Iraq Used Many Suppliers for Nuke Program

"Iraq's report says the equipment was either sold or made by more than 30 German companies,

10 American companies, 11 British companies and a handful of Swiss, Japanese, Italian, French,

Swedish and Brazilian firms. It says more than 30 countries supplied its nuclear program."

"Most of the sales were legal and often made with the knowledge of governments. In 1985-90, the U.S.

Commerce Department, for example, licensed $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of American technology with

potential military uses. Iraq was then getting Western support for its war against Iran, which at

the time was regarded as the main threat to stability in the oil-rich Gulf region."

How Iraq Built its weapons programs

"And here's the strange part, easily forgotten in the barrage of recent rhetoric: It was Western governments

and businesses that helped build that capacity in the first place. From anthrax to high-speed computers to

artillery ammunition cases, the militarily useful products of a long list of Western democracies flowed into

Iraq in the decade before its 1990 invasion of Kuwait."

How Saddam Happened

"American officials have known that Saddam was a psychopath ever since he became the country's de facto ruler

in the early 1970s. One of Saddam's early acts after he took the title of president in 1979 was to videotape

a session of his party's congress, during which he personally ordered several members executed on the spot."

A Little U.S.-Iraq History

"While biological warfare exports were approved by the U.S. government, the first President George Bush

signed a policy directive proposing "normal" relations with Saddam in the interest of Middle East stability.

Looking at a little U.S.-Iraqi history might be useful on the eve of a fateful military undertaking."

Iraq: Declassified Documents of U.S. Support for Hussein

Joyce Battle: I have not personally seen documents that indicate that the Reagan administration

supplied Iraq with chemical weapons. However, the documents we recently posted on the Internet

demonstrate that the administration had U.S. intelligence reports indicating that Iraq was using chemical

weapons, both against Iran and against Iraqi Kurdish insurgents, in the early 1980s, at the same time that

it decided to support Iraq in the war. So U.S. awareness of Iraq's chemical warfare did not deter it from

initiating the policy of providing intelligence and military assistance to Iraq. There were shipments of

chemical weapons precursors from several U.S. companies to Iraq during the 1980s, but the U.S. government

would deny that it was aware that these exports were intended to be used in the production of chemical

weapons.