Cost in Human Lives of the War on Terror

[Cairenn]

The war on terror has cost millions of lives and resulted in the suffering of millions more.

That seems to be suffering from major inflation

The best count I have found is less 150,000 from the wars directly. Even if the indirect number are seveal times that, it is still not MILLIONS.

Let's deal in facts.

 

[Mick West]

I am afraid that Oxy is inflating the numbers here "The war on terror has cost millions of lives and resulted in the suffering of millions more."

The best count I have found is less 150,000 from the wars directly. Even if the indirect number are seveal times that, it is still not MILLIONS.

Let's deal in facts.

It depends on what you are counting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror#Casualties

I think some people include some speculative numbers from sanctions.

Either way, few people think the Iraq war was a good idea.

 

[Cairenn]

The war in Iraq was a mistake. A huge one in my opinion. Sadam needed to go, BUT removing him allowed Iran to war monger more.

We should have worked on a way to get Sadam out without force. But someone had watched too many cowboy movies, I think.

I know a lot of folks blame it on oil, but for the most part American companies didn't benefit, they didn't get the contracts.

 

[Oxymoron]

"The war on terror has cost millions of lives and resulted in the suffering of millions more." That seems to be suffering from major inflation

The best count I have found is less 150,000 from the wars directly. Even if the indirect number are seveal times that, it is still not MILLIONS.

Let's deal in facts.

Ok, let's talk about some facts and look a little into the history of the region.

The assault on Iraq started well before 2003. It dates back many decades to at least the Iran Iraq war which devastated both Countries to such an extent that they were both reduced to fielding child combatants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Iraq_War

An estimated 95,000 Iranian child soldiers were made casualties during the Iran–Iraq War.[69]​

Iran/Iraq relations had been strained for many decades prior to the outbreak of hostilities. But following the overthrow of the American backed, Iranian Shah, the situation worsened as Saddam Hussein feared the uprising could topple his own powerbase from within.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution

The Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution or the 1979 Revolution;[3]​[4]​[5]​[6]​[7]​[8]​ Persian: انقلاب اسلامی, Enghelābe Eslāmi or انقلاب بیست و دو بهمن) refers to events involving the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States and United Kingdom, and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution.

Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that was partly secular and partly religious,[9]​ and intensified in January 1978.[10]​ Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile on January 16, 1979 as the last Persian monarch and in the resulting power vacuum two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians.[11]​[12]​ The royal reign collapsed shortly after on February 11 when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting.[13]​[14]​ Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979,[15]​ and to approve a new democratic-theocratic hybrid constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979.

The revolution was unusual for the surprise it created throughout the world:[16]​ it lacked many of the customary causes of revolution (defeat at war, a financial crisis, peasant rebellion, or disgruntled military),[17]​ produced profound change at great speed,[18]​ was massively popular,[19]​ and replaced a West-oriented autocratic monarchy with a theocracy based on Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists (or velayat-e faqih). Its outcome – an Islamic Republic "under the guidance of a religious scholar from Qom" – was, as one scholar put it, "clearly an occurrence that had to be explained".[20]​

http://robertod.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/despot-of-the-week-3-mohammad-reza-pahlavi/

In this edition of the Despot of the Week, The Grand Inquisitor examines one of the favourite foreign policy tactics of powerful Western democratic states: conspiring to establish vicious dictatorships in third world nations for fun and profit. The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was on the point of being ousted by Mohammed Moseddeq's emerging parliamentarian government, before the CIA, in collusion with British Intelligence, acted to incite a military coup, restoring Pahlavi to power. Once he was back in the driving seat, Pahlavi established the sinister SAVAK agency of secret police as his instrument of control, terrorising the Iranian population with brutal methods of repression for the next quarter of a century. The lion's share of Iran's rich oil reserves were divided among British and US corporations, while Pahlavi propped up his regime with a steady flow of Western support, effectively becoming a puppet ruler for his imperial masters.

One of the most vocal critics of Britain's rapacious plundering of Iran's resources was former author and lawyer turned prominent member of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammed Mosaddeq. Mosaddeq campaigned fiercely to achieve the nationalisation of Iran's oil industry and received widespread public support. Quite rightly, he wanted to see an end to Britain's interest in Iran and cede the benefits of Iranian oil to Iranian people. Iran's Parliament agreed, and in April of 1951, they elected Mosaddeq Prime Minister of Iran. Days later, the Parliament passed a bill to nationalise all oil production in Iran, with Mosaddeq announcing: "Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries… have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence." Pahlavi, apparently overawed by the depth of popular support for Mosaddeq, did not attempt to intervene. However, Britain had been enjoying the easy riches of Iranian oil for decades, and had no intention of surrendering control. The British government, under Winston Churchill, immediately froze Iran's Pound Stirling assets and complained to the International Court of Justice. When the Court ruled in Iran's favour, Britain placed a total trade embargo on Iran, enforcing it with a naval blockade. Unable to export or oil or import goods, Iran's fragile economy began to collapse. The situation reached a stalemate. Britain was still struggling to recover from the fallout of World War II, and did not have the kind of power and influence it enjoyed in the old Empire days. Iran remained determined to control its own oil resources. Britain reached out to the US for assistance, but initially, the overtures were rejected. American Secretary of State Dean Acheson recognised that Britain was " determined on a rule or ruin policy in Iran."

n March of 1953, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles instructed the CIA to initiate plans to overthrow the Iranian government. The CIA, in conjunction with British Intelligence, became determined to remove Mosaddeq from power at any cost. Immediately, funds were made available to instigate a propaganda campaign in Iran. Bribes were handed out to prominent Iranian newspapers in return for critical commentary of Mosaddeq, and pamphlets and disparaging cartoons denouncing his government began to appear in Tehran's streets. "Operation Ajax", the US funded campaign to depose Mosaddeq, was underway.

Pahlavi was browbeaten by Operation Mongoose director, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (Grandson of former US President Theodore Roosevelt) into signing off on two government citations, one firing Mosaddeq from the post of Prime Minister and the other installing the compliant military general Fazlollah Zahedi in his place

General Zahedi was able to obtain the backing of various factions in the military, while the CIA fomented civil unrest on the streets. Frightened by the arrest of a few of the dissenters, however, Pahlavi abruptly chickened out and fled to Baghdad. The CIA had to coerce him to return. In fact, Pahlavi would attempt to flee again a few days later, this time to Rome. Here the CIA were attempting to overthrow a government, and the guy who was supposed to be replacing it kept undermining their efforts by running scared into self imposed exile. Nonetheless, the coup continued apace. While Pahlavi cowered in Rome, Pro-shah protesters were mobilised by the CIA on the streets of Tehran (many of them apparently bribed to participate) and began burning and looting.

With the coup now secured, Pahlavi returned from hiding and was handed the reins of power. General Zahedi was announced as the new Prime Minister. Mosaddeq was subjected to a show trial and convicted of high treason. He died while under house arrest in 1967. Pahlavi was back in power in Iran, with greater authority than ever before, this time supported by the patronage of the Western powers. With Pahlavi's capitulation, Britain and the US could now proceed to carve Iran's oil reserves up between themselves. The Shah immediately decided to strengthen his regime with the implementation of an effective internal security organisation. The US provided Pahlavi with a team of CIA officers to train Iranian operatives in techniques of covert operations, surveillance, intelligence analysis and other rather more sinister tools of power. One of the CIA officers was Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, father of none other than "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf, the general who commanded Coalition forces during the Desert Storm War with Iraq. The CIA training squad was later supplemented by members of Israel's Mossad secret service. By 1957, SAVAK – Iran's National Intelligence and Security Organisation – consisting of the CIA and Mossad trained operatives - was implemented under Pahlavi's regime. SAVAK effectively became a law unto itself, granted the legal authority to arrest and detain political dissidents indefinitely and at will, on grounds of suspicion alone. SAVAK was the chief agency empowered to enforce Pahlavi's grip on power. They became perhaps the most feared and loathed organisation in Iran's history. The population was terrorised for the best part of a quarter century under SAVAK's ruthless persecution of political opposition. At its peak, SAVAK was thought to employ some 60,000 agents authorised to stamp out suspected political dissent wherever it could be found.

By the end of the seventies, resistance to Pahlavi's regime had formulated along two fronts. Iran's religious leaders, concerned about their loss of traditional authority in an increasingly secular nation, began sowing the seeds of revolution. They were joined by Iran's younger student generation, who were aghast at the lack of democratic representation and concern for the population's interests under the Shah's regime. During 1978 – 79 there was an almost continuous series of uprisings, spreading throughout the entire country. Unable to sustain his government in the face of the monarchy's imminent collapse, Pahlavi had little choice but to abdicate the throne. Ayatollah Khomeini, who had previously been arrested and exiled for criticism of Pahlavi's regime, returned to Iran, and was installed as the first Supreme Leader of Iran's new Islamic Republic. Pahlavi attempted to find refuge in a series of countries but fell critically ill with cancer. His arrival in the US for medical treatment prompted the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran by militant Islamic students, leading to a 444 day hostage crisis and the initiation of US / Iran tensions that have lasted until the present day. Pahlavi died of cancer related complications while the hostage situation was still underway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war

United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, Special Operations training, and direct involvement in warfare against Iran.[3]​[4]​

Support from the U.S. for Iraq was not a secret and was frequently discussed in open session of the Senate and House of Representatives. On June 9, 1992, Ted Koppel reported on ABC's Nightline, "It is becoming increasingly clear that George Bush, operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the power it became",[5]​ and "Reagan/Bush administrations permitted—and frequently encouraged—the flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq."[

Chemical and biological exports

On February 9, 1994, Senator Riegle delivered a report -commonly known at the Riegle Report- in which it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."[30]​
The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."[31]​
Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that authored the aforementioned Riegle Report, said:

U.N. inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs. ... The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.
​

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 separate agents "with biological warfare significance," according to Riegle's investigators.[32]​


Starting in 1982 with Iranian success on the battlefield, the United States made its backing of Iraq more pronounced, normalizing relations with the government, supplying it with economic aid, counter-insurgency training, operational intelligence on the battlefield, and weapons.[3]​[13]​
President Ronald Reagan initiated a strategic opening to Iraq, signing National Security Study Directive (NSSD) 4-82 and selecting Donald Rumsfeld as his emissary to Hussein, whom he visited in December 1983 and March 1984.[14]​ According to U.S. ambassador Peter W. Galbraith, far from winning the conflict, "the Reagan administration was afraid Iraq might actually lose."[15]​
In 1982, Iraq was removed from a list of State Sponsors of Terrorism to ease the transfer of dual-use technology to that country

Kuwait was a close ally of Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war and functioned as the country's major port once Basra was shut down by the fighting.[9]​ However, after the war ended, the friendly relations between the two neighbouring Arab countries turned sour for several economic and diplomatic reasons that culminated in an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
Dispute over the financial debt

Kuwait had heavily funded the eight-year-long Iraqi war against Iran. Kuwait's large-scale economic assistance to Iraq often triggered hostile Iranian actions against it. Iran repeatedly targeted Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1984 and fired weapons at Kuwaiti security personnel stationed on Bubiyan island in 1988.[10]​
By the time the Iran-Iraq war ended, Iraq was not in a financial position to repay the US$14 billion it borrowed from Kuwait to finance its war and requested Kuwait to forgive the debt.[5]​ Iraq argued that the war had prevented the rise of Persian influence in the Arab World. However, Kuwait's reluctance to pardon the debt created strains in the relationship between the two Arab countries. During late 1989, several official meetings were held between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi leaders but they were unable to break the deadlock between the two.


Iraqi-American relations




On 25 July 1990, the U.S. Ambassador in Iraq, April Glaspie, asked the Iraqi high command to explain the military preparations in progress, including the massing of Iraqi troops near the border.
The American ambassador declared to her Iraqi interlocutor that Washington, "inspired by the friendship and not by confrontation, does not have an opinion" on the disagreement between Kuwait and Iraq, stating "we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts."
She also let Saddam Hussein know that the U.S. did not intend "to start an economic war against Iraq". These statements may have caused Saddam to believe he had received a diplomatic green light from the United States to invade Kuwait.[20]​[21]​
According to Prof. Richard E. Rubenstein, Glaspie was later asked by British journalists why she had said that, her response was "we didn't think he would go that far" meaning invade and annex the whole country. Although no follow-up question was asked, one might assume that what the U.S. government thought in July 1990 was that Saddam Hussein was only interested in pressuring Kuwait into debt forgiveness and to lower oil production.[22]​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq

The sanctions against Iraq were a near-total financial and trade embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on the nation of Iraq. They began August 6, 1990, four days after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, stayed largely in force until May 2003 (after Saddam Hussein's being forced from power),[1]​ and persisted in part, including reparations to Kuwait, through the present.[2]​[3]​

The original stated purposes of the sanctions were to compel Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, to pay reparations, and to disclose and eliminate any weapons of mass destruction.

Initially the UN Security Council imposed stringent economic sanctions on Iraq by adopting and enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 661.[4]​ After the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, those sanctions were extended and elaborated on, including linkage to removal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), by Resolution 687.[5]​[6]​ The sanctions banned all trade and financial resources except for medicine and "in humanitarian circumstances" foodstuffs, whose import into Iraq was tightly regulated.[4]​


Estimates of excess deaths of children during the sanctions range from 100,000[7]​ to over 500,000.[8]​

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-spo...3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461

Approximately 3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children, were "exterminated" by economic sanctions and/or illegal wars conducted by the U.S. and Great Britain between 1990 and 2012, an eminent international legal authority says.

