The Covert Arming of Iraq

Iraqgate is the scandal by which the Reagan and the first Bush administration and government of then PM John Major of Britain sent the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in the 1980's and 1990's weapons and material that were used for Saddam's programs to develop chemical, nuclear, and chemical weapons.

press coverage of the Iraqgate scandal:

 * Russ Baker,"The Big One That Almost Got Away," the Columbia Journalism Review, March/April, 1993:

"ABC News Nightline opened last June 9 with words to make the heart stop. "It is becoming increasingly clear," said a grave Ted Koppel, "that George Bush, operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the United States ultimately had to destroy.

"Is this accurate? Just about every reporter following the story thinks so. Most say that the so-called Iraqgate scandal is far more significant then either Watergate or Iran-contra, both in its scope and its consequences. And all believe that, with investigations continuing, it is bound to get bigger.

"Why, then, have some of our top papers provided so little coverage? Certainly, if you watched Nightline or read the London Financial Times or the Los Angeles Times, you saw this monster grow. But if you studied the news columns of The Washington Post or, especially, The New York Times, you practically missed the whole thing. Those two papers were very slow to come to the story and, when they finally did get to it, their pieces all too frequently were boring, complicated,and short of the analysis readers required to fathom just what was going on. More to the point, they often ignored revelations by competitors.


 * David Shaw, Iraqgate: Case Study of A Story with Little Impact,", the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27, 1992:

"Eight months ago, the Los Angeles Times published the first in a continuing series of articles charging that the Bush Administration had secretly funneled several billion dollars worth of loan guarantees and military technology to Saddam Hussein from 1986 to 1990. Directly and indirectly, the stories said, this money and materiel gave Hussein the very weapons he later used against American and allied forces in the Persian Gulf War.

"The Times stories--many based on previously secret papers prepared by the Bush Administration--also alleged that the Administration tried to cover up what it had done by altering documents it supplied to Congress and by attempting to obstruct official investigations of aid to Iraq.

"The Times has now published more than 100 stories, totaling more than 90,000 words, on the scandal known as Iraqgate. Almost half these stories have appeared on Page 1. Although The Times "got a good chunk of the story first," as William Safire wrote in a New York Times column, many other news organizations--print and broadcast--have also pursued it. But even though 1992 is an election year and President Bush has proven vulnerable on other grounds, Iraqgate has had negligible impact on the national political scene.

"Shortly after The Times stories began running, Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Banking Committee, cited them in calling for congressional hearings on Iraqgate. Gonzalez, who had been investigating the role in Iraqgate of the Atlanta branch of the Italian government-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavoro for more than a year, also read dozens of classified documents on Iraqgate into the Congressional Record.

"But the House was often near-empty when Gonzalez was reading, and Gonzalez was dismissed by many as "an amiable blowhard, a colorful character, and not as a serious exposer of wrongdoing, which is what he is," Safire says.

"There was no public outcry over Iraqgate similar to that which triggered the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations. When U.S. Atty. Gen. William P. Barr announced in August that he would not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether any laws were broken, the reaction, especially outside Washington, was barely perceptible. Only in recent weeks has the story spurred appreciable political activity, and even now, it does not seem to have had substantial impact on the general public.

"Why not?

"The myriad answers to that question make for an intriguing and revealing case study of both the journalistic and political processes..."


 * Robert Parry, "Iraqgate: Confession and Coverup" Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, March/April 1995:

"While the O.J. Simpson trial gobbled up endless TV hours and countless news pages, a concurrent criminal trial in Miami went almost unnoticed by the national media, even though it called into question the judgment of three U.S. presidents.

"President Clinton's Justice Department had put on trial Teledyne Industries, a major military contractor, and two of its mid-level employees, on charges of selling cluster-bomb parts to a Chilean arms manufacturer, Carlos Cardoen. Cardoen, in turn, allegedly shipped finished bombs to Iraq.

"Defense attorneys for the Teledyne employees argued that the CIA, as part of a secret operation that has come to be known as "Iraqgate," had authorized the shipments--a claim that the Reagan/Bush administration had long denied. Since taking office in 1993, the Clinton team has continued that GOP position, stating as recently as Jan. 16 that the administration "did not find evidence that U.S. agencies or officials illegally armed Iraq."

"But on Jan. 31, this bipartisan dike finally sprang a leak. Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, "authorized, approved and assisted" delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In These Times, 3/6/95).

"Teicher also described a still-secret National Security Decision Directive signed by President Reagan in June 1982 that set forth a U.S. policy of preventing Iraq from losing its war with Iran. "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," Teicher stated..."

Related Sourcewatch Pages:
Matrix Churchill

Gerald Bull

Iraqgate

Safa al Habobi

Origins of First Iraq War

Paul Henderson

prewar intelligence

Scott Inquiry

The Covert Arming of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and First Bush Administration