It's long, but do read this fascinating article from ZNet which gives a greater perspective on the events in Iraq...
A Saddam Chronology
Stephen R. Shalom
Saddam Hussein is one of the world's great monsters. Nothing would be
more welcome than to have him put on trial, a trial which could offer
Iraqis and the world an honest accounting of his many crimes. However,
as so often happens, when a trial is organized by those who are
themselves guilty of serious crimes, truth is not the goal. Instead the
historical record is falsified to make the one monster seem uniquely
blameworthy and the ones running the show above criticism.
We saw this pattern in the Tokyo trials following World War II, where
the crimes of Japanese officials were documented in gruesome detail
(except for the biological warfare programs, which Washington wanted to
use for itself and except for the involvement of the emperor, who was to
serve U.S. purposes during the occupation), while the crimes of the
victors, such as the horrific fire-bombing raids and the destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were disregarded. Likewise, Panamanian ruler
Manual Noriega was a thug who certainly belonged in the dock. But when
the U.S. military invaded Panama in violation of international law and
seized him for trial in the United States, there was no intention by the
kidnappers that the trial be a forum for revealing the long-time ties
between Noriega and the U.S. government, and particularly between
Noriega and former CIA director George H. W. Bush.
It is a matter of principle in Washington that Americans not be held to
the same international standards as others. Thus, the U.S. refuses to
endorse the International Criminal Court and demands that its allies
give up their right to invoke the jurisdiction of the court when U.S.
citizens are involved. But those of us who truly care about justice
ought to demand that Saddam Hussein be tried before a court that is in
no way subject to U.S. control or manipulation. Only in that way can the
real truth come out.
Already, however, much of the media is falling into line in framing the
crimes of Saddam Hussein. For example, the Washington Post website
offered a summary of "Events in the Life of Saddam Hussein" from the
Associated Press. But the chronology was seriously incomplete. Below is
that chronology, corrected to include -- indented and in brackets --
some of the most serious omissions.
Sunday, December 14, 2003; 8:34 AM
A glance at the life of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein:
April 28, 1937 -- Born in village near desert town of Tikrit, north of
Baghdad.
1957 -- Joins underground Baath Socialist Party.
1958 -- Arrested for killing his brother-in-law, a Communist, spends six
months in prison.
Oct. 7, 1959 -- On Baath assassination team that ambushes Iraqi
strongman Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem in Baghdad, wounding him. Saddam,
wounded in leg, flees to Syria then Egypt.
[This was not the only attempt to assassinate Kassem. In April 1960, the
CIA approved using a poisoned handkerchief to kill Kassem. The
"handkerchief was duly dispatched to Kassem, but whether or not it ever
reached him, it certainly did not kill him." (Thomas Powers, The Man Who
Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA, New York: Knopf, 1979, p.
130.)]
Feb. 8, 1963 -- Returns from Egypt after Baath takes part in coup that
overthrows and kills Kassem. Baath ousted by military in November.
[The coup was backed by the CIA.
"As its instrument the C.I.A. had chosen the authoritarian and
anti-Communist Baath Party, in 1963 still a relatively small political
faction influential in the Iraqi Army. According to the former Baathist
leader Hani Fkaiki, among party members colluding with the C.I.A. in
1962 and 1963 was Saddam Hussein....
"According to Western scholars, as well as Iraqi refugees and a British
human rights organization, the 1963 coup was accompanied by a bloodbath.
Using lists of suspected Communists and other leftists provided by the
C.I.A., the Baathists systematically murdered untold numbers of Iraq's
educated elite -- killings in which Saddam Hussein himself is said to
have participated. No one knows the exact toll, but accounts agree that
the victims included hundreds of doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers
and other professionals as well as military and political figures."
(Roger Morris, "A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making," New York Times, March
14, 2003, p. A29.)]
July 17, 1968 -- Baathists and army officers overthrow regime.
["Again, this coup, amid more factional violence, came with C.I.A.
backing. Serving on the staff of the National Security Council under
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon in the late 1960's, I often heard
C.I.A. officers -- including Archibald Roosevelt, grandson of Theodore
Roosevelt and a ranking C.I.A. official for the Near East and Africa at
the time -- speak openly about their close relations with the Iraqi
Baathists." (Morris, "A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making," p. A29.)]
July 30, 1968 -- Takes charge of internal security after Baath ousts
erstwhile allies and authority passes to Revolutionary Command Council
under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, Saddam's cousin.
