How We Helped Create Saddam And Gave Him Bioweapons

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(Perhaps this is how the fungi got loose in the first place...)

How We Helped Create Saddam And Gave Him Bioweapons

PRNewswire

9-15-2

Newsweek Cover:

'How We Helped Create Saddam' -- U.S. Supplied Iraq With Equipment and

Materials In 1980s, Including Bacteria That Can Be Used To Make Biological

Weapons Administration's Worry: Saddam Could Unleash Bio Weapons On U.S.

Troops, Hand Out Bio Weapons To Terrorists

NEW YORK (PRNewswire via COMTEX) -- During the 1980s, when Iraq was at war

with Iran, the United States decided to help Iraq and began supplying Iraqi

dictator Saddam Hussein with supplies and military hardware, including

shipments of " bacteria/fungi/protozoa " to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission

(IAEC), Newsweek reports in the current issue. According to former

officials, the bacteria cultures could be used to make biological weapons,

including anthrax. The Reagan administration began allowing the Iraqis to

buy a wide variety of " dual use " equipment and materials from American

suppliers. According to confidential Commerce Department export control

documents obtained by Newsweek, the shopping list included a computerized

data base for Saddam's Interior Ministry (presumably, to help keep track of

political opponents); helicopters to transport Iraqi officials; television

cameras for " video surveillance applications " chemical analysis equipment

for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC); and, most unsettling, the

numerous shipments of the bacteria, report Assistant Managing Editor Evan

and Middle East Regional Editor Dickey in the September

23 cover story, " How We Helped Create Saddam, " (on newsstands Monday,

September 16).

The U.S. almost certainly knew from its own satellite imagery that Saddam

was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. When Saddam bombed

Kurdish rebels and civilians with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas, sarin,

tabun, and VX in 1988, the Reagan administration first blamed Iran, before

acknowledging that the culprits were Saddam's own forces, Newsweek reports.

There was only token official protest at the time. Saddam's men were

unfazed. An Iraqi audiotape, later captured by the Kurds, records Saddam's

cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as " Ali Chemical " ), talking to his fellow

officers about gassing the Kurds. " Who is going to say anything? " he asks.

" The international community? F--- them! "

As the Bush administration prepares to oust Saddam, one way or another,

senior administration officials are very worried that Saddam will try to use

his WMD arsenal. Saddam could try blackmail, threatening to unleash small

pox or some other grotesque virus in an American city if U.S. forces

invaded.

Or, like a cornered dog, he could lash out in a final spasm of violence,

raining chemical weapons down on U.S. troops, handing out his bio weapons to

terrorists. " That's the single biggest worry in all this, " a senior

administration official tells Newsweek. " We are spending a lot of time on

this, " said another top official.

It is unclear what kind of justice would follow Saddam's fall. The Bush

administration is determined not to " overthrow one strongman only to install

another, " a senior administration official tells Newsweek. This official

says that the president has made clear that he wants to press for democratic

institutions, government accountability, and the rule of law in post-Saddam

Iraq. But no one really knows how that can be achieved. Bush's advisers are

counting on the Iraqis themselves to resist a return to despotism. " People

subject to horrible tyranny have strong antibodies to anyone who wants to

put them back under tyranny, " says a senior administration official. But as

another official acknowledged, " a substantial American commitment " to Iraq

is inevitable, Newsweek reports.

Read Newsweek's news releases at

<http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com>http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com.

SOURCE Newsweek