The slaughter fits the classic definition of Genocide Convention Article II of, "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," says Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and who in 1991 filed a class-action complaint with the UN against President George H.W. Bush.
The U.S. and U.K. "obstinately insisted" that their sanctions remain in place until after the "illegal" Gulf War II aggression perpetrated by President George W. Bush and UK's Tony Blair in March, 2003, "not with a view to easing the over decade-long suffering of the Iraqi people and children" but "to better facilitate the U.S./U.K. unsupervised looting and plundering of the Iraqi economy and oil fields in violation of the international laws of war as well as to the grave detriment of the Iraqi people," Boyle said.

http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/

End of U.S. troops occasions minor reflection on war & destruction

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq has spurred little new information on the scale of destruction in the 8 year, 8 month war. Professor Juan Cole had this to say:
The American public still for the most part has no idea what the United States did to that country, and until we Americans take responsibility for the harm we do others with our perpetual wars, we can never recover from our war sickness, which drives us to resort to violence in international affairs in a way no other democracy routinely does.
Population of Iraq: 30 million.
Number of Iraqis killed in attacks in November 2011: 187
Average monthly civilian deaths in Afghanistan War, first half of 2011: 243
Percentage of Iraqis who lived in slum conditions in 2000: 17
Percentage of Iraqis who live in slum conditions in 2011: 50
Number of the 30 million Iraqis living below the poverty line: 7 million.
Number of Iraqis who died of violence 2003-2011: 150,000 to 400,000.

Orphans in Iraq: 4.5 million.
Orphans living in the streets: 600,000.
Number of women, mainly widows, who are primary breadwinners in family: 2 million.
Iraqi refugees displaced by the American war to Syria: 1 million
Internally displaced [pdf] persons in Iraq: 1.3 million
Proportion of displaced persons who have returned home since 2008: 1/8
Rank of Iraq on Corruption Index among 182 countries: 175

---

Warning: These pictures are extremely graphic.

http://www.unseenwar.com/

 

[Cairenn]

I don't see how anyone can blame the US or the UK for the internal wars in the Mid East.

The west did contribute to the problems there by the way they handled the end of the Ottoman Empire, after WW I. To blame that for everything that has happened since would be the same as blaming those same folks for the Holocaust, because of the restrictions put on Germany after WW I.

Countries, like indiviuals can be influnced by the past (and understanding that can help in dealing with them --like not using the word Crusade in dealing with any Muslim country), but in the end, it is a country's own choices. It is like the mass murderer blaming the police, because he had been falsely accused of a crime when he was a teenager.

 

[David Fraser]

I don't see how anyone can blame the US or the UK for the internal wars in the Mid East.

The west did contribute to the problems there by the way they handled the end of the Ottoman Empire, after WW I. To blame that for everything that has happened since would be the same as blaming those same folks for the Holocaust, because of the restrictions put on Germany after WW I.

Countries, like indiviuals can be influnced by the past (and understanding that can help in dealing with them --like not using the word Crusade in dealing with any Muslim country), but in the end, it is a country's own choices. It is like the mass murderer blaming the police, because he had been falsely accused of a crime when he was a teenager.

I wonder why when we talk about Muslim radicalism it is always Iraq that is brought up. If one is to look at events post Iran/Iraq War or the first Gulf War you cannot discount the events in Bosnia. You can't make claims about involvement in one country causing deaths while discounting lack of involvement allowing an actual genocide. The same could be said of Somalia. I had the misfortune to serve 2 consequtive tours and there was a great deal of anger to the inaction of the West.

 

[Oxymoron]

I don't see how anyone can blame the US or the UK for the internal wars in the Mid East.

From previous post:

Western democratic states: conspiring to establish vicious dictatorships in third world nations for fun and profit. The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was on the point of being ousted by Mohammed Moseddeq's emerging parliamentarian government, before the CIA, in collusion with British Intelligence, acted to incite a military coup, restoring Pahlavi to power.

March of 1953, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles instructed the CIA to initiate plans to overthrow the Iranian government. The CIA, in conjunction with British Intelligence, became determined to remove Mosaddeq from power at any cost.

Pahlavi was browbeaten by Operation Mongoose director, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (Grandson of former US President Theodore Roosevelt) into signing off on two government citations, one firing Mosaddeq from the post of Prime Minister and the other installing the compliant military general Fazlollah Zahedi in his place

the CIA fomented civil unrest on the streets

United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, Special Operations training, and direct involvement in warfare against Iran.[3]​[4]​

Chemical and biological exports

On February 9, 1994, Senator Riegle delivered a report -commonly known at the Riegle Report- in which it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."[30]​
The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."[31]​
Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that authored the aforementioned Riegle Report, said:

U.N. inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs. ... The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.​

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 separate agents "with biological warfare significance," according to Riegle's investigators.[32]

​In 1982, Iraq was removed from a list of State Sponsors of Terrorism to ease the transfer of dual-use technology to that country

What exactly is so difficult to understand? Britain and the U.S are fighting proxy wars for financial and strategic gain at an incredible human cost to the people in the region.

But you say, (as one who doesn't have to put up with the daily terror, deprivation and oppression), the U.S is bringing freedom. It is disgusting. They and the west in general are happy to install and support any despot/dictator so long as they serve the interests of the U.S

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état (known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup[3]​) was the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran, and its head of government Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the United Kingdom (under the name 'Operation Boot') and the United States (under the name TPAJAX Project).[4]​[5]​ The coup saw the formation of a military government under Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who progressed from a constitutional monarch to an authoritarian one who relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power until his own overthrow in February 1979.[6]​

No matter how much 'you cannot see it'... it remains, (for the moment although it will no doubt eventually be rewritten), an historical fact that they are responsible for the vast majority of the M.E conflict... including setting up a Zionist State right in the middle of it.

Terror begets terror.

 

[David Fraser]

Britain responsible for setting up a Zionist state? I think a few million Jews and the families of the hundreds of British soldiers will tell you a different story. The UK had interned thousands of Jews much to the chagrin of the US and UN. http://www.jta.org/1947/05/01/archi...es-says-1800-immigrants-detained-in-palestine

 

[Mick West]

Ok, let's talk about some facts and look a little into the history of the region.

The assault on Iraq started well before 2003. It dates back many decades to at least the Iran Iraq war which devastated both Countries to such an extent that they were both reduced to fielding child combatants.

Not disputing any figures here, but the original comment that spun off this thread was "The war on terror has cost millions of lives". The "War on Terror" generally refers to post 2001 activities. So I think perhaps that might have led to some of the initial dispute with the "millions" figure. You might be better referring to the broader issue as US Policy in the Middle East, or suchlike.

 

[Oxymoron]

Not disputing any figures here, but the original comment that spun off this thread was "The war on terror has cost millions of lives". The "War on Terror" generally refers to post 2001 activities. So I think perhaps that might have led to some of the initial dispute with the "millions" figure. You might be better referring to the broader issue as US Policy in the Middle East, or suchlike.

Yes I agree I expanded it a bit but I felt it relevant to attempt to put some context into the 'War on Terror'. We all know the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the War on Terror really or WMD's the only WMD's available to Iraq came from the U.S and were for use against the Iranians.

But back to the War on Terror... in addition to the casualties of the invasion and the far greater casualties resulting from the U.S dismantling the Iraqi infrastructure and the resultant sectarian killings, there is the issue of the sanctions which put 80% of the Iraqi population on foods stamps resulting in mass starvation and disease.

http://www.iacenter.org/Iraq/sanimpct.htm

From UN Reports

"The increase in mortality reported in public hospitals for children under five years of age (an excess
of some 40,000 deaths yearly compared with 1989) is mainly due to diarrhea, pneumonia and
malnutrition. In those over five years of age, the increase (an excess of some 50,000 deaths yearly
compared with 1989) is associated with heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, liver or
kidney diseases." Approximately 250 people die every day in Iraq due to the effect of the sanctions.
- UNICEF, April 1998.

"The Oil-for-Food plan has not yet resulted in adequate protection of Iraq's children from
malnutrition/disease. Those children spared from death continue to remain deprived of essential
rights addressed in the Convention of Rights of the Child." -- UNICEF, April 1998.

Seven years after the imposition of the blockade on the people of Iraq, more than 1.2 million
people, including 750,000 children below the age of five, have died because of the scarcity of food
and medicine. - Verified by the UN, June 1997.

"32 percent of children under five, some 960,000 children are chronically malnourished - a rise of
72 percent since 1991. Almost one quarter (23%) are underweight - twice as high as the levels
found in neighboring Jordan or Turkey." - UNICEF, November 1997.

"There is no sign of any improvement since Security Council Resolution 986/1111 ["Oil for Food"]
came into force." - UNICEF, November 1997.

"One out of every 4 Iraqi infants is malnourished. … Chronic malnutrition among children under five
has reached 27.5%. After a child reaches two or three years of age, chronic malnutrition is difficult
to reverse and damage on the child's development is likely to be permanent." UNICEF and World
Food Programmed (WFP), May 1997

"Iraq's health system is close to collapse because medicines and other life-saving supplies scheduled
for importation under the 'oil-for-food' deal have not arrived. … Government drug warehouses and
pharmacies have few stocks of medicines and medical supplies. The consequences of this situation
are causing a near-breakdown of the health care system, which is reeling under the pressure of
being deprived of medicine, other basic supplies and spare parts." World Health Organizations
(WHO), February 1997.

Much has been done to divert attention from this crime against humanity by organisations which should know better, including the U.N ceasing to collate figures for human lives lost as a direct result when they realised the figure exceeded 500,000 deaths.

Here is an attempt to apportion blame to Iraq.

http://www.instituteforthestudyofgenocide.org/oldsite/newsletters/28/Saddam.html

[SIZE=-1]Since 1998, there have been no international inspections for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because of Iraq's refusal to allow in inspectors with free access. This situation was made possible because of the split among the five permanent members with the veto in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Russia, France and China are against pressing for compliance, while the United States and United Kingdom want to insure compliance. Some states favoring removal of sanctions without regard to Iraq's continued manufacture of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have also opposed alleviating sanctions so as to continue using the humanitarian situation as justification to give up sanctions entirely without oversight of Iraq's production of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1] The link between Iraq's interest in magnifying the malign effects of sanctions and developing weapons of mass destruction continues. In September 2000, Iraq thwarted the efforts of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to assess the effect of sanction and devise ways to enhance the nutritional and economic effects of the oil-for-food program (Barbara Crossette, New York Times, September 12, 2000, A1). Since 1998, Iraq has been exporting oil at pre-1990 rates but nevertheless still claims that sanctions are increasing child mortality despite the ability to use greatly increased national income from oil revenue to buy food and medicine through the oil-for-food program. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1] This paper aims to show:
1) how and why sanctions against Iraq were imposed by the United Nations before the Gulf War, sanctions which always exempted the importation of food and medicine;
2) how Saddam Hussein has continued to divert illicit resources to expanding production of weapons of mass destruction --"an addiction"-- notes Richard Butler, former head of UNSCOM rather than to improve the domestic economy;
3) how the spread of misattributions charging that a humanitarian disaster has been created by the sanctions has changed the framing of the issue, allowing Iraq to maintain a propaganda barrage against sanctions and implying prime US responsibility for alleged deaths of Iraqis while Saddam continues to build up weapons of mass destruction (WMD);
and [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]4) how Saddam's gross violation of human rights continue, demonstrating his capacity to coordinate engineering, sanitation, and infrastructure either to destroy or improve living conditions. [/SIZE]

I think we all know about WMD's by now do we not... but the propaganda is deliberate, relentless and shameless

 

[Oxymoron]

Britain responsible for setting up a Zionist state? I think a few million Jews and the families of the hundreds of British soldiers will tell you a different story. The UK had interned thousands of Jews much to the chagrin of the US and UN. http://www.jta.org/1947/05/01/archi...es-says-1800-immigrants-detained-in-palestine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zionism

There is no other example in human history of a "nation" being reestablished after such a long period of existence as a Diaspora.

Britain established a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the first diplomatic appointment in the city. In 1839, the Church of Scotland sent Andrew Bonar and Robert Murray M'Cheyne to report on the condition of the Jews there. The report was widely published[16]​ and was followed by Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine. In August 1840, The Times reported that the British government was considering Jewish restoration.[13]​ Correspondence in 1841–42 between Moses Montefiore, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Charles Henry Churchill, the British consul in Damascus, is seen as the first recorded plan proposed for political Zionism.

​In 1842, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, Jr. sent a representative, Orson Hyde, to dedicate the land of Israel for the return of the Jews.[22]​ Protestant theologian William Eugene Blackstone submitted a petition to the US president in 1891; the Blackstone Memorial called for the return of Palestine to the Jews

After the defeat and dismantling of the Ottoman Empire by European colonial powers in 1918, the League of Nations endorsed the full text of the Balfour Declaration and established the British Mandate for Palestine (Full text:[61]​).
In addition to accepting the Balfour Declaration policy statement, the League included that "[a]n appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised as a public body for the purpose of advising and co-operating with the Administration of Palestine...." This inclusion paralleled a similar proposal made by the Zionist Organization during the Paris Peace Conference.[62]​
The Zionist movement entered a new phase of activity. Its priorities were encouraging Jewish settlement in Palestine, building the institutional foundations of a Jewish state and raising funds for these purposes. The 1920s did see a steady growth in the Jewish population and the construction of state-like Jewish institutions, but also saw the emergence of Palestinian Arab nationalism and growing resistance to Jewish immigration.


