Reply #64: Thanks for posting this -- very interesting! Here's a snip for other's to see

[Emit]

~snip~

Now, that raid by the FBI on August 4, 1989, led to the unraveling not only of one of the biggest banking scandals of all time, it also laid bare that the United States was carrying on a strange, secretive, clandestine relationship with Iraq, which was at that time and still is today one of the most notorious governments in the world. It was Iraq, after all, that had used chemical weapons not just against its Iranian enemies but against its own Kurdish minority.

But let me say here it ill behooves the West to try to single out Iraq and Saddam Hussein. They were the first ones to use poison gas in that area and against what the RAF or the British, in asking Winston Churchill permission to use poison gas against what they called rebellious or recalcitrant Arabs, it was in Iraq, what we call Iraq in the 1920's, 1921-23.

So, when we start trying to get goodie-goodie about poison gas, remember it was our great Western culture in World War I that used that horrible weapon, poison gas, to the destruction of many human lives on both sides of the contending forces.

Since then, even in the Iraq-Iran war it was charged that not only Iraq but Iran made use of that. Lord only knows. The only thing I do know is that we were aware and so were our intelligence, so-called, experts aware.

The Government of Iraq was and still is notorious for its abuse of human rights, its support of terrorism, its soaring military ambitions, and its aim to become the dominant military power in the Middle East. And that is based on a more complicated and complex line of events, which is not my interest to go into. That is over in another area of committee responsibility.

Madam Speaker, I have maintained and I have subscribed and I have adhered to one single-minded purpose, and that is the determination to eventually provide for the United States through the legislation that must be forthcoming from the Banking Committee, which I have the great honor to chair, the proper defense or protection against a continuation of these malpractices that are still going on in far vaster activities than even BNL or the so-called BCCI scandal.

Despite all this, the United States allowed Iraq to become the biggest customer of the Commodity Credit Corporation, a guaranteed program. Guaranteed by whom? The Taxpayers, of course. That was financed largely through loans made by the BNL Atlanta office. Not only that, Iraq operated an extensive secret military procurement network in this country and in Europe which was also financed through the BNL Atlanta, not through CCC guarantees but through commercial loans.
~snip~

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920921g.htm