered training to Iraqi scientists. This information emerged only after a German news reporter obtained unedited portions of the Iraq documents.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Iraq/Saddam_MadeInUSA.html

Thanks largely to Joseph Trento, we still have someone around who can still talk about all this. He's in the pen, like Poppy's other business buddies Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega...

Another Failed Attempt to Gag The Arms Dealer Who Supplied Saddam

Joe Trento's Column
5/16/2005

Miami – Sarkis Soghanalian was once the most powerful arms dealer in the world. Filled with charm, able to communicate in eight languages, Soghanalian had one weakness – he liked to speak to reporters. A few weeks ago I went into the Perdue rehabilitation center in South Miami to reconnect with the arms dealer. Even sick with diabetes and unable to walk, Soghanalian still scares the hell out of the Bush family and their business associates.

SNIP...

Soghanalian has also had a long relationship with the CIA, working with one of their brightest (now retired) officers, Lou Severe. His poorest relationship was with Customs and Immigration, now known as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). He had been instructed by his bosses in the Reagan White House not to do business with Customs. The Miami office of Customs, now ICE, has been angry with Soghanalian ever since he refused to help them by becoming a snitch concerning other CIA front companies.

In 1984 former Nixon officials (including John Mitchell, Spiro Agnew and others) forced the arms dealer to put them in business selling military uniforms to Saddam. If Sarkis didn’t throw the uniform business their way, he was told he would not get export licenses to provide the helicopters the Reagan Administration wanted sent to arm Saddam. Even Richard Nixon, wrote letters of endorsement of the deal. The $450 million dollar deal produced shoddy uniforms Saddam refused to pay for. Soghanalian was sued in civil court by these former public servants. After Soghanalian beat the businessmen in civil court, the arms dealer found he was being targeted by his old associates through the administration of George H.W.Bush. When Soghanlian began sharing details with ABC’s Nightline, of how the Reagan/Bush team had aided Saddam through the 80’s as the 1991 Gulf War loomed, the hammer fell on Soghanalian. In the early 1990’s the first Bush Administration orchestrated a prosecution of Soghanalian for delivering weapons on his private 727 to Iraq. One of the key witnesses standing by to testify against him was former Marine Colonel Jack Brennan, then a Bush I White House aide. Brennan had been a key partner in the uniform deal. The case was political. Bush was running for reelection and the Iraqgate scandal was engulfing him.

Bush I appointees in Miami indicted and convicted Soghanalian. That resulted in a six-year federal prison sentence and an attempt by the Bush Administration to cut Soghanalian off from all media contact while in the Federal prison system. But even in jail the arms dealer had bombs to throw. He told me in an interview for British television that Mark Thatcher (son of the Prime Minister) had profited from dealing classified night vision devices to Saddam’s government. That resulted in a major scandal in England. George H. W. Bush’s defeat gave Soghanalian a chance to show the Clinton Administration - what he could do about its $100 bill counterfeiting problem. He was so successful in his work with the Secret Service that his jail sentence suddenly ended and he was back in business in time for the 1995 Paris Air Show. Working with France, Soghanalian was involved in deals around the world, including Saudi Arabia.

In 1995 while on a visit to Los Angeles Soghanalian was approached by an associate of now infamous Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. That meeting resulted in a previously unreported FBI investigation of a top Republican member of the House of Representatives and his wife. A two-year off and on FBI investigation followed. Soghanalian was promised that sanctions against Iraq would be lifted—allowing Soghanalian to be paid—in exchange for a huge payment to self-proclaimed surrogates of the politician. The investigation was stopped at the highest levels in the FBI during the Clinton impeachment proceedings. The main target of the probe left elective political life with no evidence collected that he had done anything illegal. According to the prosecutor in charge there were very hard feelings against Soghanalian for his role in starting the investigation. According to federal agents involved in the case the FBI leadership stopped the case before evidence could be collected on the politician.

CONTINUED...

http://www.dcbureau.org/20050516805/trentos-take/another-failed-attempt-to-gag-the-arms-dealer-who-supplied-saddam.html

Hmm. Jack Abramoff? No wonder no one in Washington like to talk about all this.

*Since November 22, 1963, the American media have turned a blind eye toward one family name – Bush. This series of posts is to fill in and correct the record of the Bush Family Evil Empire. Contrary to what the Press Corpse and its psyops handlers report, there is such a thing as a vast right wing conspiracy. And it works on behalf of the Secret Government, the one headed by the people that pay for George Walker Bush, his Poppy and all their sick and sordid ilk.

