Know Bush Fact #5

This morning on “Meet the Press”, as well as many other times, we heard Bush defend his attacking Iraq, by pointing out that Saddam Hussein had to be removed. After all, he “used weapons against his own people.”

But Bush never elaborates on that any further. There’s a reason.

He never includes the fact that the attack he’s speaking of occurred in August 1988, when Saddam used chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds at Halabja on the Iranian border. Nor does he state that the chemical weapons were dispensed using the helicopters Reagan’s administration supplied in 1983.

On December 20, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld (a civilian then, now our Secretary of Defense) personally delivered a hand-written note from Ronald Reagan to Saddam Hussein to assure him of U.S. friendship and materials support and to restore diplomatic relations.

Beginning October 1, 1984 and ending either on November 28, 1989 or October 13, 1993 (both long past the attack on the Kurds), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the approval of Ronald Reagan and later George H.W. Bush, provided anthrax, bubonic plague and botulinum toxin to Iraq.

According to the House Committee on Government Operations Report "Strengthening the Export License System," up until the day Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the Bush administration [the father] approved of $4.8 million in advanced technology product sales to Iraq, the end-user being Iraq's Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, identified in 1988 to be the facility for Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

So, the next time you hear Bush say that Saddam had to be removed because he "used weapons against his own people," remember that he's leaving out that Reagan, with Rumsfeld's help, supplied the helicopters and gas, and that even after that slaughter, Bush's father continued to supply Saddam with weapons and technology.

If you have trouble believing this, go to Google and type in "Kurds +1988 +chemical weapons +Reagan" and see what's there.

- February 9, 2004