[From 1973-75, the United States, Iran, and Israel supported a Kurdish
insurgency in Iraq. Documents examined by the U.S. House Select
Committee on Intelligence "clearly show that the President, Dr.
Kissinger and the [Shah] hoped that our clients [the Kurds] would not
prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a
level of hostilities sufficient to sap [Iraqi] resources.... This policy
was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue
fighting. Even in the context of covert action, ours was a cynical
enterprise." Then, in 1975, the Shah and Saddam Hussein of Iraq signed
an agreement giving Iran territorial concessions in return for Iran's
closing its border to Kurdish guerrillas. Teheran and Washington
promptly cut off their aid to the Kurds and, while Iraq massacred the
rebels, the United States refused them asylum. Kissinger justified this
U.S. policy in closed testimony: "covert action should not be confused
with missionary work." (U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee
on Intelligence, 19 Jan. 1976 [Pike Report] in Village Voice, 16 Feb.
1976, pp. 85, 87n465, 88n471. The Pike Report attributes the last quote
only to a "senior official"; William Safire, Safire's Washington, New
York: Times Books, 1980, p. 333, identifies the official as Kissinger.)]
July 16, 1979 -- Takes over as president from al-Bakr, launches massive
purge of Baath.
[In the late 1970s, Saddam also purged the Iraqi Communist Party and
other oppositionists. (Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq
Since 1958, London: I. B. Tauris, 1990, pp. 182-87) "We see no
fundamental incompatibility of interests between the United States and
Iraq," declared U.S. National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in
April 1980. (Quoted in Barry Rubin, "The United States and Iraq: From
Appeasement to War," in Iraq's Road to War, ed. Amatzia Baram and Barry
Rubin, New York: St. Martin's 1993, p. 256.)]
Sept. 22, 1980 -- Sends forces into Iran; war last eight years.
[When Iraq invaded Iran, the United Nations Security Council waited four
days before holding a meeting. On September 28, it passed Resolution 479
calling for an end to the fighting, but which significantly did not
condemn (nor even mention) the Iraqi aggression and did not demand a
return to internationally recognized boundaries. As Ralph King, who has
studied the UN response in detail, concluded, "The Council more or less
deliberately ignored Iraq's actions in September 1980." The U.S.
delegate noted that Iran, which had itself violated Security Council
resolutions on the U.S. embassy hostages, could hardly complain about
the Council's lackluster response. (R.P.H. King, "The United Nations and
the IranIraq War, 19801986," in The United Nations and the IranIraq War,
ed. Brian Urquhart and Gary Sick, New York: Ford Foundation, August
1987.)
Despite the fact that Iraq had been the aggressor in this war and that
Iraq was the first to use chemical weapons, the first to launch air
attacks on cities, and the initiator of the tanker war, the United
States tilted toward Iraq. The U.S. removed Iraq from its list of
terrorist states in 1982, sent Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad as Reagan's
envoy to meet with Saddam Hussein in 1983 and 1984 to discuss economic
cooperation, re-established diplomatic relations in November 1984, made
available extensive loans and subsidies, provided intelligence
information, encouraged its allies to arm Iraq, and engaged in military
actions in the Persian Gulf against Iran. The United States also
provided dual-use equipment that it knew Iraq was using for military
purposes. (See Joyce Battle, ed., "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984," National Security Archive
Electronic Briefing Book No. 82, Feb. 25, 2003,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/.)]
March 28, 1988 -- Uses chemical weapons against Kurdish town of Halabja,
killing estimated 5,000 civilians.
[From Iraq's first use of chemical weapons in 1983, the U.S. took a very
restrained view. When the evidence of Iraqi use of these weapons could
no longer be denied, the U.S. issued a mild condemnation, but made clear
that this would have no effect on commercial or diplomatic relations
between the United States and Iraq. Iran asked the Security Council to
condemn Iraq's chemical weapons use, but the U.S. delegate to the U.N.
was instructed to try to prevent a resolution from coming to a vote, or
else to abstain. An Iraqi official told the U.S. that Iraq strongly
preferred a Security Council presidential statement to a resolution and
did not want any specific country identified as responsible for chemical
weapons use. On March 30, 1984, the Security Council issued a
presidential statement condemning the use of chemical weapons, without
naming Iraq as the offending party. (Battle,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/.)
At the same time that the U.S. government had knowledge of that the
Iraqi military was using chemical weapons, it was providing intelligence
and planning assistance to the Iraqi armed forces. (Patrick Tyler,
"Officers Say U.S. Aided Iraq In War Despite Use Of Gas," New York
Times, Aug. 18, 2002, p. 1.)
