Jim CroganCENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION
(Atlanta, Georgia)
1984 to 1993 — The CDC shipped a number of “viruses, retroviruses, bacteria and fungi” to Iraq from “October 1, 1984 thru October 13, 1993,” stated then-CDC director David Satcher in a 1995 letter to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. According to Satcher, CDC’s shipments to Iraq continued two years after the first Gulf War. However, he included no information regarding the post–Gulf War I shipments. The pre-war shipments included:
1985 — Three shipments of West Nile virus, two shipments of dengue-fever virus, one shipment of Yersinia pestis (non-virulent plague bacteria), one shipment of Bhania virus, one shipment of Hazara virus, one shipment of Kemerovo virus, one shipment of Langat virus, one shipment of Sandfly Fever/Naples virus, one shipment of Sandfly Fever/Sicilian virus, one shipment of Sindbis virus, one shipment of Tahyna virus, one shipment of Thogoto virus, five plague-infected mouse-tissue smears and a variety of antigens and antibodies.
1985 — Three yeast cultures of candida
1985 — Eight vials of antigens (substances that stimulate the production of antibodies) as well as antibodies for ricketts and typhus
1986 — Two vials of non-infectious botulinum toxoid
1988 — A variety of teaching supplies and CDC procedures manuals
1989 — A variety of enterococcus bacteria and one shipment of streptococcus bacteria
(Langley, Virginia)
1982 — President Ronald Reagan signed a National Security Council directive ordering the agency to provide Iraq with intelligence-information advice and hardware. The order was enthusiastically carried out by then-CIA Director William Casey (see Bechtel), who supported the sale of cluster bombs to Iraq. CIA also assisted in the sale of non-U.S. weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq.
1984 — Agency secretly provided Iraq with instructions on how to calibrate its mustard-gas attacks on Iranian troops.
1986 — Agency authorized secret study documenting Iraqi use of chemical weapons.
1988 — CIA Director William Webster acknowledged to Congress that Iraq was the largest producer of chemical weapons in the worl.
(Washington, D.C.)
1983 to 1990 — Extended billions of dollars worth of loan guarantees to Iraq through the Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corporation. Iraq used some of these funds to buy material, equipment and technology for its chemical-weapons and ballistic-missile programs. After Iraq defaulted on some its loan obligations, the federal government agreed, in 1995, to pay $400 million to BNL (an Italian bank) to settle claims. Iraq is liable for reimbursing the U.S. treasury, but repayment is considered unlikely.
1992 — An Agriculture Department employee shredded documents describing department’s role in obtaining $5.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans to Iraq through BNL, an Italian bank. The shredding was witnessed by a Justice Department paralegal.
(Washington, D.C.)
1985 to 1990 — Approved $1.5 billion worth of export licenses for shipments of goods with both military and civilian applications to Iraq. According to an Inspector General’s report, Commerce officials later tampered with export records to disguise shipments of equipment and technology used by the Iraqi military. Five records alterations pertained to the proposed shipment of more than $1 billion in trucks originally described as “designed for military use.”
1988 — Department approved shipments of equipment to upgrade Iraq’s Scud-missile program.
1992 — Commerce Department inspector general admitted to Congress that department officials altered 66 export licenses for Iraq.
(Arlington, Virginia)
1982 — President Ronald Reagan ordered department to provide Iraq with intelligence information, advice and hardware.
1983 — Private citizen Donald Rumsfeld (currently the secretary of defense) was dispatched to Iraq as the personal envoy of President Reagan. Met with Saddam Hussein and pledged support for regime. Rumsfeld’s trip occurred as U.S. was receiving reports of chemical-weapons use by Iraq. Rumsfeld also carried with him a secret offer of help to Iraq from then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
During both the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration (prior to the invasion of Kuwait), the department supported export licenses transferring weapons technology and weapons materials to Iraq.
(Washington, D.C.)
1982 — Department removed Iraq from list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
1983 — Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz (See Bechtel) successfully lobbied Commerce Department to approve sale of helicopters to Iraq. State Department begins receiving reports of chemical-weapons use by Iraqi military.
1984 — Schultz persuaded Representative Howard Berman (D–Los Angeles) to drop his bill returning Iraq to list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
1984 — Diplomatic relations reestablished with Iraq.
1986 — Reagan sent secret message to Saddam Hussein, advising him to step up his air war on Iran. Message delivered to Hussein through Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by Vice President George Bush.
1988 — At the U.N., Schultz downplayed Iraq’s use of chemical weapons on Kurds.
1989 — Department supplied visas for three Iraqi nuclear scientists to attend an international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon. This conference discussed nuclear-weapons technology and flyer-plate technology used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves.
1989 — Secretary of State James Baker received memo informing him that Iraq was aggressively developing chemical-, biological- and new missile-weapons programs.
1990 — Bush administration approved $4.8 million in sales of advanced technology to Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. MIMI was responsible for Iraq’s nuclear-, missile and chemical-weapons program.
(Washington, D.C.)
1983 to 1989 — During this period, the NSC, usually with the State Department, successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to approve sales to Iraq of military-related items and items with dual military and civilian use, such as heavy trucks, to Iraq.
1983 — Successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to approve the sale of 10 “civilian” Bell helicopters to Iraq in 1983. The helicopters were eventually modified and used in 1988 to spray poison gas on Iranians and possibly the Kurds.
1989 — President George Bush signed NSC Directive 26, which established closer ties to Baghdad and provided $1 billion in agricultural loans.
U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS LABORATORIES:
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE (University of California, Livermore, California)
LOS ALAMOS (University of California, Los Alamos, California)
SANDIA (Sandia National Laboratories are government-owned but operated under contract by Lockheed Martin, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (Washington, D.C.)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (Washington, D.C.)
1989, California — These three labs in conjunction with the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense organized a quadrennial international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon. There, representatives from these nuclear labs presented information on nuclear-weapons-detonation technology and flyer-plate technology used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves. Three Iraqi nuclear scientists attended this conference from the Al Qaqaa State Establishment. Al Qaqaa supplied bomb parts for Iraq’s nuclear-weapons testing.
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