September 18, 2002
Build 'em Up; Knock 'em Down
Saddam is a Reagan administration creation
Newsweek got hold of some Commerce Department export-control documents that itemize how much booty the Reagan administration provided for aspiring dictator Saddam Hussein, including a computerized database for Saddam's Interior Ministry; helicopters; television cameras for 'video surveillance applications'; chemical-analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), and many shipments of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" to the IAEC, which could be used to make biological weapons, including anthrax. According to some American officials, the helicopters were used by Saddam to gas the Kurds. See MSNBCNow without having to ascribe any motive to anyone, we now have the U.S. going to war in the Middle East against a war machine that the U.S. government under Reagan in large part created. And it just happens that attacking Iraq happens to fit perfectly into a plan to dominate the Middle East. That is, the oil-dominated U.S. power structure has motive enough to attack Iraq without any provocation by Saddam. But foul as he is, Saddam's rise to power was facilitated by the U.S.
-- By David Cogswell