When Iraq used chemical weapons in March 1988 against Halabja, there was
no condemnation from Washington. (Dilip Hiro, "When US turned a blind
eye to poison gas," The Observer, September 1, 2002, p. 17.) "In
September 1988, the House of Representatives voted 388 to 16 in favor of
economic sanctions against Iraq, but the White House succeeded in having
the Senate water down the proposal. In exchange for Export-Import Bank
credits, Iraq merely had to promise not to use chemical weapons again,
with agricultural credits exempted even from this limited requirement."
(Rubin, "The United States and Iraq: From Appeasement to War," p. 261.)]
Aug. 2, 1990 -- Invades Kuwait.
[The chronology omits one of Saddam Hussein's most egregious atrocities,
his Anfal campaign against the Kurds from 1987-89, in which at least
50,000 and possibly 100,000 Kurds were systematically slaughtered.
(Middle East Watch, Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the
Kurds, New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993.)
The response of the new Bush administration was to increase Iraq's
commodity credits from half a billion to a billion dollars, making it
the second largest user of the credit program in the world. As late as
April 1990, the administration was opposing sanctions against Iraq
("They would hurt U.S. exporters and worsen our trade deficit," said the
State Department). (Guy Gugliotta, Charles R. Babcock, and Benjamin
Weiser, "At War, Iraq Courted U.S. Into Economic Embrace," Washington
Post, Sept. 16, 1990, p. A1.) The administration also blocked efforts to
cut back high-tech exports to Iraq with obvious military applications.
(Douglas Frantz and Murray Waas, "Bush insisted on aiding Iraq until
war's onset," Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 23, 1992, p. 17.) And the United
States was providing intelligence data to Iraq until three months before
the invasion. (Murray Waas, Douglas Frantz, "U.S. shared intelligence
with Iraq until 3 months before invasion of Kuwait," Houston Chronicle,
March 10, 1992, p. A6.)]
Jan. 17, 1991 -- Attacked by U.S.-led coalition; Kuwait liberated in a
month.
[As part of the U.S.-led attack, the civilian infrastructure of Iraq was
intentionally targeted (Barton Gellman, "Allied Air War Struck Broadly
in Iraq; Officials Acknowledge Strategy Went Beyond Purely Military
Targets," Washington Post, 23 June 1991, p. A1; Thomas J. Nagy, "The
Secret Behind the Sanctions," Progressive, Sept. 2001), which together
with more than a decade of economic sanctions would lead to hundreds of
thousands of excess deaths. (See Richard Garfield, "Morbidity and
Mortality Among Iraqi Children From 1990 through 1998: Assessing the
Impact of the Gulf War and Economic Sanctions," March 1999,
http://www.fourthfreedom.org/php/t-si-index.php?hinc=garf-index.hinc.)]
March, 1991 -- Crushes Shiite revolt in south and Kurd revolt in north.
[After urging Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein, the U.S. denied
the rebels access to captured Iraqi weapons and allowed Saddam Hussein
to use his helicopters to slaughter the insurgents as U.S. aircraft
circled overhead. (Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the
Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, New York: Harperperennial.
1999, chap. 1.)]
April 17, 1991 -- Complying with U.N. Resolution 687, starts providing
information on weapons of mass destruction, but accused of cheating.
Feb. 20, 1996 -- Orders killing of two sons-in-law who in 1995 defected
to Jordan and had just returned to Baghdad after receiving guarantees of
safety.
Dec. 16, 1998 -- Weapons inspectors withdrawn from Iraq. Hours later,
four days of U.S.-British air and missile strikes begin as punishment
for lack of cooperation.
[The bombing was conducted without Security Council approval and without
consultations with allies. The withdrawal of the inspectors was ordered
by Richard Butler, the head of UNSCOM. "France was also annoyed with
Washington for getting Mr. Butler to pull out his inspectors from Iraq
without discussion with the Security Council." U.S. Secretary of State
"Albright did not speak with Secretary General Kofi Annan at the United
Nations, officials said. Mr. Annan issued a personal statement, calling
this 'a sad day' for the world and 'me personally,' because of his
failure to avert the use of force." (Steven Erlanger, "U.S. Decision to
Act Fast, and Then Search for Support, Angers Some Allies," New York
Times, Dec. 17, 1998, p. A14.)]
Nov. 8, 2002 -- Threatened with "serious consequences" if he does not
disarm in U.N. Security Council resolution.
Nov. 27, 2002 -- Allows U.N. experts to begin work in Iraq for first
time since 1998.