In Britain as elsewhere in Europe, the 1930s saw an increase in antisemitism. British Labour Party politician, Oswald Mosley, established a new party, the British Union of Fascists, which claimed that "the Jews" were leading Britain to war and campaigned for peace with Germany.[71]​ British support for Zionism was further undermined by the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and concern that millions of Jews would soon be seeking entry to Palestine. The Nuremberg Laws effectively revoked the citizenship of the 500,000 Jews of Germany, making them refugees in their own country. In March 1938 Hitler annexed Austria making its 200,000 Jews stateless refugees. In September the British agreed to Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland making a further 100,000 Jews refugees.
In the absence of alternative destinations, over 100,000 German Jews headed for Palestine.[citation needed]​
In 1939 the British issued a White Paper, in which they declared that a Jewish National Home now existed and that their obligations under the mandate were fulfilled. Further migration would be harmful to the Arab population. A further 10,000 Jews a year were to be admitted from 1939 to 1944 as well as a one-time allowance of 25,000 in view of the situation in Europe. After that Jewish migration would require (the extremely unlikely) agreement of the Arab majority (by this time Jews were about a third of the population). The British promised Palestinians independence by 1949 and imposed restrictions on land purchases by Jews.[72]​
The British were concerned about maintaining Arab support as Italian Fascist and German Nazi propaganda was targeting the Arab world (and winning support).[73]​ Jewish support in the fight against Fascism was guaranteed.[74]​ In Palestine, Zionists increasingly viewed the British as an enemy, but they deemed the fight against the Nazis more important. In 1940 a group led by Avraham Stern, later known as Lehi, left the Irgun over its refusal to fight the British.


[h=3]The 1947 UN decision to partition Palestine[/h] In 1947 Britain announced its intention to withdraw from Palestine. An United Nations Special Committee investigated the situation and offered two solutions :

1. to establish a bi-national state in Palestine (the minority option);
2. to partition Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.

From the Zionist point of view, the second option corresponded to their goal and they gave full support to this.
On 29 November the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state (with Jerusalem becoming an international enclave). Amid public rejoicing in Jewish communities in Palestine, the Jewish Agency accepted the plan. The Palestinian Arab leadership and the Arab League rejected the decision and announced that they would not abide by it. Civil conflict between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine ensued immediately.

 

[Cairenn]

I guess you missed that the sanctions allowed food and medicine through. If folks starved it was not the west or the UN's problem. It was Sadam and his reign of terror.

The west had nothing to do with his chemical attacks on the Kurds, or for the genocide of the marsh arabs and the destruction of their environment.

 

[Oxymoron]

I guess you missed that the sanctions allowed food and medicine through. If folks starved it was not the west or the UN's problem. It was Sadam and his reign of terror.

I expect you are talking about the 1996 "Oil for Food Programme" where Iraq had to trade it's oil for a pittance in food. By then more than half a million children had died, (let alone the adults and BTW you did see the 4.5 million orphans in the previous post).

The Oil-for-Food Programme was instituted to relieve the extended suffering of civilians as the result of the comprehensive sanctions on Iraq from the UN, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

The Oil-for-Food Programme started in December 1996, and the first shipments of food arrived in March 1997. Sixty percent of Iraq's twenty-six million people were solely dependent on rations from the oil-for-food plan.
The programme used an escrow system. Oil exported from Iraq was paid for by the recipient into an escrow account possessed until 2001 by BNP Paribas bank, rather than to the Iraqi government. The money was then apportioned to pay for war reparations to Kuwait, ongoing coalition and United Nations operations within Iraq. The remainder, the majority of the revenue, was available to the Iraqi government to purchase regulated items.

Even after the oil for food concessions were made there was still insufficient food coming in as you can see below.

August 6, 1990: United Nations Security Council passes Resolution 661, placing sanctions on Iraq to "restore the authority of the legitimate government of Kuwait." (For U.N. resolutions, see: gopher://gopher.undp.org/11/undocs/scd/scouncil)

April 3, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 687 which states that upon "the completion by Iraq of all actions contemplated in" specific paragraphs of the resolution, "the prohibitions against financial transactions ... shall have no further force or effect." The paragraphs cited have to do with weapons inspections. Other paragraphs in the resolution have to do with "return of all Kuwaiti property seized by Iraq" and Iraqi liability for losses and damage resulting from Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.
April 5, 1991: U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 688 that "demands that Iraq" end its repression "of all Iraqi citizens."
May 20, 1991: President George Bush: "At this juncture, my view is we don't want to lift these sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." James Baker, Secretary of State: "We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power."

March 6, 1992: The Washington Post reports that the U.S. Census Bureau demographer assigned to estimate the number of Iraqis killed during the Gulf War will be fired. Beth Osborne Daponte estimates that 86,000 men, 40,000 women and 32,000 children died at the hands of American-led coalition forces, during the domestic rebellions that followed and from postwar deprivation. After various protests, the Bureau rescinds the firing but rewrites the report, lowering the death toll and removing the data on women and children. The following month, the Pentagon published its three-volume official history of the war, but a draft chapter on casualties is deleted and there is no mention of Iraqi deaths. (The London Independent, April 23, 1992)

September 24, 1992: The New England Journal of Medicine publishes the findings of Harvard researchers that 46,700 Iraqi children under five have died from the combined effects of war and trade sanctions in the first seven months of 1991.

January 13, 1993: As Bill Clinton is about to take office, he states: "I am a Baptist. I believe in death-bed conversions. If he [Hussein] wants a different relationship with the United States and the United Nations, all he has to do is change his behavior." (The New York Times, January 14, 1993)
January 14, 1993: In the face of criticism, particularly from The New York Times, that he might lift sanctions and even normalize relations with Iraq, Clinton backtracks: "There is no difference between my policy and the policy of the present Administration.... I have no intention of normalizing relations with him." (See The New York Times and Boston Globe, January 15, 1993) Incoming Secretary of State Warren Christopher: "I find it hard to share the Baptist belief in redemption.... I see no substantial change in the position and continuing total support for what the [Bush] administration has done."

January 12, 1995: While inspections are taking place, though not complete, Ambassador Madeleine Albright says the U.S. is "determined to oppose any modification of the sanctions regime until Iraq has moved to comply with all its outstanding obligations." She specifically cites the return of Kuwaiti weaponry and non-military equipment. (Reuters, January 12, 1995)

May 12, 1996: On "60 Minutes," Lesley Stahl asks Albright: "We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?" Albright responds: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it."

Late 1996: The United Nations begins "oil-for-food" program.

March 26, 1997: Albright, in her first major foreign policy address as Secretary of State: "We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying with all of the Security Council resolutions to which it is subjected. Is it possible to conceive of such a government under Saddam Hussein? When I was a professor, I taught that you have to consider all possibilities. As Secretary of State, I have to deal in the realm of reality and probability. And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's intentions will never be peaceful."

October 4, 1996: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) releases report on Iraq. "Around 4,500 children under the age of five are dying here every month from hunger and disease," said Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF's representative for Iraq.

The west had nothing to do with his chemical attacks on the Kurds, or for the genocide of the marsh arabs and the destruction of their environment.

So you dispute that America supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction in the form of chemical and biological weapons do you?

 

[Mick West]

May 12, 1996: On "60 Minutes," Lesley Stahl asks Albright: "We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?" Albright responds: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it."

It was a loaded question. She's written and spoken extensively about Iraq, yet this one cherry picked quote of a poor answer to a loaded question is all that she gets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) claims to have answered a loaded question (and later regretted not challenging it instead) on 60 Minutes on 12 May 1996.Lesley Stahl asked, regarding the effects of UN sanctions against Iraq, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Madeleine Albright: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it."[6]​ She later wrote of this response

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one's fault but my own.[7]​
​

 

[Oxymoron]

It was a loaded question. She's written and spoken extensively about Iraq, yet this one cherry picked quote of a poor answer to a loaded question is all that she gets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question

Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.) claims to have answered a loaded question (and later regretted not challenging it instead) on 60 Minutes on 12 May 1996.Lesley Stahl asked, regarding the effects of UN sanctions against Iraq, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Madeleine Albright: "I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it."[6]​ She later wrote of this response

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. … As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy, and wrong. … I had fallen into a trap and said something that I simply did not mean. That is no one's fault but my own.[7]​
​

No doubt she does regret it...I doubt as much as the Iraqi people regretted seeing their family and friends dying through lack of food, clean water and disease though. Did she actually offer a plausible alternative response?

 

[Cairenn]

So are you saying that Sadam was a better choice for them? The Kurds and the marsh Arabs would disagree.

I have to wonder why those groups and the Shi'a community in Iraq, about 60% of the population don't seem to count to some.

The marshes had for some time been considered a refuge for elements persecuted by the government of Saddam Hussein, as in past centuries they had been a refuge for escaped slaves and serfs, such as during the Zanj Rebellion. By the mid-1980s, a low-level insurgency against Ba'athist drainage and resettlement projects had developed in the area, led by Sheik Abdul Kerim Mahud al-Muhammadawi of the Al bu Muhammad under the nom de guerre Abu Hatim.[17]
During the 1970s, the expansion of irrigation projects had begun to disrupt the flow of water to the marshes. However, after the First Gulf War (1991), the Iraqi government aggressively revived a program to divert the flow of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River away from the marshes in retribution for a failed Shia uprising. This was done primarily to eliminate the food source(s) of the Marsh Arabs and to prevent any remaining militiamen from taking refuge in the marshes, the Badr Brigades and other militias having used them as cover. The plan, which was accompanied by a series of propaganda articles by the Iraqi regime directed against the Ma'dan,[18] systematically converted the wetlands into a desert, forcing the residents out of their settlements in the region. Villages in the marshes were attacked and burnt down and there were reports of the water being deliberately poisoned.[19]
The majority of the Maʻdān were displaced either to areas adjacent to the drained marshes, abandoning their traditional lifestyle in favour of conventional agriculture, to towns and camps in other areas of Iraq or to Iranian refugee camps. Only 1,600 of them were estimated to still be living on traditional dibins by 2003.[20] The western Hammar Marshes and the Qurnah or Central Marshes had become completely desiccated, while the eastern Hawizeh Marshes had dramatically shrunk. The Marsh Arabs, who numbered about half a million in the 1950s, have dwindled to as few as 20,000 in Iraq, according to the United Nations. An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 have fled to refugee camps in Iran.[21]

Saddam Hussein was the President of Iraq from 16 July, 1979 until 9 April, 2003. In his reign, he had almost two million people killed; between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqi and between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranian combatants in the Iran-Iraq War. An estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals, between 60,000 and 150,000 Iraqi dissidents and Shia Muslims and 500,000 Iraqi children died because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War

The children died because Sadam refused to cooperate with the UN. He MADE that decision. To blame the UN is like blaming the beer company for someone that kills someone while driving drunk.

I understand that it may well fit your anti western and anti business opinion, but that doesn't make them to blame.

 

[Mick West]

No doubt she does regret it...I doubt as much as the Iraqi people regretted seeing their family and friends dying through lack of food, clean water and disease though. Did she actually offer a plausible alternative response?

I imagine she would say that the numbers were inflated, they were not directly due to the sanctions, and that the sanctions were essentially Saddam's fault (initially for invading Kuwait), that Saddam could have ended them at any point by acceding to demands, and that sanctions were used instead of armed conflict. She did not mean that attempting to remove Saddam from power was worth killing 500,000 children.

 

[Cairenn]

Do you have an evidence that we gave Sadam chemical and biological weapons? We did give him conventional arms, but that does not mean that we gave him weapons that were illegal. We do know that he had chemical and biological program. That has never been in dispute. Remember 'Chemical Ali" ?

International sources for technology and chemical precursors [edit]The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam's regime from foreign sources.[22] The largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie Ltd.) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates (UAE), supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[23]

The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan Administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete" disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips. Both companies have since undergone reorganization and Phillips, once a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum is now part of ConocoPhillips, an American oil and discount fossil fuel company, while Alcolac International has since dissolved and reformed as Alcolac Inc.[24] Alcolac was named as a defendant in the Aziz v. Iraq case presently pending in the United States District Court (Case No. 1:09-cv-00869-MJG).

Are there other uses for thiodiglycol

It is used as a solvent in a variety of applications ranging from dyeing textiles to inks in some ballpoint pens. In chemical synthesis, it is used as a building block for protection products, dispersants, fibers, plasticizers, rubber accelerators, pesticides, dyes, and various other organic chemicals. In the manufacture of polymers, it is used as a chain transfer agent. As an antioxidant, it is used as an additive in lubricants

 

[lee h oswald]

Britain responsible for setting up a Zionist state? I think a few million Jews and the families of the hundreds of British soldiers will tell you a different story. The UK had interned thousands of Jews much to the chagrin of the US and UN. http://www.jta.org/1947/05/01/archi...es-says-1800-immigrants-detained-in-palestine

[...] The Balfour Declaration of 1917. That was when a British minister effectively promised to give away an entire country.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/balfour.asp

Balfour Declaration 1917


November 2nd, 1917


Dear Lord Rothschild,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.



