vendite di armi chimiche e batteriologiche all'Iraq da parte di compagnie USA e Germania

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi at mail.inet.it>]

Rigirato da un'altra mailing list, non ho avuto tempo di controllare le
fonti, vedete un po' voi.

paola



U.S. Companies Behind Iraq Weapons Program
From: Mitchel Cohen
<mitchelcohen at mindspring.com>


Seven years ago I contacted Congress rep D.
Riegle of Michigan who had headed an
investigation of US corporate sales to Iraq. He
sent me a summary of the hearings, in which were
listed some of the biological agents shipped by US
corporations to Iraq, with George H.W. Bush's
approval as head of the CIA and later as Vice
President under Ronald Reagan.

These included anthrax, brucellosis, gas gangrene,
and toxic varieties of E.Coli and Salmonella
bacteria. I do not recall seeing West Nile Virus on
that list, although some officials have recently
inserted it there.

Now, the White House is using the excuse of the
existence of these biological agents, which Bush
SOLD TO IRAQ, to bomb the hell out of them,
and to inoculate 500,000 US troops with
experimental, genetically engineered anthrax
and smallpox vaccines.

In addition, uniforms were soaked in Permethrin
pesticide, and soldiers (as well as civilians on the
ground) were subjected to aerosalized depleted
uranium. All contributed to Gulf War Syndrome,
which has affected tens of thousands of US
veterans. I wrote about this in numerous green and
leftist journals, including Synthesis/Regeneration,
Fifth Estate, Green Politics, Z magazine, and
elsewhere.

Now, Iraq releases its report to the UN, which the
US literally stole and distributed heavily censored
copies. Over 9,000 of the 12,000 pages in the
report were deleted by the United States before
distributing to non-Permanent members of the
UN.

But did they really think they could keep such a
report secret? Certainly, Iraq would have put the
report onto computer disks, which could be made
available via email DIRECTLY to anyone who
wanted it. So why would the US go to such great
lengths to censor it? Did they think no one would
notice?

Well, someone has, and now a reporter from
Germany has further documented the evidence of
massive US collusion with Saddam Hussein in
sending biological material as well as nuclear
weapons materiel and assistance to Iraq. Please
read the story below.

If the US officials are, like Bush, not really as
stupid as they appear (obvious attempts at
censorship), what game are they playing. Of
course, the possibility is that they really ARE that
stupid -- and dangerous.

One note: Germany will be entering the Security
Council with four other countries as part of the
non-Permanent members contingent, on January 1
for the next two years. German companies feature
heavily in the sale of chemical weapons to Iraq.
The pressure will be on Germany to go along with
US pressure to bomb. So it is interesting that this
article first appeared in a leading German
progressive daily newspaper, before it was
featured Wednesday on Democracy Now.

- Mitchel Cohen

       *** A Democracy Now! exclusive ***

Top-secret Iraq Report Reveals U.S. Corporations,
Gov't Agencies and Nuclear Labs Helped Illegally
Arm Iraq

Hewlett Packard, Dupont, Honeywell and other
major U.S. corporations, as well as governmental
agencies including the Department of Defense
and the nation's nuclear labs, all illegally helped
Iraq to build its biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons programs.

On Wednesday, December 18, Geneva-based
reporter Andreas Zumach broke the story on the
US national listener-sponsored radio and
television show "Democracy Now!" Zumach's
Berlin-based paper Die Tageszeitung plans to soon
publish a full list of companies and nations who
have aided Iraq. The paper first reported on
Tuesday that German and U.S. companies had
extensive ties to Iraq but didn't list names.

Zumach obtained top-secret portions of Iraq's
12,000-page weapons declaration that the US had
redacted from the version made available to the
non-permanent members of the UN Security
Council.

"We have 24 major U.S. companies listed in the
report who gave very substantial support
especially to the biological weapons program but
also to the missile and nuclear weapons program,"
Zumach said. "Pretty much everything was illegal
in the case of nuclear and biological weapons.
Every form of cooperation and supplies was
outlawed in the 1970s."

The list of U.S. corporations listed in Iraq's report
include Hewlett Packard, DuPont, Honeywell,
Rockwell, Tectronics, Bechtel, International
Computer Systems, Unisys, Sperry and TI
Coating.

Zumach also said the U.S. Departments of Energy,
Defense, Commerce, and Agriculture quietly
helped arm Iraq. U.S. government nuclear
weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore, Los
Alamos and Sandia trained traveling Iraqi nuclear
scientists and gave non-fissile material for
construction of a nuclear bomb.

"There has never been this kind of comprehensive
layout and listing like we have now in the Iraqi
report to the Security Council so this is quite new
and this is especially new for the U.S  involvement
which has been even more suppressed in the
public domain and the U.S. population," Zumach
said.

The names of companies were supposed to be top
secret. Two weeks ago Iraq provided two copies
of its full 12,000-page report, one to the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva,
and one to the United Nations in New York.
Zumach said the U.S. broke an agreement of the
Security Council and blackmailed Colombia,
which at the time was presiding over the Council,
to take possession of the UN's only copy. The U.S.
then proceeded to make copies of the report for
the other four permanent Security Council nations,
Britain, France, Russia and China. Only yesterday
did the remaining members of the Security
Council receive their copies. By then, all
references to foreign companies had been
removed.

According to Zumach, only Germany had more
business ties to Iraq than the U.S. As many as 80
German companies are also listed in Iraq's
report. The paper reported that some German
companies continued to do business with Iraq
until last year.

Democracy Now! has published translations of
Andreas Zumach's articles from Die Tageszeitung
at
http://www.democracynow.org/Zumach.htm .

Democracy Now!'s interview with Andreas
Zumach is archived online - link at
http://www.democracynow.org/Zumach.htm