Rumsfeld's Iraq overture.ITEM: A headline in the December December: see month. 19, 2003 Washington Post proclaimed pro·claim tr.v. pro·claimed, pro·claim·ing, pro·claims 1. To announce officially and publicly; declare. See Synonyms at announce. 2. : "Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 To Reassure re·as·sure tr.v. re·as·sured, re·as·sur·ing, re·as·sures 1. To restore confidence to. 2. To assure again. 3. To reinsure. Iraqis, Documents Show." A very telling subtitle sub·ti·tle n. 1. A secondary, usually explanatory title, as of a literary work. 2. A printed translation of the dialogue of a foreign-language film shown at the bottom of the screen. tr.v. added: "Trip Followed Criticism of Chemical Arms' Use." The article began: Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States' public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not derail Washington's attempts to forge a better relationship, according to newly declassified documents. ITEM: The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times for December 23, 2003 published a similar story, headlined "Rumsfeld Made Iraq Overture overture, instrumental musical composition written as an introduction to an opera, ballet, oratorio, musical, or play. The earliest Italian opera overtures were simply pieces of orchestral music and were called sinfonie. in '84 Despite Chemical Raids." The story stated: As a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons, newly declassified documents show.... During [the Iran-Iraq] war, the United States secretly provided Iraq with combat planning assistance, even after Mr. Hussein's use of chemical weapons was widely known. AHEAD OF THE CURVE: Shortly before Christmas 2003, the nation's "prestige press" were all atwitter a·twit·ter adj. Being in a state of nervous excitement; twittering: a crowd atwitter with expectation. about supposedly new information concerning Donald Rumsfeld's 1984 trip to Baghdad as a special envoy envoy: see diplomatic service. Envoy - Motorola's integrated personal wireless communicator. Envoy is a personal digital assistant which incorporates two-way wireless and wireline communication. of Secretary of State George Shultz and President Reagan. More recent subscribers to this magazine are most likely unaware (and veteran readers may have forgotten) that we have covered this issue several times over the years--and have provided considerably more detail and context than the recent stories about the new "revelations." In a March 30, 1998 article, "Arming Saddam," for instance, senior editor William Norman Grigg William Norman Grigg is a writer of Mexican and Irish descent.[1] He was the senior editor and a prolific contributor to The New American, the official magazine of the John Birch Society. reported:
In fact, secret deals had been struck
between Iraq and the U.S. foreign
policy establishment in 1983. Even as
the Soviets were nurturing Iraq's embryonic
chemical and biological
weapons program, the U.S. State Department
was making its own overtures
to Saddam. With the help of an
obscure U.S. Department of Agriculture
program, an equally obscure Atlanta
branch of an Italian bank, and
the involuntary assistance of the U.S.
taxpayers, the foreign policy establishment
helped Saddam build his
war machine, including his weapons
of mass destruction.
In 1982, as a prelude to the U.S.
"tilt" toward Iraq in its war with Iran,
the State Department dropped Iraq
from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.
As Alan Friedman points out
in his expose Spider's Web, this move
meant that "Baghdad would now be
eligible for American government
loan guarantees" and that covert operatives
in the U.S. intelligence community
"now had political cover to go
ahead with their plans to provide U.S.
equipment to Iraq, albeit by way of
unofficial channels."
On December 17, 1983--shortly
after the Soviets had agreed to help
build Saddam's CBW capacity--presidential
envoy Donald Rumsfeld
visited Baghdad bearing a handwritten
letter from President Reagan to
Saddam. "In it Reagan offered to
renew diplomatic relations and to expand
military and business ties with
Baghdad," reports Friedman. Shortly
thereafter the U.S. began to extend
taxpayer-backed loan guarantees to
Iraq. In 1984, for example, the U.S.
Export-Import Bank (Eximbank) extended
a $500 million loan guarantee
to Iraq to build the Aqaba oil pipeline
--a project that enjoyed the personal
attention of then-Vice President
George Bush.
But Eximbank subsidies were too
visible to serve as a means of underwriting
Iraq's war machine. So the
foreign policy establishment selected
an obscure Agriculture Department
program known as the Commodity
Credit Corporation (CCC). "As relations
between the United States and
Iraq began to thaw in 1983 and 1984,
the White House sliced Iraq a giant
piece of the CCC pie," explains Peter
Mantius in his book Shell Game. "Between
1983 and early 1990, Iraq received
$4.98 billion in farm loan
guarantees from the CCC." Iraq is almost
entirely dependent upon agricultural
imports, and its war with Iran
exacerbated this dependency. As Judith
Miller and Laurie Mylroie point
out, "The CCC credits were important
to an increasingly cash-starved
[Iraq]. Under the program, Baghdad
had three years to repay the loans, and
if Iraq defaulted, the U.S. government
would be obligated to pay off the debt
itself"--by extorting the requisite
sum from the taxpayers, of course.
In an October 21, 2002 article entitled en·ti·tle tr.v. en·ti·tled, en·ti·tling, en·ti·tles 1. To give a name or title to. 2. To furnish with a right or claim to something: "Building the Beast of Baghdad," Mr. Grigg again reported on Rumsfeld's Baghdad mission. "The foreign aid floodgates opened for Iraq shortly after Rumsfeld's December 1983 visit to Baghdad," he noted. "In 1984, the U.S. Export-Import Bank Export-import Bank (Ex-IM Bank) The U.S. federal government agency that extends trade credits to U.S. companies to facilitate the financing of U.S. exports. (Eximbank) provided a $500 million loan guarantee to Iraq to build the Aqaba oil pipeline, a project that earned the personal attention of then-Vice President George H.W. Bush Noun 1. George H.W. Bush - vice president under Reagan and 41st President of the United States (born in 1924) George Herbert Walker Bush, President Bush, George Bush, Bush . But even more prodigious pro·di·gious adj. 1. Impressively great in size, force, or extent; enormous: a prodigious storm. 2. Extraordinary; marvelous: a prodigious talent. 3. amounts of aid flowed from Washington to Baghdad via the Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC CCC A very speculative grade assigned to a debt obligation by a rating agency. Such a rating indicates default or considerable doubt that interest will be paid or principal repaid. Also called Caa. )...." |
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