Yours sincerely,


Arthur James Balfour

[...] It's 65 years since the Nakba [...] And, a tip: don't go confusing Zionists with religious jews - most of the Zio-terrorists who murdered and bombed their way to bringing about the creation of Israel were atheists.

 

[lee h oswald]

The children died because Sadam refused to cooperate with the UN.

Despicable. Denis Halliday, a senior UN diplomat who set up the 'oil for food' program during the post war 'sanctions' imposed by the west on Iraq, resigned on the basis that what was being done to Iraq amounted to genocide. His successor, Hans von Sponeck also resigned for the same reason.
'Sanctions' throughout the nineties weren't just 'sanctions'. The bombing continued on a daily basis. American and British pilots blew the whistle on the reality of the 'no-fly-zone' they were supposed to be maintaining over the north of Iraq, 'to protect the Kurds', when they told of being ordered to RTB (return to base) to make way for a TSM (Turkish special mission) inbound. And on the way back they saw Turkish F16s heading out, 'loaded to the gills with munitions'. Half an hour later the pilots told of the Turkish returning, 'munitions expended'. Upon returning to their patrols, they reported 'whole villages destroyed', 'lots of smoke and fire'.
The fact is that Iraq did comply with UN requirements; it is well documented (even by the US govt) that Iraq's military capability was all but destroyed - Rice and Powell come to mind - for anyone without selective amnesia.

As far as chemical weapons go: the US went well out of its way to make sure Iraq was well tooled up with all kinds of lovely weaponry with which to fight Iran.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/06/17/how-reagan-armed-saddam-with-chemical-weapons/

[SIZE=-1]Using its allies in the Middle East, Washington funnelled huge supplies of arms to Iraq. Classified State Department cables uncovered by Frantz and Waas described covert transfers of howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons to Baghdad in 1982-83 from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.

Howard Teicher, who monitored Middle East policy at the US National Security Council during the Reagan administration, told the February 23, 1992, LA Times: "There was a conscious effort to encourage third countries to ship US arms or acquiesce in shipments after the fact. It was a policy of nods and winks."

[/SIZE]

Just like Syria today. And what does Obomber say about the use of chemical weapons - 'game changer'? Depending on who uses them, presumably.

[SIZE=-1]Central to these "moves" was the cementing of a military and political alliance with Saddam Hussein's repressive regime, so as to build up Iraq as a military counterweight to Iran. In 1982, the Reagan administration removed Iraq from the State Department's list of countries that allegedly supported terrorism. On December 19-20, 1983, Reagan dispatched his Middle East envoy–none other than Donald Rumsfeld–to Baghdad with a hand-written offer of a resumption of diplomatic relations, which had been severed during the 1967 Arab-Israel war. On March 24, 1984, Rumsfeld was again in Baghdad.

On that same day, the UPI wire service reported from the UN: "Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers … a team of UN experts has concluded … Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, US presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz."

[/SIZE]

No-one concerned about the confirmed use of chemical weapons then then?

[SIZE=-1]There is no doubt that the US government knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. On March 5, 1984, the State Department had stated that "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons". The March 30, 1984, NYT reported that US intelligence officials has "what they believe to be incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished extensive sites for mass producing the lethal chemical warfare agent".

However, consistent with the pattern throughout the Iran-Iraq war and after, the use of these internationally outlawed weapons was not considered important enough by Rumsfeld and his political superiors to halt Washington's blossoming love affair with Hussein.

[/SIZE]

So they knew - and couldn't care less. How principled. But what about collusion?

[SIZE=-1]According to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, in a December 15, 1986 article, the CIA began to secretly supply Iraq with intelligence in 1984 that was used to "calibrate" mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. ........

Iraqi chemical attacks on Iranian troops–and US assistance to Iraq–continued throughout the Iran-Iraq war. In a parallel program, the US defence department also provided intelligence and battle-planning assistance to Iraq.

The August 17, 2002 NYT reported that, according to "senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program", even though "senior officials of the Reagan administration publicly condemned Iraq's employment of mustard gas, sarin, VX and other poisonous agents … President Reagan, vice president George Bush [senior] and senior national security aides never withdrew their support for the highly classified program in which more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) were secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq."

Retired DIA officer Rick Francona told the NYT that Iraq's chemical weapons were used in the war's final battle in early 1988, in which Iraqi forces retook the Fao Peninsula from the Iranian army.
[/SIZE]

Yes. Lot's of collusion....but what more? Material aid?

[SIZE=-1]Iraq's 1982 removal from Washington's official list of states that support terrorism meant that the Hussein regime was now eligible for US economic and military aid, and was able to purchase advanced US technology that could also be used for military purposes.

Conventional military sales resumed in December 1982. In 1983, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters to Iraq in 1983 "for civilian use". However, as Phythian pointed out, these aircraft could be "weaponised" within hours of delivery. Then US Secretary of State George Schultz and commerce secretary George Baldridge also lobbied for the delivery of Bell helicopters equipped for "crop spraying". It is believed that US-supplied choppers were used in the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, which killed 5000 people.

[/SIZE]

And they nicked money from US taxpayers to fund their little adventure

[SIZE=-1]Soon after, the US agriculture department's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) guaranteed to repay loans–in the event of defaults by Baghdad–banks had made to Iraq to buy US-grown commodities such as wheat and rice. Under this scheme, Iraq had three years to repay the loans, and if it could not the US taxpayers would have to cough up.

Washington offered this aid initially to prevent Hussein's overthrow as the Iraqi people began to complain about the food shortages caused by the massive diversion of hard currency for the purchase of weapons and ammunition. The loan guarantees amounted to a massive US subsidy that allowed Hussein to launch his overt and covert arms buildup, one result being that the Iran-Iraq war entered a bloody five-year stalemate.
By the end of 1983, US$402 million in agriculture department loan guarantees for Iraq were approved. In 1984, this increased to $503 million and reached $1.1 billion in 1988. Between 1983 and 1990, CCC loan guarantees freed up more than $5 billion. Some $2 billion in bad loans, plus interest, ended up having to be covered by US taxpayers.
A similar taxpayer-funded, though smaller scale, scam operated under the auspices of the federal Export-Import Bank. In 1984, vice-president George Bush senior personally intervened to ensure that the bank guaranteed loans to Iraq of $500 million to build an oil pipeline. Export-Import Bank loan guarantees grew from $35 million in 1985 to $267 million by 1990.

[/SIZE]

Theft to fund gassing official enemies, then. But what about the actual weapons?

[SIZE=-1]According to William Blum, writing in the August 1998 issue of the Progressive, Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a Congressional subcommittee investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that from 1985 until 1990 "the US government approved 771 licenses [only 39 were rejected] for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application …

"The US spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted… US export control policy was directed by US foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was US foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."

[/SIZE]

Only one source, you say? Let's find another

[SIZE=-1]A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch's brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.

The report also noted that US exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment. US firms supplied advanced and specialised computers, lasers, testing and analysing equipment. Among the better-known companies were Hewlett Packard, Unisys, Data General and Honeywell.
Billions of dollars worth of raw materials, machinery and equipment, missile technology and other "dual-use" items were also supplied by West German, French, Italian, British, Swiss and Austrian corporations, with the approval of their governments (German firms even sold Iraq entire factories capable of mass-producing poison gas). Much of this was purchased with funds freed by the US CCC credits.

[/SIZE]

So the US and Britain didn't supply Iraq with chemical weapons (and whatever else they desired)?
[...]

As for the Iraqi casualties/deaths as a result of the illegal war and invasion in 2003 - then you come to the figure of 150,000? Where did you get that figure, I wonder? Wouldn't be Iraq Body Count by any chance, would it? The lamestream media's favourite source - because it's the lowest estimate - forgetting to mention that IBC is run by a couple of tetchy fat-arsed USAmerican bloggers who base their figure on news reports of deaths. Not very scientific, is it? When far more plausible, correctly carried out surveys have been done by real epidemiologists....like Johns Hopkins in New York, published in The Lancet in 2006, had the figure at 655,000 excess deaths directly related to the invasion. But you prefer a couple of bloggers over a respected institution and a respected medical journal. [...]

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(06)69491-9/abstract

[...]

 

[Cairenn]

If you want to go back in time, you also need to look at what the Ottoman Empire did.

In November 1914, the Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers, in which it took part in the Middle Eastern theatre. There were several important Ottoman victories in the early years of the war, such as the Battle of Gallipoli and the Siege of Kut, but there were setbacks as well, such as the disastrous Caucasus Campaign against the Russians. The United States never declared war against the Ottoman Empire.[88]

In 1915, as the Russian Caucasus Army continued to advance in eastern Anatolia,[89] aided by some Ottoman Armenians, the Ottoman government started the deportation and massacre of its ethnic Armenian population, resulting in what became known as the Armenian Genocide.[90][page needed][91][92] Genocidal acts were also committed against the Greek and Assyrian minorities.[93][94][95] An estimated three million Christian subjects of the empire died during the systematic massacres between 1914 and 1922 (approximately 1.5 million Armenians, 750,000 Greeks, and 750,000 Assyrians).[96][97][98]

They were not angels either. A series of wars with Russia and Britian had preceded this--ever heard of the Crimean War?

The comment was the 'war on terror', not in the history of western/mid eastern relations.

Again, the sanctions were voted in by UN because Sadam refused to allow weapons inspectors in and to work.

Blaming the west for 'letting him have chemicals that could be used' is like blaming the car dealer for selling a car to someone that thens kills someone while driving drunk. Those chemicals have many other, non lethal uses.

 

[Oxymoron]

So are you saying that Sadam was a better choice for them?

I am saying it is not for the west to decide who is in power and how a Country is run by it's Government. If that Government is a real threat to us, then yes action needs to be taken but by no stretch of the imagination could that case be made. Yes it is entirely appropriate to raise concerns about human abuses in a Country but it is patently obvious to anyone who looks into it that there are hypocritical criticisms of one Country and it's leadership whilst at the same time absolutely no criticism offered to similarly despotic and abusive Countries which are 'our friends'.

To conspire to effect regime change and use other Countries as puppets and proxies to carry out our wars is no different to sending people out to be tortured in those Countries. It is hypocritical and immoral and deceitful.

The Kurds and the marsh Arabs would disagree

.
Then let them sort it out, we are not (at least officially) The World Police. And even if we were, we should sort out our own messes and corruptions and abuses of our own citizens before interfering in other's Government and paying and conspiring to effect regime changes which inevitably go wrong anyway.

I don't see the U.S going into Zimbabwe or South Africa when there was apartheid and even if they did, I can guarntee that the 'people' would not benefit exactly as the 'people' of Afghanistan and Iraq have not benefited. They do not want you there any more than you would want them in your Country dictating to you and blowing up your friends and relatives and denying you clean water and basic amenities and civil liberties. You expect to be thanked for your terrorism and oppression do you?

Saddam Hussein was the President of Iraq from 16 July, 1979 until 9 April, 2003. In his reign, he had almost two million people killed; between 150,000 and 340,000 Iraqi and between 450,000 and 730,000 Iranian combatants in the Iran-Iraq War. An estimated 1,000 Kuwaiti nationals, between 60,000 and 150,000 Iraqi dissidents and Shia Muslims and 500,000 Iraqi children died because of international trade sanctions introduced following the Gulf War

What a pile of junk. Even have the nerve to blame Saddam for the casualties fighting your financed and instigated proxy war with WMD's supplied by you. And yes I say you because you obviously sanction your Governments actions in these illegal acts.

The children died because Sadam refused to cooperate with the UN.

Quite right in many regards that he should not concede to unreasonable and illegal demands as well. But in many regards he cooperated fully but when they couldn't find the evidence for WMD's they made it up. Bare faced lies and bare faced lied to it's own citzens and warmongered an illegal war.

He MADE that decision.

And as the head of the government he had the right to do that. It was his job to stick up for his Country and it's sovereignty.

To blame the UN is like blaming the beer company for someone that kills someone while driving drunk.

That is a fatuous remark. The U.N acted illegally and immorally mostly at the behest of your and my, proven, lying, warmongering leaders.

I understand that it may well fit your anti western and anti business opinion, but that doesn't make them to blame.

For the record, I am not anti western and I am not anti business. I am a patriot and love my Country. I am not anti the 'people' of any Country. I am anti warmongering, lying, self serving, psychopathic politicians who promulgate wars willy nilly without a care in the world about the damage it does. I am against the giant corporations who in their endless greed will screw you and anyone else they see fit to make obscene amounts of money out of the suffering of humanity.

I criticise my Countries actions because they need criticising in the same way I would criticise a family member who was perpetrating gross illegal acts. Loyalty needs to be earned. There are many aspects of the west which are admirable and great but when it is wrong it should be recognised as such, not propagandised to cover it up and shift the blame on anyone else. That is the difference between you and I. You appear to applaud any evil carried out without question or censure.

 

[Cairenn]

Sadam was not elected, he took over Iraq in coupe, even killing his friends/allies. To say that others do not have a right or an obligation to interfere is just like saying that one should ignore a neighbor that beats up their spouse or children. They have control of them so they should be allowed to do them as they wish.

Do you remember the boycott of South Africa that lead to the end of apartheid there? It worked there.

