Is It True We Didn't Give Saddam Any Chemical WEAPONS?

Question

I recently read that we never actually gave Saddam Chemical WEAPONS (emphasis weapons), that we, in fact, only gave the cure to chemical weapons that Iran was believed to have possesed and Saddam and Chemical Ali simply reverse engineered them.

Is this true? If you answer "yes" or "no" please provide SCHOLARLY (meaning no wikipedia or .com sites guys) proof.

Thank you.

I have no scholarly proof for or against, that's why I am asking. Personally, I alwasy heard that WE armed Saddam and generally believed it. Just looking for enlightenment (hence the request for SCHOLARLY proof, not some left/right wing BS)

What I have gathered thus far.

A letter from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, which I
shall submit for the Record, shows very clearly that the United States
is, in fact, preparing to reap what it has sewn. A letter written in
1995 by former CDC Director David Satcher to former Senator Donald W.
Riegle, Jr., points out that the U.S. Government provided nearly two
dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples
that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly
diseases were shipped to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education, along with two batches of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, the agent that causes deadly botulism poisoning.

One batch each of salmonella and E coli were shipped to the Iraqi State Company for Drug Industries on August 31, 1987. Other shipments went from the US to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission on July 11, 1988; the Department of Biology at the University of Basrah in November 1989; the Department of Microbiology at Baghdad University in June 1985; the Ministry of Health in April 1985

Classified US Defense Department documents also seen by the Sunday Herald show that Britain sold Iraq the drug pralidoxine, an antidote to nerve gas, in March 1992, after the end of the Gulf war. Pralidoxine can be reverse engineered to create nerve gas.

Answer 1

I don't believe we ever supplied Saddam with chemical weapons...............

Answer 2

I have read two ex-CIA agent's reports/lectures that basically said:

The truth is, all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halabja. We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabja story.

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. . . .

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. . . .

The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time.

Answer 3

Iraqi chemical weapons used in the past were artillery rounds.

Iraqi artillery was acquired from the Warsaw Pact, i.e., 122mm howitzers, 152mm howitzers, and Russian-style rockets of various sizes.

The only munitions which could have been fired would have had to have been from the same sources.

American howitzers are 105mm, 155mm, and eight-inch, respectively.

The known Iraqi attacks followed Russian military doctrine.

The conclusion? Iraqi techniques and supplies were Warsaw Pact.

wsulliva

Answer 4

I think the answer is Yes

The U.S. Government provided nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples to Iraqi scientists in 1985--samples that included the plague, botulism, and anthrax, among other deadly
diseases.

Answer 5

The Reagan administration through Donald Rumsfeld sold Chemical weapons to Saddam. No getting around it:

This was first published by the Sunday Herald in Scotland:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52241-2002Dec29?language=printer

http://hnn.us/articles/1283.html

http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/02.20.03/iraq-0308.html

Answer 6

This whole idea that Saddam Hussein got his chemical weapons from the US government is just a propaganda lie. Chemical weapons have been around since World War I. They are off-the-shelf technology which Saddam was trying to supplement with his own research that he financed through the Oil-for-Food program.

Oil-for-Food program was established on April 14, 1995 by Security Council Resolution 986. Saddam diverted billions of Oil-for-Food dollars that was supposed to go to pay for food and medicine for his people to purchase weapons and finance development a chemical and nuclear weapon program. His primary supplier of weapons and technology came from France, Germany and the Russians not from America. He also used this money to pay bribes to his co-conspirators in the UN, France, Germany and the Russian Federation.

http://file5.com/search/oil-for-food-%22Saddam-Hussein%22-chemical-OR-weapons/1-1.html
.

Answer 7

Actually, yes. If you go to Sipri.Org, they have done a very nice job of documenting who provided Saddam with all of his weaponry, both conventional and non-conventional. His chemical weapons were largely made with the help of Russia and Germany, with additional help from places like France, Italy, Singapore, and Brazil. The USA supplied almost nothing that contributed to his chemical weapons. The stuff that Iraqwatch.com claims was proof of USA contributing was most likely used in the oil fields, not as part of this WMD program.

The USA ranked about even with Denmark as far as overall arming of Iraq, and that includes the amounts from relaxation of IMF loans, not actual arms deals.

We didn't give Iran anything, other than some backdoor F-14 parts and the stuff from Iran Contra (I think it was some Stingers that were of the most note).

Edit: No shortage of nitwits here, is there? I would invite all of those who claim Reagan and Rumsfeld contributed anything to Saddams chemical weapons programs to visit the site and learn something instead of just spewing the same false crap over and over again.

Answer 8

When Bush, the other one, was CIA director, we supported Hussein's push agianst Iran. We supplied him with chemicals that could be processed into nerve gas, according to a documentary on PBS from a few years ago.

Answer 9

I would have to believe that we didn't sell him the weapons themselves, but we did sell him the equipment and materials necessary to make the weapons with the knowledge that he was intending to make them. This would make sense because the United States can claim that we never sold him any chemical weapons, even though we sold him the equipment necessary to make them. I have no scholarly proof to back this up, it is just my own idea.

Answer 10

I see that the 'reverse engineering' done by the Republican party has gotten to you. The pictures of Rumsfeld kissing Saddam's **** was not another Liberal lie....

No... America armed Saddam, like they did the Muhhajedin who are now the Taleban, led by a certain Osama bin Laden... and we can not get away from the facts.

Answer 11

The chemicals were supplied by a Dutch businessman. He's in prison.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201286.html