Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [23]
In August 2002, senior military officers revealed to The New York Times an even broader view of America’s aid. Our boys in D.C. thought it would be a grand idea to give the Iraqis intelligence information and battle-planning advice in the war against Iran, knowing full well that Iraq had used and would continue to use chemical weapons in these battles.
You see, the administration had made the decision that Iraq could not lose the Iran-Iraq war, and that they would do everything they could “legally” do to ensure that madman Saddam Hussein was victorious. Reagan went so far as to sign a national security directive backing this promise up.
In a 1995 sworn affidavit, the directive’s co-author and a member of Reagan’s National Security Council, Howard Teicher, revealed even more about America’s involvement:
CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war. Pursuant to the secured [National Security Directive], the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing U.S. military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third-country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.
One of those “third-country arms sales” was of particular interest. Imagine our shock when it was discovered that our good despotic friends the Saudis had “accidentally” transferred 300 American-made MK-84 2,000-pound bombs to Iraq. For the most part, though, Reagan’s handlers were smart enough to funnel weapons untraceably through other countries.
It wasn’t just his handlers who were getting involved. Reagan and Bush I decided to personally get their hands dirty. According to Teicher’s affidavit:
[I]n 1986, President Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein telling him that Iraq should step up its air war and bombing of Iran. This message was delivered by Vice President Bush who communicated it to Egyptian President Mubarak, who in turn passed the message to Saddam Hussein.
Even after Saddam used his weapons of mass destruction to gas his own people—an event Bush and his buddies are so totally offended by now, a decade and a half too late—the Reagan administration was unfazed. The United States Congress tried to put economic sanctions on Hussein’s country, but the White House quashed the idea. Their reasons? According to declassified State Department documents, economic sanctions might hurt America’s chances at contracts for “massive postwar reconstruction” once the Iran-Iraq war finally came to a close.
Weapons of mass destruction? Oh yeah, he had them at one time. All we had to do was check the receipts and count the profits as they rolled into the bank account of the campaign backers of Reagan and Bush.
#3 Whopper with Bacon: “Iraq has ties to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda!”
As if having the atomic bomb, nerve gas and the bubonic plague in a bottle wasn’t enough, suddenly Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with the Mother of All Terrorists himself, Osama bin Laden! I’m sure you had the same reaction I did when you heard: “How much worse can it get? When can we get rid of this Saddam guy?”
Just hours after the attacks on September 11, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had already figured out who was responsible, or at least, who he wanted to punish. According to CBS News, Rumsfeld wanted as much information as possible about the attacks, and told his fact-finding team to “go massive. . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” He already had intelligence indicating a connection to Osama (whom he called “Usama”), but he wanted more because he had other goals in mind. He wanted intelligence “good enough to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at the