I do not think that we should allow dictators to kill, and pillage their countries, unchecked.

What we did in Chile, when we helped Pinochet remove Allende was wrong.

 

[Lost World]

I guess you missed that the sanctions allowed food and medicine through. If folks starved it was not the west or the UN's problem. It was Sadam and his reign of terror.

The west had nothing to do with his chemical attacks on the Kurds, or for the genocide of the marsh arabs and the destruction of their environment.

Are you sure the west didn't supply Saddam with the chemical weapons in the first place?

 

[Cairenn]

The west had not made chemical weapons for years, and what we had was/had been destroyed.

Facts say we didn't. Are the formulas available? Yep they are. Did he have folks that had the education to make them? Did he have the facilities where they could have been made? Yes to both of those.

The simple fact is Sadam seems to have wanted others, (the West, Iraq, Saudi and others) to THINK he had them. He seems to have felt that that would keep him 'safe'.

 

[Oxymoron]

The west had not made chemical weapons for years, and what we had was/had been destroyed.

Facts say we didn't. Are the formulas available? Yep they are. Did he have folks that had the education to make them? Did he have the facilities where they could have been made? Yes to both of those.

Is your research really that bad or is it deliberate? Deny as much as you like the Facts say you did and that is only one of the many illegal and disgusting things the U.S of A lying twisting Government have done whilst playing the holier than thou card to the World:

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php

November, 1983. A National Security Directive states that the U.S would do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq from losing its war with Iran. [1] & [15]

[TABLE="class: phototable, width: 420, align: right"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]

[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: fontiran2, align: center"]Donald Rumsfeld -Reagan's Envoy- provided Iraq with
chemical & biological weapons[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
November, 1983. Banca Nazionale del Lavoro of Italy and its Branch in Atlanta begin to funnel $5 billion in unreported loans to Iraq. Iraq, with the blessing and official approval of the US government, purchased computer controlled machine tools, computers, scientific instruments, special alloy steel and aluminum, chemicals, and other industrial goods for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. [14]

October, 1983. The Reagan Administration begins secretly allowing Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer United States weapons, including Howitzers, Huey helicopters, and bombs to Iraq. These shipments violated the Arms Export Control Act. [16]

November 1983. George Schultz, the Secretary of State, is given intelligence reports showing that Iraqi troops are daily using chemical weapons against the Iranians. [1]

December 20, 1983. Donald Rumsfeld , then a civilian and now Defense Secretary, meets with Saddam Hussein to assure him of US friendship and materials support. [1] & [15]

July, 1984. CIA begins giving Iraq intelligence necessary to calibrate its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. [19]

January 14, 1984. State Department memo acknowledges United States shipment of "dual-use" export hardware and technology. Dual use items are civilian items such as heavy trucks, armored ambulances and communications gear as well as industrial technology that can have a military application. [2]

March, 1986. The United States with Great Britain block all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the US becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons. [10]

May, 1986. The US Department of Commerce licenses 70 biological exports to Iraq between May of 1985 and 1989, including at least 21 batches of lethal strains of anthrax. [3]

May, 1986. US Department of Commerce approves shipment of weapons grade botulin poison to Iraq. [7]

March, 1987. President Reagan bows to the findings of the Tower Commission admitting the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. Oliver North uses the profits from the sale to fund an illegal war in Nicaragua. [17]

 

[Cairenn]

I find it interesting that you are using a PRO IRAN site for your facts. You refuse to accept any from any site that you seem to think is pro West, because you consider them biased. Then you go and use a site that is biased against the west.

Sorry, find a neutral site, and that does rule out Russia, China, Iran and other countries that have been anti west.

I am having internet problems and I do not have time to research.

Try again.

Again you are going back to before 9/11. The thread was the 'War on Terror'.

Wouldn't Sadam have LOVED to have had inspectors find chemicals that could be traced back to the US? What an embarrassment that would have been.

You still have not explained why his refusal to allow inspections (for a treaty HE signed) can be blamed on anyone but him.

Sadam was a tyrant, so was Qaddafi. We should not have supported Mubarak as long as we did.

 

[Oxymoron]

I find it interesting that you are using a PRO IRAN site for your facts. You refuse to accept any from any site that you seem to think is pro West, because you consider them biased. Then you go and use a site that is biased against the west.

That is complete bunk. I use a diverse spectrum of sources. This particular site is not a 'pro Iran' site it is an official Iranian site. I have demonstrated from a number of other sites that it is true that the U.S used Iraq to fight a proxy war against Iran and that they supplied Iraq with WMD's and the makings of WMD's and the intell on how best to deploy them and that they refused to condemn Iraq for using them. Wikipedia links which I posted are conclusive evidence on their own but you will not even acknowledge that.

It is well documented to anyone who does even the most basic research on it.

Sorry, find a neutral site, and that does rule out Russia, China, Iran and other countries that have been anti west.

Oh, only pro west sites then. How unsurprising.

Well how does this suit you? (2 minutes searching)

http://www.laweekly.com/2003-05-01/news/made-in-the-usa-part-iii-the-dishonor-roll/

A glance at his datebook would provide some of the answers. In 1983, Rumsfeld, then a private citizen, traveled to Baghdad to meet with the Iraqi dictator. Rumsfeld delivered President Ronald Reagan's personal message of support to Hussein, who was already three years into his eventual eight-year war with Iran. The American envoy also discussed a proposed joint-venture oil pipeline with the Iraqi leader. That project, also championed by the San Francisco–based Bechtel Group, never materialized, but Rumsfeld's mission underscored the reality that for more than 30 years the economic interests of American industry were firmly embedded into the geopolitical goals of U.S. policymakers.

Throughout the 1980s, the U.S. Commerce Department approved at least $1.5 billion in exports with possible military applications from U.S. companies to Iraq, and the Agriculture Department administered a U.S.-goverment-guaranteed loan program that provided billions to Iraq. Thanks largely to the first George Bush, American taxpayers unwittingly co-signed for much of the loan money, and the government had to make good on these loans when Iraq later defaulted. Almost all of the transactions were legal under U.S. and international law at the time, even when the transactions either had direct military or dual-use (civilian and military) applications. Over and over again, the deals were encouraged and even abetted by the U.S. government, even after American officials had proof that Iraq was using chemical weapons to kill Iranian troops and subdue Kurdish uprisings. In fact, the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration even provided Hussein's regime with military intelligence during his bloody eight-year war with Iran.

http://www.laweekly.com/2003-05-01/news/made-in-the-usa-part-iii-us-company-listings-a-m/#DOW

AL HADDAD ENTERPRISES, INC. (Formerly based in Nashville, Tennessee — defunct)
1984 to 1985 — Company sold 60 tons of DMMP, a material used to make sarin gas, to Iraq. Also provided chemical-production equipment to Iraq. In 1984, customs officials at Kennedy International Airport seized another Al Haddad shipment of 1,100 pounds of potassium fluoride, a chemical used in nerve-gas production. Al Haddad was not charged in this attempted transfer of chemicals, which were destined for Iraq's Ministry of Pesticides. This firm also received letters of credit from BNL (an Italian bank) totaling $134,988 to sell knives and rubber blankets to Technical Corp. for Special Projects, an Iraqi front company. (Note: See Banca Nazionale del Lavoro entry for information about BNL's Iraqi loans and letters of credit.)
The firm was owned by Sahib Abd al-Amir al-Haddad, an Iraqi-born, naturalized American citizen. According to corporate records from Tennessee's Department of State, Al Haddad operated a number of registered firms, which are all inactive, dissolved or merged out. These firms included Al Haddad Enterprises, Inc.; A. Saleh & S. Al-Haddad, Inc.; and Al-Haddad Bros. Enterprises, Inc. Recent stories in The New York Times and The Tennessean reported that al-Haddad was arrested in Bulgaria in November 2002 while trying to arrange an arms sale to Iraq. At last report, Al-Haddad, 59, was awaiting extradition to Germany, where he is charged with conspiring in the late 1990s to purchase equipment for the manufacture of a giant Iraqi cannon.
(return to company index) ALCOLAC INTERNATIONAL, INC
(Formerly located in Baltimore, Maryland. Company was restructured as Alcolac, Inc., and it's currently listed as an active Georgia corporation. Company's assets now owned by French-based firm Rhodia, Inc., with U.S. operations based in Cranberry, New Jersey.)
1988 — Allegedly sold more than 300 tons of thiodiglycol (precursor material used to make mustard gas) via Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation, which, according to congressional testimony and media reports, shipped the material to Jordan and then on to Iraq, through Iraq's Industrial Procurement Company. In the same period, Alcolac also shipped thiodiglycol to Iran and pleaded guilty in 1988 to one count of export violations for its Iranian shipments. Alcolac is currently one of the corporate defendants in a Texas civil suit filed on behalf of some 3,500 Gulf War vets allegedly suffering from Gulf War syndrome. The suit initially named 64 American and international companies that allegedly provided Iraq with materials used to develop chemical and biological weapons. However, a number of those companies will likely be sued in European courts, and the current number of defendants is in flux. Ronald Welsh, the attorney representing Alcolac in that suit, denied any company wrongdoing in connection with Iraq and added that he had no "personal knowledge" of any Alcolac shipments of thiodiglycol to Saddam Hussein's regime. But U.N. weapons-inspector reports, included in a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing on U.S. export policy toward Iraq, identified shipments of thiodiglycol that were sent to Iraq by Alcolac.

A spokesman for the company that now owns Alcolac emphasized that the "alleged illegal infractions" occurred before Alcolac was obtained by the current ownership.

This is a very small example of the billions of dollars worth of U.S backing cataloging equipment, money, chemicals, biological agents, technology and intelligence.

I am having internet problems and I do not have time to research.

That's convenient isn't it. Doesn't seem to impact on your ability to research and post propaganda for the U.S government and global corporations on a daily basis on this site though. It's like you or one of your like minded posters posted on another thread: 'Can you prove an instance of torture by the U.S since last year'... Lol... Talk about being in denial.

Again you are going back to before 9/11. The thread was the 'War on Terror'.

How you love moving goalposts to suit yourself. The 'War on Terror' is just a political wheeze to try to justify illegal wars. Terror is not patentable. It has been around since the dawn of time. Iraq had not even one known Al Qaeda member in it's borders and this was well known. Saddam was keen on wiping them out because they posed a threat to his dictatorship.

Wouldn't Sadam have LOVED to have had inspectors find chemicals that could be traced back to the US? What an embarrassment that would have been.

He had used or destroyed the vast majority by then. He did keep a very small amount hidden (U.S supplied toxins, no nuclear weapons), as any sensible leader would. He didn't use them though.

You still have not explained why his refusal to allow inspections (for a treaty HE signed) can be blamed on anyone but him.

The inspectors were there for ages and never found any WMD's. It is interesting to note the U.S have changed the definition of WMD since the Boston Bombing to include even IED's.

The U.N failed to ratify the last agreement calling for weapons inspections, (opposed by France and Russia) and that made the Crusade illegal.

According to Chirac's disclosures, the U.S and U.K (Blair, Bush, Cheyne etc), embarked on a premeditated Crusade hoping to start Armageddon in the M.E. They are war criminals and so is Obama. It is very easy to point the finger at the M.E troubles but they mostly result from U.S and U.K interference and manipulation in the region, using fighters and governments to fight their proxy wars.

https://www.metabunk.org/posts/46545

You, obviously being a great fan of the way the U.S government, CIA and Globalist Corporations, conduct themselves will undoubtedly deny, deny, deny until the cows come home. It is to be expected but it doesn't wash.

Sadam was a tyrant, so was Qaddafi.

So are a lot of other people, many of them close allies, (prawns) of the U.S, (as were Saddam and Gaddafi).... the Iranian Shah, the Saudi's, the drug cartels etc etc.

We should not have supported Mubarak as long as we did.

You should wind your necks in and stop warmongering and set your own house in order. Stop spending trillions on wars and try to bring the 25% of your own citizenry out of abject poverty which you should be highly embarrassed about but you are not.

 

[Mick West]

The inspectors were there for ages and never found any WMD's. It is interesting to note the U.S have changed the definition of WMD since the Boston Bombing to include even IED's.

They did not. There are different definitions in criminal law (since 1994), but they do not apply to military or strategic situations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction#Definitions_of_the_term

Discussion in this thread:

https://www.metabunk.org/posts/38962

 

[Oxymoron]

They did not. There are different definitions in criminal law (since 1994), but they do not apply to military or strategic situations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction#Definitions_of_the_term

Discussion in this thread:

https://www.metabunk.org/posts/38962

So since 1994, in civilian law; a bomb can be classified as a WMD. So it has been changed although they have never used it until now.

As it is a war on terrorists and he is classified as a terrorist technically it should come under the definition used in war. But they will use whatever they want because they are the ones with the powers to do whatever they want and call it whatever they want.

 

[Mick West]

So since 1994, in civilian law; a bomb can be classified as a WMD. So it has been changed although they have never used it until now.

