I know how MOFO likes to go off by saying that the US armed Saddam Hussein. It's just not true. Prove it, you cant.

Let me show you a graph of who really armed Saddam

http://www.thedissidentfrogman.com/common/kicks/saddamgraph.gif

The source (http://projects.sipri.se/armstrade/atirq_data.html) for that is fairly interesting reading, you get to see the notes and exceptions that have, for some reason (as I'm sure the person who wrote that wasn't biased in anyway), not been mentioned on the chart;

The first file provides SIPRI Trend Indicator Values for major conventional weapons transfered to Iraq expressed in US $m. at constant (1990) prices for the period 1973-2002.
In other words, it only includes things like helecopters, tanks and other standard military hardware. No-one is denying that the Iraqi military was composed mainly of USSR weaponary, it is the weapons of mass destruction that people say were sold to Iraq by the US, UK and France (I think they have been mentioned as suppliers aswell but that could just have been conventional weapons not WMDs). Remember that once Sadam was an ally to America so they may, or may not (I am not commiting to either side on this one, before you start complaining I am bad mouthing the USA again), have sold him WMDs in the hope he could use them (in intimidation) to control any Middle East rogue states that got out of hand.

I think Saddam is a punk as much as anyone else, and cant say I agree with some of the reasoning here, but its pretty much a given that the U.S. helped Saddam with weapons in particular during their war with Iran. That said, obviously we didn't realize at the time what would come of that.

I think this article (http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2002/506/506p12.htm) is worth a read too.

A little snippet of the article;
A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a “witch's brew” of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.

The report also noted that US exports to Iraq included the precursors to chemical warfare agents, plans for chemical and biological warfare facilities and chemical warhead filling equipment. US firms supplied advanced and specialised computers, lasers, testing and analysing equipment. Among the better-known companies were Hewlett Packard, Unisys, Data General and Honeywell.

Well of cource you're gonna trust a news source called

GREEN LEFT

how more biased can you get?


maybe SOCIALIST LEFT?

Well of cource you're gonna trust a news source called

GREEN LEFT

how more biased can you get?


maybe SOCIALIST LEFT?
Considering the chart was produced by a man whose other works include the article "Hippy Zombies Must Die" (refering to anti-war protestors) I think there are more biased sources :p

Also, he calls himself the "Dissident Frogman" so by definition he is against his home country's policies and opinions (which are anti war) no matter the arguments involve; whatever the state policy, they are wrong to him.

yeah he made it
but the information is from a bipartisan think tank


(if you know what that is)

I have already explained that the data he used was not suited for the argument, the data was for conventional weapons only, Frogman was implying it was all of Iraq's imports.

I'm sure a lot of different nations pitched in and let Saddam have a little of this and a little of that, so I don't think you can say just one or two countries have given him the lions share of chemical weaponry and/or how to manuals on the stuff.

Is the color code at the bottom supposed to be sarcastic or something?