IRAQ - Iraqi Oil To Aqaba.

The pipeline to Zarqa is only the first phase of a big project promoted in 1982-83 by Bechtel of the US and backed by the Reagan administration. That was planned to end at Jordan's port of Aqaba and to have a capacity of 1m b/d initially and up to 2m b/d eventually.

The man from the Reagan team who in 1983 met with and tried to persuade Saddam to have that project built was Donald Rumsfeld. He is now serving in the administration of President George W. Bush as secretary of defence.

If Iraq is to be invaded and developed on a maximum scale, the project to the Gulf of Aqaba could raise Iraq's export capacity to 8.85m b/d within less than 30 months of work on fast-track basis. If Iraq's deep-water facilities in the Gulf are expanded to handle 6.5m b/d - as was proposed in Baghdad when Saddam was the darling of some powerful Americans - then the country's actual oil exports could exceed 12m b/d before 2010.

The Bush War Aims - How Serious: In recent weeks there have been leaks to the American media which tend to point, despite promises that the Middle East will be democratised and made prosperous, to the risk of the US making a mess of Iraq and the surrounding regions. There are also indications that some members of the Bush administration may have once helped cause the things or behaviour which the US now wants to fight against.

Joost R. Hiltermann - Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group preparing a book on US policy towards Iraq with partial support from the Open Society Institute and the MacArthur Foundation - wrote this in the International Herald Tribune of Nov. 29: "In warning against a possible Iraqi chemical or biological strike against US troops...Rumsfeld remarked last week that 'there's a danger that Saddam Hussein would do things he's done previously - he has in the past used chemical weapons'.

"Declassified State Department documents show that when he had an opportunity to raise the issue of chemical weapons with the Iraqi leadership in 1983, he... may well have given a signal to the Iraqis that the United States would close its eyes to Iraq's use of chemical weapons during its war with Iran, providing an early boost to Iraq's plans to develop weapons of mass destruction. As President Ronald Reagan's special envoy for the Middle East, Rumsfeld in December 1983 made the first visit by a US official of his seniority to Baghdad, where he met President Saddam Hussein and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.

"Iraq had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States in June 1967. Now both sides hoped that the talks in Baghdad would facilitate a resumption of formal ties. The visit came at a time when Iraq was facing Iranian 'human wave' assaults that posed a serious threat to the regime. In response, Iraq had started to use chemical weapons on the battlefield - primarily mustard gas, a blister agent that can kill. This was known in Washington at least as early as October 1983...

"As talking points and minutes of the meetings show, the aim of Rumsfeld's mission was to inform the Iraqi leadership of America's shifting policy in the Middle East. It was also intended to explore a proposal to run an oil pipeline from Iraq to the Jordanian port of Aqaba (a US business interest involving Bechtel), and to caution the Iraqis not to escalate the war in the Gulf through air strikes against Iranian oil facilities and tankers (which Washington feared might draw the US into the war).

"There is no indication that Rumsfeld raised US concerns about Iraq's use of poison gas with Saddam Hussein. But in a private meeting with Tariq Aziz, he made a single brief reference to 'certain things' that made it difficult for the United States to do more to help Iraq. These things included 'chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf, and human rights'.

"There is no record of further discussion of chemical weapons or human rights at these meetings, which covered the length and breadth of the warming relationship. Rumsfeld did, however, place considerable emphasis on the need for Iraq to prevent an escalation in the Gulf conflict via attacks on Iranian oil installations and tankers. Certainly nothing suggests that he told the Iraqi leadership to take care of "certain things" before diplomatic relations could be restored. The senior US diplomat in Baghdad reported a few days later with evident delight that 'Ambassador Rumsfeld's visit has elevated US-Iraqi relations to a new level'. But, he noted, 'during and following the Rumsfeld visit we have received no commitment from the Iraqis that they will refrain from military moves toward escalation in the Gulf'.

"The record of the war suggests that, flush with their new confidence in US backing, the Iraqis may have felt that they were now less restrained. They attacked Iranian oil facilities and ended up drawing the United States into the war, in 1987.

"In the first Iranian offensive after Rumsfeld's visit, in February 1984, Iraq used not only large amounts of mustard gas but also the highly lethal nerve agent tabun. It was the first recorded use of the nerve agent in history. In November 1984, shortly after Reagan's re-election, diplomatic relations between Washington and Baghdad were restored".