No, it's been used several times since the change. Some examples:


http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/44203/Bomber-facing-a-stretch.html

Blake Steidler, 25, faces a possible life sentence after admitting weapons of mass destruction charges.The factory worker from Philadelphia, USA sent the gunpowder bomb in a jewellery box after becoming unhappy with the £4,500 op to extend his manhood.
But he had a change of heart and called cops before the bomb was delivered.
Steidler's lawyer said his client was mentally ill but the WMD charges branded him a terrorist. Steidler will be sentenced in July.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/04/bridge-bomber_suspects_trial_s.html

AKRON, Ohio -- Joshua Stafford, the last of five men charged in a failed plot to blow up the Ohio 82 bridge last year, will stand trial June 10, a federal judge ruled this morning.
U.S. District Judge David Dowd Jr. reached the decision after meeting briefly today with federal prosecutors and Stafford's defense lawyers.
Dowd ruled last week that Stafford, 23, of Cleveland, was competent to stand trial and assist his lawyers in his defense following a competency hearing at which two forensic psychologists presented their mental diagnoses to the judge.
Stafford is charged with the use of weapons of mass destruction and aiding and abetting the use of weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/najibullah-zazi-to-be-arr_n_302654.html

Najibullah Zazi To Be Arraigned On Weapons Of Mass Destruction Charges

NEW YORK — As a suspected al-Qaida operative pleaded not guilty Tuesday to plotting a bomb attack in New York, the city's police commissioner pronounced the threat neutralized and said there is nothing to fear from the defendant's three alleged accomplices.

 

[justanairlinepilot]

That seems to be suffering from major inflation

The best count I have found is less 150,000 from the wars directly. Even if the indirect number are seveal times that, it is still not MILLIONS.

Let's deal in facts.

Keep in mind as a perspective, WW1's first day was:

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/somme.htm

Day #1!!!!


http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ms...0&ll=50.041266,2.830353&spn=0.704695,1.234589


I'm not underplaying terrorism, I just want to point this out.

 

[Oxymoron]

I find it interesting that you are using a PRO IRAN site for your facts. You refuse to accept any from any site that you seem to think is pro West, because you consider them biased. Then you go and use a site that is biased against the west.

Sorry, find a neutral site, and that does rule out Russia, China, Iran and other countries that have been anti west.

I am having internet problems and I do not have time to research.

Try again.

Again you are going back to before 9/11. The thread was the 'War on Terror'.

Wouldn't Sadam have LOVED to have had inspectors find chemicals that could be traced back to the US? What an embarrassment that would have been.

You still have not explained why his refusal to allow inspections (for a treaty HE signed) can be blamed on anyone but him.

Sadam was a tyrant, so was Qaddafi. We should not have supported Mubarak as long as we did.

Here is a good example of how the U.S Senate Sub Committee gets told in no uncertain terms about it's duplicity and lying and warmongering including supplying weapons of mass destruction. They bit off a bit more than they could chew when they tried to frame George Galloway. The tactics they used are laid bare. Their schoolboy howlers are blasted to smithereens, documenting how the U.S forged documents and circulated them around the world.

You will see that your 'humanitarian' food for oil programme gave 30 cents per day for each Iraqi citizen. That is why they continued starving whilst the west guzzled Iraq's oil resources for an absolute pittance which barely offset the mass starvation at all. That is 30 cents per day for everything, food, medicine, equipment, infrastructure... the lot.

​

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4556113.stm

British MP George Galloway has told US senators who accused him of profiting from Iraq oil dealings their claims were the "mother of all smokescreens". In a combative performance before a Senate committee, the Respect Coalition MP accused the US lawmakers of being "cavalier" with justice.
He said: "I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone on my behalf."
The senators say he was given credits to buy Iraqi oil by Saddam Hussein.
Mr Galloway travelled to Washington to clear his name before the Senate sub-committee on investigations.
He claims the evidence against him is false. He says forged documents had been used to make claims about him before.
Mr Galloway went on the offensive from the start of his testimony, saying the committee had "traduced" his name around the world without asking him a single question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariam_Appeal

The Mariam Appeal ("the Appeal") was a political campaign in the United Kingdom (UK) established in 1998 which ceased operation in 2003. The objects of the Appeal as stated in its constitution were "to provide medicines, medical equipment and medical assistance to the people of Iraq; to highlight the causes and results of the cancer epidemic in Iraq and to arrange for the medical treatment of a number of Iraqi children outside Iraq". The campaign was founded by UK Member of Parliament George Galloway. Princess Sarvath, wife of then Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan, was patron of the Appeal.

The Mariam Appeal was intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq." The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of tens of thousands of other Iraqi children due to poor health conditions and lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the sanctions seen by many as a direct cause of those problems.

Among the activities undertaken was a daily newsletter on sanctions, a sanctions-busting flight to Baghdad, the Big Ben to Baghdad trip in a red London bus, meetings and conferences, the projection of an anti-war slogan on the House of Commons, and the facilitating of trips to Iraq by dozens of journalists

 

[Cairenn]

It seems that Sadam and his friends were the cause of the problems.

Background and design

The Oil-for-Food Programme was instituted to relieve the extended suffering of civilians as the result of the comprehensive sanctions on Iraq from the UN, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

Security Council Resolution 706 of 15 August 1991 was introduced to allow the sale of Iraqi oil in exchange for food.[4]

Security Council Resolution 712 of 19 September 1991 confirmed that Iraq could sell up to $1.6 billion in oil to fund an Oil-For-Food Programme.[5]

After an initial refusal, Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in May 1996 for arrangements to be taken for the implementation of that resolution.

The Oil-for-Food Programme started in December 1996, and the first shipments of food arrived in March 1997. Sixty percent of Iraq's twenty-six million people were solely dependent on rations from the oil-for-food plan.

The programme used an escrow system. Oil exported from Iraq was paid for by the recipient into an escrow account possessed until 2001 by BNP Paribas bank, rather than to the Iraqi government. The money was then apportioned to pay for war reparations to Kuwait, ongoing coalition and United Nations operations within Iraq. The remainder, the majority of the revenue, was available to the Iraqi government to purchase regulated items.

The Iraqi government was permitted to purchase only items that were not embargoed under the economic sanctions. Certain items, such as raw foodstuffs, were expedited for immediate shipment, but requests for most items, including such simple things as pencils and folic acid, were reviewed in a process that typically took about six months before shipment was authorized. Items deemed to have any potential application in chemical, biological or nuclear weapons systems development were not available to the regime, regardless of stated purpose.
Financial statistics

Over US$53 billion worth of Iraqi oil was sold on the world market. About US$46 billion of these funds were intended to provide for the humanitarian needs of Iraqi people such as food and medicine in the context of international economic sanctions. A considerable amount was spent for Gulf War reparations through a compensation fund (25 percent since December 2000); UN administrative and operational costs for the programme (2.2 percent) and costs for the weapons inspection programme. Internal audits have not been made public.[6]

.....


Abuse

In addition to criticism of the basic approach, the programme suffered from widespread corruption and abuse. Throughout its existence, the programme was dogged by accusations that some of its profits were unlawfully diverted to the government of Iraq and to UN officials. These accusations were made in many countries, including the US and Norway.[8][dead link]

Benon Sevan of Cyprus, who headed the programme, defended it, claiming that it had only a 2.2% administrative cost and that it was subject to more than 100 audits (internal and external), blaming restrictions from the Security Council for making the situation difficult. He also claimed that 90% of Iraq's population relied on the programme for its monthly food basket. While Benon Sevan was in charge of the programme, he stonewalled efforts to review and investigate the programme.[9] He ordered his staff that complaints about illegal payoffs should be formally filed with the whistleblower's country, making them public and allowing Iraq to bar any whistleblowers. In 2000, Dileep Nair, the UN corruption watchdog, wanted to determine the programme's level of vulnerability. Sevan, along with UN Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Frechette, rejected any such investigation, claiming that it would be too expensive to be worthwhile. Sevan ordered the shredding of years' worth of documents concerning the programme.[10]

In response to these criticisms, and to evidence acquired after the United States invasion of Iraq, UN Secretary-General accusations were made that skimmed profits were being used to buy influence at the UN and with Kofi Annan himself.

According to an interim report released on 3 February 2005 by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's commission (see #Investigations below), much of the food aid supplied under the programme "was unfit for human consumption". The report concluded that Sevan had accepted nearly $150,000 in bribes over the course of the programme, and in 2005 he was suspended from his position at the United Nations as a result of the investigation of fraud in the programme.[11]

Peter van Walsum, the now-retired Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United Nations and chairman of the Iraq Sanctions Committee from 1999 to 2000, speculated in a recent book that Iraq deliberately divided the Security Council by awarding contracts to France, Russia, and China but not to the United Kingdom and the United States. He also stated he encountered a number of cases in which he felt the lack of Iraqi cooperation was designed to exacerbate the suffering of its own people. He also claimed that it was his opinion that the sanctions were not an effective deterrent.

Until 2001, the money for the Oil-for-Food Programme transited through the BNP Paribas bank, whose main private share-holder is Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a man estimated to be worth about $1 billion according to Forbes, and ranks 13th in Britain according to The Guardian. Auchi received a 15-month suspended sentence for his involvement in the Elf scandal, which has been qualified by the British newspaper as "the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War. Elf became a private bank for its executives who spent £200 million on political favours, mistresses, jewellery, fine art, villas and apartments".[12] Elf, an oil company, merged with TotalFina to become Total S.A. in 2003.
al Mada list

One of the earliest allegations of wrongdoing in the programme surfaced on 25 January 2004, when al Mada, a daily newspaper in Iraq, published a list of individuals and organizations alleged to have received oil sales contracts via the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme. The list came from over 15,000 documents which were reportedly found in the state-owned Iraqi oil corporation, which had close links to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Named in the list of beneficiaries were British MP George Galloway and his charity, the Mariam Fund; former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua; and Shaker al-Kaffaji, an Iraqi-American businessman, India's foreign minister, Natwar Singh, was removed from office because of his role in the scandal. Many prominent Russian firms and individuals were also included on the al Mada list. Even the Russian Orthodox Church was supposedly involved in illegal oil trading. The former assistant to the Vatican secretary of state, Reverend Jean-Marie Benjamin, is said to have received rights to sell 4.5 million barrels (720,000 m3). George Galloway subsequently won two libel actions against the Christian Science Monitor and Daily Telegraph, which reported the allegations.[13][14]

The president of Oilexco Ltd, Arthur Millholland, whose name also appeared on the al Mada list, denied any wrongdoing, but confirms the charges that illegal surcharges were being paid to the Iraqi government by contractors.[15] However, the al Mada list does not discuss bribes paid to Iraq – it discusses bribes paid to individuals so that they would support Iraq. Few deny that in Iraq, like in many third-world countries, bribes and kickbacks were regularly paid to the leadership in order to get contracts, but some suggest that kickbacks would normally not occur in such countries when a UN-run programme was involved.
Operation of the scheme

The scheme is alleged to have worked in this way: individuals and organizations sympathetic to the Iraqi regime, or those just easily bribed, were offered oil contracts through the Oil-for-Food Programme. These contracts for Iraqi oil could then be sold on the open world market and the seller was allowed to keep a transaction fee, said to be between $0.15 and $0.50/barrel (0.94 and 3.14 $/m³) of oil sold. The seller was then to refund the Iraqi government a certain percentage of the commission.

Contracts to sell Iraq humanitarian goods through the Oil-for-Food Programme were given to companies and individuals based on their willingness to kick back a certain percentage of the contract profits to the Iraqi regime. Companies that sold commodities via the Oil-for-Food Programme were overcharging by up to 10%, with part of the overcharged amount being diverted into private bank accounts for Saddam Hussein and other regime officials and the other part being kept by the supplier.

The involvement of the UN itself in the scandal began in February 2004 after the name of Benon Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food Programme, appeared on the Iraqi Oil Ministry's documents. Sevan allegedly was given vouchers for at least 11,000,000 barrels (1,700,000 m³) of oil, worth some $3.5 million in personal profit. Sevan has denied the charges.
BNP Paribas

The sole bank handling funds transfers for the Oil-for-Food Programme was the New York branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas, or BNP Paribas. This French bank was the sole bank administering the $64 billion UN programme. An investigation by the US House Committee on International Relations found that BNP Paribas made payments without proof that goods were delivered and sanctioned payments to third parties not identified as authorized recipients. Investigators estimate that the bank received more than $700 million in fees under the UN programme that began in 1996 and ended after the ousting of Saddam in March 2003.
Duelfer Report

The Iraq Survey Group, which was tasked with finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, found that OFF saved the Iraqi economy from decline after the imposition of sanctions. Furthermore, the Iraqi regime found that it could corrupt OFF to get hard currency that could be used to manipulate the Iraq Sanctions Committee and undermine sanctions as well as increase arms.[16]

The final official version of the Iraq Survey Group report (Duelfer Report) cites only France, Russia and China (countries who were also strongly anti-war) as violators who paid kickbacks.[citation needed] According to the report, the top three recipients of oil included Russia (30%), France (15%), and China (10%), which are on the UN Security Council.[17] The US received 2–3%.[18] The US recipients included Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp. and El Paso Corp.[19][verification needed] The list of US companies were originally censored by CIA lawyers, citing privacy issues,[20] but was later leaked.


.....


GAO investigation

After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and subsequent Coalition victory over the Iraqi army, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was given the task of finalizing all Oil-for-Food related supply contracts made with the now-defunct regime as well as tracking down the personal fortunes of former regime members.[36] During the execution of this task, the GAO found weaknesses in the programme that allowed kickbacks and other sources of wealth for Saddam Hussein.

