How did the US help Saddam get into power? The article that someone linked pointed out how Bagdad University and the ministry of Health received anthrax, etc... from US firms but, as I said earlier, in those times it was not uncommon for universities to order and recieve that material for research purposes. I've also heard about the US supplying Saddam with Chemical weapons precursers and facilities but have yet to see it reported by something mainstream (in anything other than an editorial). But let's assume you're right about the US supplying Saddam with the WMDs (once again, if there were a smoking Gun don't you think the Democrats would be having a field day with it?), how did the US help Saddam get into power? Please post a link to a mainstream (i.e. not conspiricy theories please) source.
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Mango, folks, here's a brief description of Saddam's ascent to power. The CIA may, or may not, have had a behind the scenes role, but I would guess that Saddam did his own heavy lifting. From the BBC: The Iraqi president was born in a village just outside Takrit in April 1937. In his teenage years, Saddam immersed himself in the anti-British and anti-Western atmosphere of the day. At college in Baghdad he joined the Baath party and in 1956 he took part in an abortive coup attempt. After the overthrow of the monarchy two years later Saddam connived in a plot to kill the prime minister, Abdel-Karim Qassem. But the conspiracy was discovered, and Saddam fled the country. In 1963, with the Baath party in control in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein returned home and began jostling for a position of influence. During this period he married his cousin Sajida. They later had two sons and three daughters. But within months, the Baath party had been overthrown and Saddam was jailed, remaining there until the party returned to power in a coup in July 1968. Showing ruthless determination that was to become a hallmark of his leadership, Saddam gained a position on the ruling Revolutionary Command Council. For years he was the power behind the ailing figure of the president, Ahmed Hassan Bakr. In 1979, Saddam achieved his ambition of becoming head of state. The new president started as he intended to go on - putting to death dozens of his rivals. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/iraq/53756.stm What the BBC fails to mention is that Ahmed Hassan Bakr was Saddam's relative. The tribal aspect of the Baathist's Party's grip on Iraq, becoming Saddam's grip eventually, cannot be underestimated, imo. Keep D&D Civil!!
nice man..did'nt expect anyone to know that.... the General was a communist and well fill in the blanks i guess. its funny how people on this board love to find articles and base their views on them...its funny because you will find any article you want pointing the finger at whoever you want. Guess its more like a guessing game, who do you believe? You'll have a pre-judgment and use that to substantiate the materials validity. Use some common sense and information on both sides and make your conclusion, thats when you won't be biased by your initial views. Unless you want to be On topic: the global poll of Bush will be in the gutter if he attacks Iran. I don't think it will happen until the Iraq situation settles down. Iran will be a harder fight though, cause the people will see it as an invasion and there is no brutal dictator. Iran is very modern and open to western cultures, even though the wordly views on it does not show it to be, the people are relatively happy with their governmental situation. This war will be scary.
Yeah it's hard when some people use substantiated and researched material to back up their points when others use "he's a flip Flopper" and "he didn't deserve his medals."
true that mc ... that's true but again you can find any view you want out there ... how do you make an educated point of view? See there is a bigger problem. Information is so vast and accessible that it creates confusion. Any Joe can right an article and have done minimal research, too much BULL basically. You use references too consent with your articles squabble. That¡¦s why you need some references of real life, word of mouth, which also can be BS ƒº. We are arguing for the sake of arguing because nobody in here changes their point of views on a message board reference. Also most of our views are already preset based on your up bringing and what you have experienced in life¡K. Okay I got to stop with this ****¡Kgoodnight ¡Kgot an exam tomorrow.
Speaking from a Christian perspective ^ that course of action (above) ^ will always get you in trouble; sooner or later. The lesson learned should be: Do not make deals with the devil. If you do -- to achieve a short-term goal in the present -- then be prepared to pay the consequences later.
I'm coming in late to this thread but this is a very old debate. The thing that has always bothered me about righteous thunder expressed by this Admin about the need to take out Saddam because he is so evil is that worst excesses of his evil were conducted when he was our ally and also right after the first Gulf War. While these when those incidents took place there was a different Admin. but many of the same figures who have been righteously thundering the loudest also were serving in prominent roles in those previous Admins.. When Saddam was using gas against the Iranians in the mid and late 80's while the US wasn't arming him the Admin then was giving him intel and aid. He gassed Halabja in the late 80's and the US did nothing and said barely anything because at the time he was fighting the Iranians. When he brutally suppressed the Kurds and Shias in '91 the US sat by even though there was a force there that could've moved and the Admin at that had time had encouraged them to revolt. Rumsfeld, Cheney and others who have proclaimed that its a moral mission to unseat evil regime of Saddam weren't voices in the US political wilderness then but were active participants with influence when those attrocities happen. Certainly if we call those acts evil then Rumsfeld and Cheney must bear some responsibilty for failing to act, and even endorse through silence, those actions. For them now 12 years after to proclaim righteosness about their cause strikes me as mere moral window dressing to decorate a course of action being driven by primarily other motives.
To be fair, Bush I wanted to remove Saddam then, but the coalition, Arab partners in particular, did not. It was widely held that such a push would have splintered the coalition.
I'm not really sure what everybody is arguing about hypocritical reversals on Iraq dating back to the 70's. Halliburton's foreign subisidiaries and joint ventures did lots of profitable business with Iraq in the late 90's, pocketing a tidy $73 million in sales of oil equipment to Saddam as part of the HORRIFIC SCANDALOUS oil-for-food program. The CEO apparently had no problem with it at the time.
Yet the current Bush Admin, including people like Cheney, argue these days that such talk is only coddling dictators. Those people now argue that it was necessary, even at the cost of moving unilaterally, confront Saddam because he was so evil and that any realpolitik talk of splintering coalitions was a venial excuse of opponents of the war.
Yes, and that's a direct result of the perception that bowing to pressure not to remove him was a mistake. Its not a contradiction, rather one grew out of the other.
The problem with that is it took 12 years and to the point where Iraq was essentially toothless and totally contained to do that. Further it was done at a time when we were, and still are involved with a truly existential threat to us. This also took place at a time when there were many much more egregious acts of evil, like in the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan and etc..., going on at the same time which the US took minimal or no action on. At the minimum the moral thundering of people like Cheney is hypocritical given their own histories with Saddam and also given the how much evil was and is left unchallenged in the world when the US could do something about it. I will add that hypocracy in itself isn't a huge problem me, governments and people change and adapt to situations. It should be a huge problem though if you take this Admin. on its own rhetoric as always being constant morally when its so obvious that the people that run this Admin. and its own policy behave so contradictory. Also given the global security challenges facing the US fighting a war based on at best highly speculative intellegence when we have limited resources and are facing an already proven threat of unknown strength and locations the invasion and occupation of Iraq has proven a distraction.
