On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 21:52:18 -0500, Scott MacEachern
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 16:30:40 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
"tw" wrote:

You know, people keep claiming that "supported him for so long" bit,
when all that happened was a short-term information trade during the war
with Iran, along with some sales of a few small helicopters (cancelled
after they started using them for non-civilian purposes)

Forty Bell 214STs and approximately 85 Hughes 300s and 500s were
delivered to Iraq, and were in service just before GW1. That's hardly
'a few small helicopters'.

So you are saying that we sold _civilian_ helicopters to Iraq that
were later converted to military use. You apparently are ignoring the
fact that we ceased selling them helicopters when they began
converting them to military use.

Now please compare this practice with the behavior of the European
nations.

Nicely chosen wording.... the reconnaissance data that America
provided to Iraq was being provided at the time that Iraq was using
chemical weapons against _Iran_. You might note as well that Mark
Pythian, in his book _Arming Iraq_ says that a number of the 214s were
used in the gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja.

I have a question - why are you singling out the US for this
criticism? If you have a problem with the countries that armed Iraq -
shouldn't you be spending all of your time complaining about France,
Germany, Belgium, Russia, China, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Romania,
Hungary, etc?

For example, when it was discovered that Iraq was making chemical
weapons the US immediately banned the sale of any chemicals or
equipment that could be used in their manufacture. It did not do any
good as France and Germany _knowingly_ became suppliers to make up the
lack.

Your priorities are a little out of whack. (Or is it only wrong if
the US does it?)



"...there is always a well-known solution to every
human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong."
H. L. Mencken