The GAO estimates that the Saddam Hussein regime generated $10.1 billion in illegal revenues. This figure includes $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges on oil sales and after-sales charges on suppliers. The scale of the fraud was far more extensive than the GAO had previously estimated. A U.S. Department of Defense study, cited by the GAO, evaluated 759 contracts administered through the Oil-for-Food Programme and found that nearly half had been overpriced, by an average of 21 percent.[37] Unlike the 661 committee, members of the Security Council had the authority to launch investigations into contracts and to stop any contract they did not like. The British and the Americans had turned down hundreds of Oil-for-Food contract requests, but these were blocked primarily on the grounds that the items being imported were dual-use technologies.

To quote the GAO report, in its summary:

Both the U.N. Secretary General, through the Office of the Iraqi Programme (OIP) and the Security Council, through its sanctions committee for Iraq, were responsible for overseeing the Oil-for-Food Programme. However, the Iraqi government negotiated contracts directly with purchasers of Iraqi oil and suppliers of commodities, which may have been one important factor that allowed Iraq to levy illegal surcharges and commissions.

Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, told a House hearing that UN auditors had refused to release the internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.[38] Benon Sevan, with support from Kofi Annan, had written letters to all former Oil-for-Food contractors asking them to consult Sevan before releasing any documents to GAO or US congressional inquiry panels.[39] Throughout its history, the programme had received both complaints from critics saying that it needed to be more open and complaints from companies about proprietary information being disclosed.

The United Nations has denied all requests by the GAO for access to confidential internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.

While attempting to determine the complexity of the Oil-for-Food Programme for articles in The Wall Street Journal, investigative journalist Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and the Hudson Institute discovered that the UN treated details such as the identities of Oil-for-Food contractors; the price, quantity and quality of goods involved in the relief deals; and the identities of the oil buyers and the precise quantities that they received as confidential. The bank statements, the interest paid, and the transactions were all secret as well.[40] Rosett has come under harsh criticism from Denis Halliday[41] and Benon Sevan,[42] who have claimed that many of Rosett's claims (such as Oil-for-Food funding the approval of an Olympic stadium, and where responsibility for various issues lay according to the UN resolutions) were incorrect.

The US House Committee on International Relations investigated the Oil-for-Food Programme and discovered that money was provided by Sabah Yassen, the former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers between $15,000 to $25,000.[43] From September 2000 until the invasion of Iraq, the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel (including 117 responsible for suicide bombings in Israel) received over $35 million. It is alleged that this money came from the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.
Independent Inquiry Committee

After initial opposition to an investigation, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated on 19 March 2004 that a full independent investigation would be launched. In an official press interview, Annan said "[...] it is highly possible that there has been quite a lot of wrongdoing, but we need to investigate [...] and see who was responsible." "00:00:03". (audio clip, @5:56) However, Annan was emphatic that most of the claims were "outrageous and exaggerated",[44] and that most of the criticisms had to do with things over which the programme had no authority.

The following individuals were chosen in April 2004 to head the United Nations' Independent Inquiry Committee:[45]

Paul Volcker, former U.S. Federal Reserve System chairman and director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America;
Mark Pieth of Switzerland, an expert on money-laundering in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and
Richard Goldstone of South Africa, former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

On 22 April 2004, the United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution endorsing the Volcker inquiry into corruption in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for Iraq, calling upon all 191 member states to cooperate.[46]

The definitive[47] report was presented by Paul Volcker to the Security Council on 7 September 2005.[48]

A leaked internal UN audit, which surfaced on mineweb.com, shows massive discrepancies between Cotecna reports and UN agency reports for the value of the shipments into northern Iraq. The audit found that Cotecna did no "value" inspections on nearly US$1 billion worth of aid shipments for the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme into northern Iraq. However, in a subsequent report published by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) (27 October 2005) it was concluded that "there were no major complaints by the United Nations or its member states about Cotecna's performance"[49] and that "the audit did not report any deficiencies in Cotecna's inspections".[50] Benon Sevan was briefed in December 2002 on the findings of the audit.[51]

The audit is available here.[52] Its summary states:

OIOS' overall conclusion is that the management of the Contract has not been adequate and certain provisions of the Contract had not been adhered to. In addition, the incorporation of additional costs, such as rehabilitation of camps in the man-day-rate was an unacceptable arrangement. Also, the contract had been amended prior to its commencement, which was inappropriate. OIP needs to strengthen its management of contracts and the Procurement Division (PD) should ensure that the basis of payment is appropriate in order to avoid additional costs to the Organization

After reading the leaked audit, congressman Henry Hyde wrote to Kofi Annan wondering why "The U.S. Congress – which provides 22 percent of the U.N.'s budget and which has publicly requested copies of the 55 internal audits – should be required to depend on media leaks for source documents."
Interim report results

In a 219-page initial report, the Volcker Commission documented how OIF chairman Benon Sevan used his position to solicit and receive allocations of oil from Iraq during the years he oversaw the humanitarian relief programme. Internal records from SOMO (Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization), as well as interviews with former Iraqi officials involved in illicit oil deals, show that Sevan had requested and received allocations of 7.3 million barrels (1,160,000 m3) of oil on behalf of a Panama-registered trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co.

Although the report makes no specific allegations of criminal activity by Sevan, Volcker does not rule out the possibility that charges might be filed by authorities in countries with relevant jurisdiction. The report called Sevan's conduct "ethically improper", noting that Sevan had received large cash payments totalling $160,000 dollars each year he had headed the programme. Sevan claims the money came from an aunt in Cyprus who has since died, but the panel found no evidence to back this claim.

Volcker also reported in January that a review of 58 confidential UN internal OIF audits showed UN officials ignored early signs that humanitarian goods shipped to Iraq before the 2003 Invasion war were given little if any inspections by the Swiss company Cotecna. However, Volker concluded in the 27 October 2005 IIC report that "the audit did not report any deficiencies in Cotecna's inspections".[50] Cotecna paid Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son, consulting fees until November 2003. Volcker said that future reports would deal with questions regarding Kojo Annan.[53]
Investigations by Iraqi Governing Council

International accounting firm KPMG had been selected by the Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the al Mada claims, along with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. It was due to release its findings to the Iraqi Governing Council in May 2004. However, in June 2004, KPMG stopped working on the project because it was owed money by the IGC.[54]

The US has been harshly critical of the KPMG probe led by associates of Ahmed Chalabi, accusing it of undermining the main probe established by Paul Bremer. That probe had been run by the head of Iraq's independent Board of Supreme Audit, Ehsan Karim, with assistance from Ernst & Young. The Board of Supreme Audit is within the Iraqi Finance Ministry. In June 2004, Karim's investigation agreed to share information with the Volcker panel. However, on 1 July 2004, Karim was killed by a bomb magnetically attached to his car.[55]

Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British national and long-time friend of Ahmed Chalabi, was appointed by the IGC to coordinate its investigation of the Oil-for-Food Programme. Drielsma testified in front of the US Congress (on 21 April 2004) that the KPMG investigation "is expected to demonstrate the clear link between those countries which were quite ready to support Saddam Hussein's regime for their own financial benefit, at the expense of the Iraqi people, and those that opposed the strict application of sanctions and the overthrow of Saddam". He also testified that Chalabi was in charge of the investigation for the IGC.

In late May 2004, on the same day that Chalabi's offices at the Iraqi National Congress were raided by coalition forces, Drielsma claimed that an individual or individuals hacked into his computer and deleted every file associated with his investigation. He also claimed that "a back-up databank" was also deleted.[56] When asked by Claudia Rosett if he had been physically threatened as well, Drielsma replied with "no comment". Drielsma has also been an outspoken critic of the UN's refusal to release any internal Oil-for-Food audit information to the IGC.

And UK Member of Parliament George Galloway seems to be have been hip deep in the schemes.

 

[Cairenn]

It seems that Sadam and his friends were the cause of the problems.

Background and design

The Oil-for-Food Programme was instituted to relieve the extended suffering of civilians as the result of the comprehensive sanctions on Iraq from the UN, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.

Security Council Resolution 706 of 15 August 1991 was introduced to allow the sale of Iraqi oil in exchange for food.[4]

Security Council Resolution 712 of 19 September 1991 confirmed that Iraq could sell up to $1.6 billion in oil to fund an Oil-For-Food Programme.[5]

After an initial refusal, Iraq signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in May 1996 for arrangements to be taken for the implementation of that resolution.

The Oil-for-Food Programme started in December 1996, and the first shipments of food arrived in March 1997. Sixty percent of Iraq's twenty-six million people were solely dependent on rations from the oil-for-food plan.

The programme used an escrow system. Oil exported from Iraq was paid for by the recipient into an escrow account possessed until 2001 by BNP Paribas bank, rather than to the Iraqi government. The money was then apportioned to pay for war reparations to Kuwait, ongoing coalition and United Nations operations within Iraq. The remainder, the majority of the revenue, was available to the Iraqi government to purchase regulated items.

The Iraqi government was permitted to purchase only items that were not embargoed under the economic sanctions. Certain items, such as raw foodstuffs, were expedited for immediate shipment, but requests for most items, including such simple things as pencils and folic acid, were reviewed in a process that typically took about six months before shipment was authorized. Items deemed to have any potential application in chemical, biological or nuclear weapons systems development were not available to the regime, regardless of stated purpose.
Financial statistics

Over US$53 billion worth of Iraqi oil was sold on the world market. About US$46 billion of these funds were intended to provide for the humanitarian needs of Iraqi people such as food and medicine in the context of international economic sanctions. A considerable amount was spent for Gulf War reparations through a compensation fund (25 percent since December 2000); UN administrative and operational costs for the programme (2.2 percent) and costs for the weapons inspection programme. Internal audits have not been made public.[6]

.....


Abuse

In addition to criticism of the basic approach, the programme suffered from widespread corruption and abuse. Throughout its existence, the programme was dogged by accusations that some of its profits were unlawfully diverted to the government of Iraq and to UN officials. These accusations were made in many countries, including the US and Norway.[8][dead link]

Benon Sevan of Cyprus, who headed the programme, defended it, claiming that it had only a 2.2% administrative cost and that it was subject to more than 100 audits (internal and external), blaming restrictions from the Security Council for making the situation difficult. He also claimed that 90% of Iraq's population relied on the programme for its monthly food basket. While Benon Sevan was in charge of the programme, he stonewalled efforts to review and investigate the programme.[9] He ordered his staff that complaints about illegal payoffs should be formally filed with the whistleblower's country, making them public and allowing Iraq to bar any whistleblowers. In 2000, Dileep Nair, the UN corruption watchdog, wanted to determine the programme's level of vulnerability. Sevan, along with UN Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Frechette, rejected any such investigation, claiming that it would be too expensive to be worthwhile. Sevan ordered the shredding of years' worth of documents concerning the programme.[10]

In response to these criticisms, and to evidence acquired after the United States invasion of Iraq, UN Secretary-General accusations were made that skimmed profits were being used to buy influence at the UN and with Kofi Annan himself.

According to an interim report released on 3 February 2005 by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker's commission (see #Investigations below), much of the food aid supplied under the programme "was unfit for human consumption". The report concluded that Sevan had accepted nearly $150,000 in bribes over the course of the programme, and in 2005 he was suspended from his position at the United Nations as a result of the investigation of fraud in the programme.[11]

Peter van Walsum, the now-retired Ambassador of the Netherlands to the United Nations and chairman of the Iraq Sanctions Committee from 1999 to 2000, speculated in a recent book that Iraq deliberately divided the Security Council by awarding contracts to France, Russia, and China but not to the United Kingdom and the United States. He also stated he encountered a number of cases in which he felt the lack of Iraqi cooperation was designed to exacerbate the suffering of its own people. He also claimed that it was his opinion that the sanctions were not an effective deterrent.

Until 2001, the money for the Oil-for-Food Programme transited through the BNP Paribas bank, whose main private share-holder is Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a man estimated to be worth about $1 billion according to Forbes, and ranks 13th in Britain according to The Guardian. Auchi received a 15-month suspended sentence for his involvement in the Elf scandal, which has been qualified by the British newspaper as "the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War. Elf became a private bank for its executives who spent £200 million on political favours, mistresses, jewellery, fine art, villas and apartments".[12] Elf, an oil company, merged with TotalFina to become Total S.A. in 2003.
al Mada list

One of the earliest allegations of wrongdoing in the programme surfaced on 25 January 2004, when al Mada, a daily newspaper in Iraq, published a list of individuals and organizations alleged to have received oil sales contracts via the UN's Oil-for-Food Programme. The list came from over 15,000 documents which were reportedly found in the state-owned Iraqi oil corporation, which had close links to the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Named in the list of beneficiaries were British MP George Galloway and his charity, the Mariam Fund; former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua; and Shaker al-Kaffaji, an Iraqi-American businessman, India's foreign minister, Natwar Singh, was removed from office because of his role in the scandal. Many prominent Russian firms and individuals were also included on the al Mada list. Even the Russian Orthodox Church was supposedly involved in illegal oil trading. The former assistant to the Vatican secretary of state, Reverend Jean-Marie Benjamin, is said to have received rights to sell 4.5 million barrels (720,000 m3). George Galloway subsequently won two libel actions against the Christian Science Monitor and Daily Telegraph, which reported the allegations.[13][14]

The president of Oilexco Ltd, Arthur Millholland, whose name also appeared on the al Mada list, denied any wrongdoing, but confirms the charges that illegal surcharges were being paid to the Iraqi government by contractors.[15] However, the al Mada list does not discuss bribes paid to Iraq – it discusses bribes paid to individuals so that they would support Iraq. Few deny that in Iraq, like in many third-world countries, bribes and kickbacks were regularly paid to the leadership in order to get contracts, but some suggest that kickbacks would normally not occur in such countries when a UN-run programme was involved.
Operation of the scheme

The scheme is alleged to have worked in this way: individuals and organizations sympathetic to the Iraqi regime, or those just easily bribed, were offered oil contracts through the Oil-for-Food Programme. These contracts for Iraqi oil could then be sold on the open world market and the seller was allowed to keep a transaction fee, said to be between $0.15 and $0.50/barrel (0.94 and 3.14 $/m³) of oil sold. The seller was then to refund the Iraqi government a certain percentage of the commission.

