By Daan de Wit

Looking at Saddam Hussein's life it becomes clear that it was not just taken by the West, but also given. The CIA, after in 1963 removing Iraqi ruler Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem, in 1968 helps to create a second coup. This is being led by Saddams mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr who in 1979 turned over his powers to Saddam, a man on the payroll of the CIA. In later years France helps Saddam to construct two nuclear plants, building on nuclear knowledge and materials gained by Iraq in the 1950's thanks to the Eisenhower program Atoms for Peace. Israel prevents Iraq creating a nuclear weapon by bombing one of the two plants in 1981.

France helped Saddam also in other ways, it sold him Mirage fighter jets, some flown by French pilots who flew war missions for Iraq. The U.K., Italy and Germany provided Saddam with military expertise and finance. The more heavier weapons of mass destruction were sold to Saddam by Donald Rumsfeld. The man who later became Secretary of Defence under president George W. Bush brought Saddam biological and chemical weapons components, including anthrax and bubonic plague cultures. 'As well as anthrax and botulism, the USA also sent [when Saddam was in power] West Nile fever, brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. [...] Other items which were sent by the US to Iraq included chemical warfare agent precursors, chemical warfare agent production facility plans and technical drawings, chemical warfare filling equipment, biological warfare-related materials, missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment', wrote de Sunday Herald. Around 1963 Saddam was provided by the U.S. with 6000 bombs, of which 1000 were napalm bombs, to crush Kurdish uprisings. He was aquitted by a Pentagon report of the infamous attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988.

 

The US coaxed Iraq into war against Iran (1980), military help followed; the CIA secretly supplied weapons, including fragmentation bombs, to Saddam Hussein. US satellite intelligence allowed Iranian troops to be more effectively targeted; Washington was aware that Iraqi units were using chemical weapons. In the mean time the vice president to U.S. president Ronald Reagan also provided Iran with weapons and money, as payment for the stalling of the release of the American hostages which made then president Jimmy Carter lose re-election, propelling George Bush into becoming vice president.

After the war in 1988 Saddam was saddled with a great debt; much of his oil revenues went to his debtors. At the same time Kuwait started to sell extra oil, which had a negative influence on the price of oil. Also Kuwait was drilling oil from underneath Iraqi soil. Saddam consulted the U.S. and got a green light for attacking Kuwait. After he did he was decleared war by George Bush Sr., who by now was president of the United States. In the last moments of the war the uprising Bush had called for came, but he backed off and U.S. troops witnessed how Saddam quashed the Shiite stand up. Then after the war was over, it wasn't, as it continued in what might be called the No Fly Zone War. These attacks were part of an illegal construction, says former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponeck. The No Fly Zone War was the period between the official wars of father and son Bush. In that period the international cleaning up of the internationally sold weapons of mass destruction was so effective that there were no such weapons left in Iraq. This was known, and I reported so, long before the last Iraq war. Just recently a high level govenment insider blew the whistle by confirming the fact of knowledge of the non existent WMD's. Together with the non existent connection between Saddam and Osama bin Laden it was nevertheless used in a media campaign designed to mislead the public in again agreeing to going to war with Iraq. A small Western coalition indeed went to war with Iraq, despite extensive offerings by Saddam to negotiate. A pattern that is being repeated now with Iran.

At the end of the Iraq war the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein was a carefully staged media event, as I reported three years ago. The news surrounding the capturing of Saddam was just as molded. Saddam was captured by Kurdish forces and handed over to the Americans who made up a new story of his capture shaping it into a form that vindicated the world and mummed people sympathetic to Saddam. It was the ultimate revenge for the Kurds who suffered greatly under Saddam, for instance when he, under the watchful eye of the U.S., beat down the uprising called for by George Bush Sr., who never followed up on it. Finally, after a trial that was called 'unjustifiable' by Human Rights Watch and others, a trial during which three of Saddams lawyers were killed, it is the question if the video images of the hanging of Saddam were as coincidental as presented. The former dictator is seen defying the people who are scolding him, awaiting his death, rushed and executed by men, hooded like criminals.