IRAQ: Who Really Armed Saddam

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

A big hat-tip and a round of applause to TheSarge:

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

http://www.sipri.org/contents/armstrad/output_examples.html

[djones520]

3 of the 4 major sources used to write that Wiki article are books that where extremely critical of the US.  Yet the article itself is anything but.

[TheSarge]

I used to have a direct link to the SIPRI table that showed the major arms suppliers to Iraq starting in 1973.

Unfortunately this time I had to go through Wiki to get it.  But the tables are still the same as in the SIPRI report.

This info comes in quite handy when the DUmmies start talking about how we made Saddam who he was and they want to start tossing up pics of Rummy meeting with him.

[Lauri]

I'm still reading Charlie Wilson's War and it has great details about Afghanistan and how the arms got there in the 70s and the 80s and how the secret war started there against the Soviets.

i'm only 2/3 of the way thru it, but in this book they state that the Israeli's were selling guns to Iraq and Iran (so they'd kill each other) and all the different countries who were selling guns to the mujahideen in order to kill the Soviets.

America didnt want anything traceable to us, so they'd funnel the guns and ammo thru different countries and stamp them as Soviet arms. it's been a bit tough keeping it all straight (there is a TON of history in this 500+ page book) but at this point, I think America can definitely take a bit of the responsibility for arming a totally lawless country. but according to this book, a few Congress critters were able to send billions for the arms for Afghanistan and disabled the Contras, which our whole government, including Reagan, was trying to get behind.

On the other hand, the Soviets managed to bring the US and a bunch of lawless countries together to try and defeat the Red Army...

I think, based on what I know right now, its impossible to fault the US for what we accomplished in the Middle East in the 80s, but then our Congress either lost the will or got bored and decided to stop funding the Middle East programs. And that left the door wide open for Al Quaeda to come roaring back in.

And since the war was 'secret' .. Al Quaeda didnt know we had funded them all those years and turned on us.

Maybe the bottom line is, secret wars are a waste of time and just confuse our friends and enemies in the end..

[TheSarge]

And since the war was 'secret' .. Al Quaeda didnt know we had funded them all those years and turned on us.

We didn't fund al-Qaeda. 

Al Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, confirmed that the "Afghan Arabs" did not receive any U.S. funding during the war in Afghanistan. In the book that was described as his last will, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, which was serialized in December 2001 in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, al-Zawahiri says the Afghan Arabs were funded with money from Arab sources, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars:

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/24-318760.html

"Afghan Arabs" back then are known as al-Qaeda today.

[Nick Schizen]

Pretty neat of Italy to supply them with 1 "Stromboli Class" support ship in 1981.

 

You got to be shitting me........................... "Stromboli Class"????

[Hawkgirl]

what about WMD's and this nerve gas...is there any proof that we supplied Saddam?

[Ptarmigan]

I read that Saddam Hussein had ties with STASI, which was a East German secret police force. They were repressive than the Gestapo and KGB. Many Gestapos became STASI agents. Saddam Hussein was a big admirerer of Communists and Fascists, like Hitler and Stalin.

I always thought that Muslim terrorists were funded by Nazis assets and loot because many Nazis had ties with Muslim Brotherhood and fled to the Middle East after World War II. It evolved from Arab nationalism. One of the big supporter and funders are named Ahmed Huber (Albert Huber) and François Genoud. As for Palestine, that has to do with the legacy of Nazism and Communism.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/loftus101106.htm
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36350
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Taqwa_Bank
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/swiss-and-hitler.html

[Hawkgirl]

I read that Saddam Hussein had ties with STASI, which was a East German secret police force. They were repressive than the Gestapo and KGB. Many Gestapos became STASI agents. Saddam Hussein was a big admirerer of Communists and Fascists, like Hitler and Stalin.

I always thought that Muslim terrorists were funded by Nazis assets and loot because many Nazis had ties with Muslim Brotherhood and fled to the Middle East after World War II. It evolved from Arab nationalism. One of the big supporter and funders are named Ahmed Huber (Albert Huber) and François Genoud. As for Palestine, that has to do with the legacy of Nazism and Communism.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/loftus101106.htm
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36350
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Taqwa_Bank
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/swiss-and-hitler.html

Great Info, thanks!