Contracts to sell Iraq humanitarian goods through the Oil-for-Food Programme were given to companies and individuals based on their willingness to kick back a certain percentage of the contract profits to the Iraqi regime. Companies that sold commodities via the Oil-for-Food Programme were overcharging by up to 10%, with part of the overcharged amount being diverted into private bank accounts for Saddam Hussein and other regime officials and the other part being kept by the supplier.

The involvement of the UN itself in the scandal began in February 2004 after the name of Benon Sevan, executive director of the Oil-for-Food Programme, appeared on the Iraqi Oil Ministry's documents. Sevan allegedly was given vouchers for at least 11,000,000 barrels (1,700,000 m³) of oil, worth some $3.5 million in personal profit. Sevan has denied the charges.
BNP Paribas

The sole bank handling funds transfers for the Oil-for-Food Programme was the New York branch of the Banque Nationale de Paris-Paribas, or BNP Paribas. This French bank was the sole bank administering the $64 billion UN programme. An investigation by the US House Committee on International Relations found that BNP Paribas made payments without proof that goods were delivered and sanctioned payments to third parties not identified as authorized recipients. Investigators estimate that the bank received more than $700 million in fees under the UN programme that began in 1996 and ended after the ousting of Saddam in March 2003.
Duelfer Report

The Iraq Survey Group, which was tasked with finding evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, found that OFF saved the Iraqi economy from decline after the imposition of sanctions. Furthermore, the Iraqi regime found that it could corrupt OFF to get hard currency that could be used to manipulate the Iraq Sanctions Committee and undermine sanctions as well as increase arms.[16]

The final official version of the Iraq Survey Group report (Duelfer Report) cites only France, Russia and China (countries who were also strongly anti-war) as violators who paid kickbacks.[citation needed] According to the report, the top three recipients of oil included Russia (30%), France (15%), and China (10%), which are on the UN Security Council.[17] The US received 2–3%.[18] The US recipients included Exxon Mobil Corp., ChevronTexaco Corp. and El Paso Corp.[19][verification needed] The list of US companies were originally censored by CIA lawyers, citing privacy issues,[20] but was later leaked.


.....


GAO investigation

After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and subsequent Coalition victory over the Iraqi army, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was given the task of finalizing all Oil-for-Food related supply contracts made with the now-defunct regime as well as tracking down the personal fortunes of former regime members.[36] During the execution of this task, the GAO found weaknesses in the programme that allowed kickbacks and other sources of wealth for Saddam Hussein.

The GAO estimates that the Saddam Hussein regime generated $10.1 billion in illegal revenues. This figure includes $5.7 billion from oil smuggling and $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges on oil sales and after-sales charges on suppliers. The scale of the fraud was far more extensive than the GAO had previously estimated. A U.S. Department of Defense study, cited by the GAO, evaluated 759 contracts administered through the Oil-for-Food Programme and found that nearly half had been overpriced, by an average of 21 percent.[37] Unlike the 661 committee, members of the Security Council had the authority to launch investigations into contracts and to stop any contract they did not like. The British and the Americans had turned down hundreds of Oil-for-Food contract requests, but these were blocked primarily on the grounds that the items being imported were dual-use technologies.

To quote the GAO report, in its summary:

Both the U.N. Secretary General, through the Office of the Iraqi Programme (OIP) and the Security Council, through its sanctions committee for Iraq, were responsible for overseeing the Oil-for-Food Programme. However, the Iraqi government negotiated contracts directly with purchasers of Iraqi oil and suppliers of commodities, which may have been one important factor that allowed Iraq to levy illegal surcharges and commissions.

Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the General Accounting Office, told a House hearing that UN auditors had refused to release the internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.[38] Benon Sevan, with support from Kofi Annan, had written letters to all former Oil-for-Food contractors asking them to consult Sevan before releasing any documents to GAO or US congressional inquiry panels.[39] Throughout its history, the programme had received both complaints from critics saying that it needed to be more open and complaints from companies about proprietary information being disclosed.

The United Nations has denied all requests by the GAO for access to confidential internal audits of the Oil-for-Food Programme.

While attempting to determine the complexity of the Oil-for-Food Programme for articles in The Wall Street Journal, investigative journalist Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies and the Hudson Institute discovered that the UN treated details such as the identities of Oil-for-Food contractors; the price, quantity and quality of goods involved in the relief deals; and the identities of the oil buyers and the precise quantities that they received as confidential. The bank statements, the interest paid, and the transactions were all secret as well.[40] Rosett has come under harsh criticism from Denis Halliday[41] and Benon Sevan,[42] who have claimed that many of Rosett's claims (such as Oil-for-Food funding the approval of an Olympic stadium, and where responsibility for various issues lay according to the UN resolutions) were incorrect.

The US House Committee on International Relations investigated the Oil-for-Food Programme and discovered that money was provided by Sabah Yassen, the former Iraqi ambassador to Jordan, to pay the families of Palestinian suicide bombers between $15,000 to $25,000.[43] From September 2000 until the invasion of Iraq, the families of Palestinians killed or wounded in the conflict with Israel (including 117 responsible for suicide bombings in Israel) received over $35 million. It is alleged that this money came from the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.
Independent Inquiry Committee

After initial opposition to an investigation, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated on 19 March 2004 that a full independent investigation would be launched. In an official press interview, Annan said "[...] it is highly possible that there has been quite a lot of wrongdoing, but we need to investigate [...] and see who was responsible." "00:00:03". (audio clip, @5:56) However, Annan was emphatic that most of the claims were "outrageous and exaggerated",[44] and that most of the criticisms had to do with things over which the programme had no authority.

The following individuals were chosen in April 2004 to head the United Nations' Independent Inquiry Committee:[45]

Paul Volcker, former U.S. Federal Reserve System chairman and director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America;
Mark Pieth of Switzerland, an expert on money-laundering in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); and
Richard Goldstone of South Africa, former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

On 22 April 2004, the United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution endorsing the Volcker inquiry into corruption in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme for Iraq, calling upon all 191 member states to cooperate.[46]

The definitive[47] report was presented by Paul Volcker to the Security Council on 7 September 2005.[48]

A leaked internal UN audit, which surfaced on mineweb.com, shows massive discrepancies between Cotecna reports and UN agency reports for the value of the shipments into northern Iraq. The audit found that Cotecna did no "value" inspections on nearly US$1 billion worth of aid shipments for the Inter-Agency Humanitarian Programme into northern Iraq. However, in a subsequent report published by the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) (27 October 2005) it was concluded that "there were no major complaints by the United Nations or its member states about Cotecna's performance"[49] and that "the audit did not report any deficiencies in Cotecna's inspections".[50] Benon Sevan was briefed in December 2002 on the findings of the audit.[51]

The audit is available here.[52] Its summary states:

OIOS' overall conclusion is that the management of the Contract has not been adequate and certain provisions of the Contract had not been adhered to. In addition, the incorporation of additional costs, such as rehabilitation of camps in the man-day-rate was an unacceptable arrangement. Also, the contract had been amended prior to its commencement, which was inappropriate. OIP needs to strengthen its management of contracts and the Procurement Division (PD) should ensure that the basis of payment is appropriate in order to avoid additional costs to the Organization

After reading the leaked audit, congressman Henry Hyde wrote to Kofi Annan wondering why "The U.S. Congress – which provides 22 percent of the U.N.'s budget and which has publicly requested copies of the 55 internal audits – should be required to depend on media leaks for source documents."
Interim report results

In a 219-page initial report, the Volcker Commission documented how OIF chairman Benon Sevan used his position to solicit and receive allocations of oil from Iraq during the years he oversaw the humanitarian relief programme. Internal records from SOMO (Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization), as well as interviews with former Iraqi officials involved in illicit oil deals, show that Sevan had requested and received allocations of 7.3 million barrels (1,160,000 m3) of oil on behalf of a Panama-registered trading company called African Middle East Petroleum Co.

Although the report makes no specific allegations of criminal activity by Sevan, Volcker does not rule out the possibility that charges might be filed by authorities in countries with relevant jurisdiction. The report called Sevan's conduct "ethically improper", noting that Sevan had received large cash payments totalling $160,000 dollars each year he had headed the programme. Sevan claims the money came from an aunt in Cyprus who has since died, but the panel found no evidence to back this claim.

Volcker also reported in January that a review of 58 confidential UN internal OIF audits showed UN officials ignored early signs that humanitarian goods shipped to Iraq before the 2003 Invasion war were given little if any inspections by the Swiss company Cotecna. However, Volker concluded in the 27 October 2005 IIC report that "the audit did not report any deficiencies in Cotecna's inspections".[50] Cotecna paid Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son, consulting fees until November 2003. Volcker said that future reports would deal with questions regarding Kojo Annan.[53]
Investigations by Iraqi Governing Council

International accounting firm KPMG had been selected by the Iraqi Governing Council to investigate the al Mada claims, along with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. It was due to release its findings to the Iraqi Governing Council in May 2004. However, in June 2004, KPMG stopped working on the project because it was owed money by the IGC.[54]

The US has been harshly critical of the KPMG probe led by associates of Ahmed Chalabi, accusing it of undermining the main probe established by Paul Bremer. That probe had been run by the head of Iraq's independent Board of Supreme Audit, Ehsan Karim, with assistance from Ernst & Young. The Board of Supreme Audit is within the Iraqi Finance Ministry. In June 2004, Karim's investigation agreed to share information with the Volcker panel. However, on 1 July 2004, Karim was killed by a bomb magnetically attached to his car.[55]

Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British national and long-time friend of Ahmed Chalabi, was appointed by the IGC to coordinate its investigation of the Oil-for-Food Programme. Drielsma testified in front of the US Congress (on 21 April 2004) that the KPMG investigation "is expected to demonstrate the clear link between those countries which were quite ready to support Saddam Hussein's regime for their own financial benefit, at the expense of the Iraqi people, and those that opposed the strict application of sanctions and the overthrow of Saddam". He also testified that Chalabi was in charge of the investigation for the IGC.

In late May 2004, on the same day that Chalabi's offices at the Iraqi National Congress were raided by coalition forces, Drielsma claimed that an individual or individuals hacked into his computer and deleted every file associated with his investigation. He also claimed that "a back-up databank" was also deleted.[56] When asked by Claudia Rosett if he had been physically threatened as well, Drielsma replied with "no comment". Drielsma has also been an outspoken critic of the UN's refusal to release any internal Oil-for-Food audit information to the IGC.

And UK Member of Parliament George Galloway seems to be have been hip deep in the schemes. It started because SADAM invaded a neighboring country. DUH.

Sort of like landing in prison for stealing from a neighbor and then complaining that the 'system' is causing your wife and children to go hungry, while you are making sure that the money that should go to them is helping your appeal.

 

[Oxymoron]

It seems that Sadam and his friends were the cause of the problems.

And UK Member of Parliament George Galloway seems to be have been hip deep in the schemes. It started because SADAM invaded a neighboring country. DUH.

Sort of like landing in prison for stealing from a neighbor and then complaining that the 'system' is causing your wife and children to go hungry, while you are making sure that the money that should go to them is helping your appeal.

I see you are still in deny and defend at all costs and by any means mode. As I said that is not debunking.

So you paste a massive amount of bunk which goes on and on from an unnamed source, without saying anything that backs up your claim but generally throws masses of mud and obfuscation. I think that is known as Astroturfing isn't it.

If you can, please pick out what you think is the most salient point in your argument, from this vast Gish Gallop, so that it can be addressed.

You finish with a totally unjustified accusation and a 'typical 'folksy' false analogy, stating that George Galloway is 'hip deep in the schemes' when it has been proven beyond doubt that he was not and that he was a victim of a smear campaign which quite rightly exploded in the face of your government. Guess you didn't even watch him tear the commission to pieces.

Followed by "Sort of like landing in prison for stealing from a neighbor and then complaining that the 'system' is causing your wife and children to go hungry,".

Are you suggesting that all the vast numbers of people's dependents, who are slave labouring away in your 'for profit penal system', (most of whom are on petty charges, inc being too poor to pay fines), should be allowed to starve to death and not get medical care?

It certainly appears that way, (by offering it up as an analogy), but that nonetheless does not stop you from making these false, unabashed, uncaring and insensitive type of generalizations. Charity, oh sweet charity.

But carry on, it is good that people see the extent of your unreserved support for American Foreign Policy and no doubt your Dickensian view of the criminal 'justice' system and attitude to the poor is shared by many visitors to this forum.