Death. Death. Death.

Original Post on DU: Sept. 18, 2005

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BONUS HISTORY:

THE ADMINISTRATION'S IRAQ GATE SCANDAL

BY WILLIAM SAFIRE
Congressional Record
Extension of Remarks - May 19, 1992
Washington

Americans now know that the war in the Persian Gulf was brought about by a colossal foreign-policy blunder: George Bush's decision, after the Iran-Iraq war ended, to entrust regional security to Saddam Hussein.

What is not yet widely understood is how that benighted policy led to the Bush Administration's fraudulent use of public funds, its sustained deception of Congress and its obstruction of justice.

As the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar, was urging Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker to buy the friendship of the Iraqi dictator in August 1989, the F.B.I. uncovered a huge scam at the Atlanta branch of the Lavoro Bank to finance the buildup of Iraq's war machine by diverting U.S.-guaranteed grain loans.

Instead of pressing the investigation or curbing the appeasement, the President turned a blind eye to lawbreaking and directed another billion dollars to Iraq. Our State and Agriculture Department's complicity in Iraq's duplicity transformed what could have been dealt with as `Saddam's Lavoro scandal' into George Bush's Iraqgate.

The first element of corruption is the wrongful application of U.S. credit guarantees. Neither the Commodity Credit Corporation nor the Export-Import Bank runs a foreign-aid program; their purpose is to stimulate U.S. exports. High-risk loan guarantees to achieve foreign-policy goals unlawful endanger that purpose.

Yet we now know that George Bush personally leaned on Ex-Im to subvert its charter--not to promote our exports but to promote relations with the dictator. And we have evidence that James Baker overrode worries in Agriculture and O.M.B. that the law was being perverted: Mr. Baker's closest aid, Robert Kimmett, wrote triumphantly, `your call to . . . Yeutter . . . paid off.' Former Agriculture Secretary Clayton Yeutter is now under White House protection.

Second element of corruption is the misleading of Congress. When the charge was made two years ago in this space that State was improperly intervening in this case, Mr. Baker's top Middle East aide denied it to Senate Foreign Relations; meanwhile, Yeutter aides deceived Senator Leahy's Agriculture Committee about the real foreign-policy purpose of the C.C.C. guarantees. To carry out Mr. Bush's infamous National Security Directive 26, lawful oversight was systematically blinded.

Third area of Iraqgate corruption is the obstruction of justice. Atlanta's assistant U.S. Attorney Gail McKenzie, long blamed here for foot-dragging, would not withhold from a grand jury what she has already told friends: that indictment of Lavoro officials was held up for nearly a year by the Bush Criminal Division. The long delay in prosecution enabled James Baker to shake credits for Saddam out of malfeasant Agriculture appointees.

When House Banking Chairman Henry Gonzalez gathered documents marked `secret' showing this pattern of corruption, he put them in the Congressional Record. Two months later, as the media awakened, Mr. Bush gave the familiar `gate' order; stonewall.

`Public disclosure of classified information harms the national security,' Attorney General William Barr instructed the House Banking Committee last week. `. . . in light of your recent disclosures, the executive branch will not provide any more classified information'--unless the wrongdoing is kept secret.

`Your threat to withhold documents,' responded Chairman Gonzalez, `has all the earmarks of a classic effort to obstruct a proper and legitimate investigation . . . none of the documents compromise, in any fashion whatsoever, the national security or intelligence sources and methods.'

Mr. Barr, in personal jeopardy, has flung down the gauntlet. Chairman Gonzalez tells me he plans to present his obstruction case this week to House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks, probably flanked by Representatives Charles Schumer and Barney Frank, members of both committees.

`I will recommend that Judiciary consider requiring the appointment of an independent counsel,' says Mr. Gonzalez, who has been given reason to believe that Judiciary--capable of triggering the Ethics in Government Act--will be persuaded to act.

Policy blunders are not crimes. But perverting the purpose of appropriated funds is a crime; lying to Congress compounds that crime; and obstructing justice to cover up the original crime is a criminal conspiracy.

SOURCE: http://fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920519l.htm

As for E Howard Hunt: Oh, yeah. He's the same guy who torpedoed Nixon at Watergate and confessed on his deathbed to being a "benchwarmer" in Dallas to his son. The guy's old school CIA, chums of Poppy, who also, coincidentally I'm told, was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.