Ford, Reagan, Rumsfeld and Saddam

The distinguished British journalist, Robert Fisk, put it so well when he wrote in an article in The Independent/UK posted on the Common Dreams Web Site:

We've shut him up. The moment Saddam's hooded executioner pulled the lever of the trapdoor in Baghdad yesterday morning, Washington's secrets were safe. The shameless, outrageous, covert military support which the United States - and Britain - gave to Saddam for more than a decade remains the one terrible story which our presidents and prime ministers do not want the world to remember...

Many in Washington and London must have sighed with relief that the old man had been silenced for ever.

Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein

Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein, December 20, 1983.

The Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) was one of a series of crises during an era of upheaval in the Middle East: revolution and occupation of the U.S. embassy in Iran; the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and almost continuous warfare between Israel, Syria, and Palestinians in Lebanon.

At first, Saddam’s army was winning, but by mid-1982, Iraq was on the defensive.

The U.S. began supporting Iraq, providing intelligence and military support in accordance with policy directives from U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan’s National Security Study Memorandum, March 1982 Reagan’s National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 99, July 12, 1983 Reagan’s National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 114, November 26, 1983

Donald Rumsfeld had served in the Nixon and Ford administrations, (including as defense secretary for that “nice guy,” President Gerald Ford). Rummy was dispatched to the Middle East as President Reagan's personal envoy. Rumsfeld met with Saddam and, according to detailed notes, made no reference to chemical weapons or mass murder. Rumsfeld also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, and the two agreed, "the U.S. and Iraq shared many common interests." Rumsfeld affirmed the Reagan administration's "willingness to do more" regarding the Iran-Iraq war. Later, the U.S. interests section in Iraq assured Rumsfeld that Iraq's leadership had been "extremely pleased" with the visit, and Aziz "had gone out of his way to praise Rumsfeld.”

Our Short National Nightmare: The Ugly Truth About Gerald Ford
by Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens, one of the biggest hawks for the current war, but also a longtime advocate for Iraq's oppressed Kurdish minority, has an article posted on Slate about the contribution of President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Saddam's bloody resume.

During his [Ford's] tenure, and while Henry Kissinger was secretary of state, The United States secretly armed and financed a Kurdish rebellion against Saddam Hussein. This was done in collusion with the Shah of Iran, who was then considered in Washington a man who could do no wrong. So that when the shah signed a separate peace with Saddam in 1975, and abandoned his opportunist support for the Kurds, the United States shamefacedly followed his lead and knifed the Kurds in the back.

You cannot tell the players without a scorecard!

He Takes His Secrets to the Grave. Our Complicity Dies with Him
by Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk is one of the precious few brave journalists speaking truth to power about the disgraceful complicity of our government in the crimes of Saddam Hussein. Here is a very brief bulleted list of Fisk's points:

Iraq’s 1980 Invasion of Iran - Meetings between Iraqi and senior American officials; Pentagon providing intelligence on Iranians. Biological Agents - US companies sending government-approved shipments of biological agents including Bacillus anthracis and Escherichia coli (E. coli). Chemical Weapons, 1988 - With Saddam's permission, Lt-Col Rick Francona, a US defence intelligence officer, visited territory recaptured from the Iranians and reported the use of chemical weapons back to Washington. U.S. Credits, 1982 to 1987 - Used to purchase American weapons from Jordan and Kuwait: $300 million; Promised credits of $1 billion. USS Stark Incident, 1987 - Iraqi jet launched a missile attack on the American frigate, killing more than a sixth of the crew and almost sinking the vessel. The US accepted Saddam's lame excuse that the ship was mistaken for an Iranian vessel. Trade Before Kuwait Invasion, 1990 - annual trade between Iraq and the US: $3.5 billion a year; Then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker pushed for $1 billion in new credits..

The Insufferable Mainstream Media

The "Liberal" New York Times:
Saddam Hussein, Defiant Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence and Fear, Dies
by Neil MacFarquhar
December 30, 2006

Mr. Hussein saw his first opportunity for Iraq to dominate the region in the turmoil that swept neighboring Iran immediately after its 1979 Islamic revolution. In September 1980, Mr. Hussein believed that by invading Iran he could both seize a disputed waterway along the border and inspire Iranians of Arab origin to revolt against their Persian rulers. Instead, they resisted fanatically. Mr. Hussein never acknowledged making a gross miscalculation; rather, he vilified the Iranian Arabs as traitors to the Arab cause...

Mr. Hussein adored the macho trappings of the armed forces, appointing himself field marshal and dressing his ministers in olive-green fatigues. If he was a poor military strategist, he was fortunate in his first choice of enemy. The fear that an Islamic revolution would spread to an oil producer with estimated reserves second only to Saudi Arabia tipped the United States and its allies toward Baghdad and they provided weapons, technology and, most important, secret satellite images of Iran’s military positions and intercepted communications.

The war lasted for eight years until Iran accepted a cease-fire in July 1988, with both sides terrorizing each other’s civilian populations by rocketing major cities. But the March 1988 mustard gas attack on the Iraqi village of Halabja by its own government was perhaps the most gruesome incident.

That is all the so-called Newspaper-of-Record has to say about events before, during, and after Rumsfeld's handshake with Saddam.

The "Conservative" New York Post:
Saddam Hussein TimeLine
December 30, 2006

1979
Becomes supreme leader after al-Bakr resigns
1979
Launches sneak attack on Iran designed to capture strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway.
1988
Ruthlessly puts down an uprising of Kurds in northern Iraq. About 5,000 Kurds die an agonizing death from chemical weapons in one city.
Aug. 2, 1990
Annexes Kuwait as "the 19th province of Iraq."
Jan. 16, 1991
Operation Desert Storm launched to drive Saddam's armies out of Kuwait.

Are we not supposed to notice that huge gap in the so-called timeline between 1979 and 1988? Years which, by an amazing coincidence, correspond to the years of Our Dear Great Republican President Ronald Reagan?

Do not fear they've gone "soft." It's still Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and so on the same day they omitted a whole decade of shenanigans by the Reagan-Bush "conservatives" they love, the Post editors published this editorial in that patented adolescent "Angry White Man" style for which they are famous.

New York Post Editorial: Justice Served
December 30, 2006

Ding dong, the Butcher's dead.

At long last.

After having been brought to justice by the freely elected - albeit gravely endangered - democratic government of Iraq.

Now may he rot in hell.

If anyone ever deserved to die at the end of a rope, it was Saddam Hussein.

. . .

He was never even brought to trial on the most heinous charges against him - including his genocidal assault, using deadly nerve gas, against Iraq's Kurdish population, which took a reported 100,000 innocent lives.

But that was in large part because Saddam and his lawyers - including America's most embarrassing former Cabinet official, Johnson administration Attorney General Ramsey Clark - alternately boycotted and disrupted the proceedings...

No doubt, Donald Rumsfeld would agree.