Dec. 7, 2002 -- Delivers to United Nations declaration denying Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction; later, United States says declaration is
untruthful and United Nations says it is incomplete.
March 1, 2003 -- United Arab Emirates, at an Arab League summit, becomes
first Arab nation to propose publicly that Saddam step down.
March 7 -- United States, Britain and Spain propose ordering Saddam to
give up banned weapons by March 17 or face war; other nations led by
France on polarized U.N. Security Council oppose any new resolution that
would authorize military action.
March 17 -- United States, Britain and Spain declare time for diplomacy
over, withdraw proposed resolution. President Bush gives Saddam 48 hours
to leave Iraq.
[Actually, U.S. officials made clear that U.S. troops would enter Iraq
whether or not Saddam and his sons left the country. (Michael R. Gordon,
"Allies Will Move In, Even if Saddam Hussein Moves Out," New York Times,
March 18, 2003, p. A16.)]
March 18 -- Iraq's leadership rejects Bush's ultimatum.
["On the eve of war, Iraq publicly offered unlimited access for American
and British weapons hunters." (David Rennie, "Saddam 'offered Bush a
huge oil deal to avert war'," Daily Telegraph [London], Nov. 7, 2003, p.
17) And privately Iraq went well beyond this. In several back-channel
contacts with U.S. officials, Iraq offered the U.S. "direct U.S.
involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq," oil concessions, the
turn-over of a wanted terrorist, cooperation on the Israeli-Palestinian
peace-process, and even internationally-supervised elections within two
years. (James Risen, "Iraq Said to Have Tried to Reach Last-Minute Deal
to Avert War," New York Times, Nov. 6, 2003, p. A1) One doesn't know
where these offers may have led, since they were rejected by the U.S.:
"A US intelligence source insisted that the decision not to negotiate
came from the White House, which was demanding complete surrender.
According to an Arab source, [a U.S. intermediary] sent a Saudi official
a set of requirements he believed Iraq would have to fulfill. Those
demands included Saddam's abdication and departure, first to a US
military base for interrogation and then into supervised exile, a
surrender of Iraqi troops, and the admission that Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction. (Julian Borger, Brian Whitaker, and Vikram Dodd
"Saddam's desperate offers to stave off war," Guardian, Nov. 7, 2003, p.
3.)]
March 20 -- U.S. forces open war with military strike on Dora Farms, a
target south of Baghdad where Saddam and his sons are said to be. Saddam
appears on Iraqi television later in the day.
April 4 -- Iraqi television shows video of Saddam walking a Baghdad
street.
April 7 -- U.S. warplanes bomb a section of the Mansour district in
Baghdad where Saddam and his sons were said to be meeting.
April 9 -- Jubilant crowds greet U.S. troops in Baghdad, go on looting
rampages, topple 40-foot statue of Saddam.
July 22 -- Saddam's sons, Qusai and Odai, killed in gunbattle with U.S.
troops. American forces then raid the northern city of Mosul and later
say they missed Saddam "by a matter of hours."
July 27 -- U.S. troops raid three farms in Tikrit. Again, officials
later say they missed Saddam by 24 hours.
July 31 -- Two of Saddam's daughters, Raghad and Rana, and their nine
children are given asylum by Jordan's King Abdullah II.
[That they would need asylum follows from the U.S. policy of detaining
family members of those they are seeking, in violation of elementary
standards of justice. ("The arrest of close relatives of fugitive regime
members has been used by US forces in the past both as a way to gather
intelligence - through interrogation - and to put emotional pressure on
the hunted men to surrender." Colin Nickerson, "US Troops Detain Wife,
Daughter Of Key Hussein Aide Ex-Deputy Suspected Of Plotting Attacks In
Iraqi Insurgency," Boston Globe, Nov. 27, 2003, p. A40.)]
Sept. 5 -- Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno of the 4th Infantry Division says his
troops have captured several of Saddam's former bodyguards in the Tikrit
area in the past month and may be closing in on the deposed Iraqi
dictator.
Nov. 16 -- The last of nine tapes attributed to Saddam Hussein since he
was removed from power is released. It tells Iraqis to step up their
resistance to the U.S.-led occupation, saying the United States and its
allies misjudged the difficulty of occupying Iraq.
[It didn't take a genius to note that "the United States and its allies
misjudged the difficulty of occupying Iraq."]
Dec. 13 -- Saddam is captured at 8:30 p.m. in the town of Adwar, 10
miles south of Tikrit. He is hiding in a specially prepared "spider
hole."