Don't trust Bush or Blair on Iraq

Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons in the past is repeatedly cited by the US and British governments as justification for his removal from power now. But just what was their response to his use of poison gas against Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s? Far from condemning his actions, they stepped up their support for Baghdad.
One of the most damning revelations to come out of the Scott inquiry into the arms-to-Iraq affair was the British government's secret decision to supply Saddam with even more weapons-related equipment after he shelled the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988 with gas bombs, killing an estimated 5,000 civilians and maiming thousands more. Saddam said he had punished the Kurds for "collaboration" after the town had been successfully attacked by Iran. The weapons were produced with German-supplied chemicals.

At the end of the Iraq-Iran war later that year, Sir Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary, drew up a paper entitled The Economic Consequences of the Peace. There were "major opportunities for British industry", he said. But he was terrified his plan to increase British arms exports to Iraq, secretly agreed by the government, would be leaked.

"It could look very cynical if so soon after expressing outrage about the treatment of the Kurds, we adopt a more flexible approach to arms sales," one of his officials told the Scott inquiry. The government's decision to change its policy, but keep MPs and the public in the dark, was even more cynical, replied Lord Scott.

As Whitehall turned a blind eye to exports to Baghdad of equipment which ministers and officials admitted could be used to produce chemical and nuclear weapons, Howe ordered his paper to be kept under wraps until, in the words of Ian Blackley, a senior Foreign Office diplomat, the "cloud had passed" - a reference to the attack on Halabja.

This cynicism and hypocrisy was matched only by the US. Soon after the attack, Washington approved the export to Iraq of virus cultures and a $1bn contract to design and build a petrochemical plant the Iraqis planned to use to produce mustard gas. And while the Reagan administration condemned the use of chemical weapons during the eight-year Iraq-Iran war, US officers were secretly supplying Iraqi generals with bomb-damage assessments and detailed information on Iranian troop deployments.

"The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern," Walter Lang, a former senior US defence intelligence officer, told the New York Times this week. Washington was worried about the threat of Iran spreading its Islamic revolution to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.