The real poop
About U.S. support and equipping of Saddam Hussein:
There have been plenty of articles written by anti-war activists saying everything from "The US supplied Iraq with weapons" to "The US gave Iraq chemical and biological weapons". A lot of this stuff is unverifiable, and other information is distorted half-truths bent to support the anti-war (or anti-Bush) cause. I'll address a few sample claims.
1. The US supplied the Iraqi war machine.
No, the US did not. Not a single piece of Iraqi artillery, nor a single Iraqi tank, gun, airplane, helicopter, APC or electronic warfare (EW) piece was made in the USA. Here's a list of what Iraq has owned and does own:
T55/65/72 tanks, Russian-made; MTLB APCs, Russian-made; BTR series APCs, Russian-made; BMP armored vehicles, Russian-made; various Russian-made troop trucks.
SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-8, SA-7/14/16 surface to air missiles, all Russian-made; various calibers of Russian-made anti-aircraft artillery (ZSU series), and various calibers of Russian-made towed artillery pieces. They do have a handful of American-made self-propelled 155MM artillery pieces captured from Iran. Ballistic missiles include Scud models (Russian made), and Silkworm missiles (Russian-designed, but made in China). Also some home-grown missiles (ie al-Samoud).
MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25, MiG-29, Su-17 and Su-19 fighter aircraft. Il-76 transports, and a few various models of Anotov transports as well. All are Russian-made. Also some Mirage F1 fighters made by France.
Mil-3, Mil-8, Mil-17, Mil-24 Russian-made helicopters. Gazelle and Puma helicopters made by France.
Standard issue small arms are all Russian-made weapons. This includes the Kalishnikov rifles, handguns for officers, Russian-made mortars and crewed weapons.
Command-and-control (ie. communications) systems for the massive bunker compounds were provided by German defense corporations.
There was signficant assistance in the form of scientific and research help, sales of chemical munitions, and other support equipment (ie decontamination vehicles) from the USSR in the 1980s.
As you can see, the US played a very small role in the build-up of the Iraqi military machine.
2. The USA provided Saddam with WMD in the 1980s.
No, we didn't. None of Saddam's weapons are US weapons. For one, Saddam can't use a US chemical munition in his Russian-made artillery systems, because they aren't compatible. The one thing anti-war activists latch onto is the sale (from the US) of biological research material that was medical-grade pathogens that US medical facilities use to research disease. This was NOT weaponized biological material. Saddam attempted to turn this into weaponized material, but evidence suggests that his biological program was abruptly halted by the 1991 Gulf War, and he never totally suceeded. Saddam did, however, receive some assistance from the USSR in weaponizing biological pathogens. But again, his bio program is no where near as advanced as his chemical program.
3. The USA has chemical weapons, so why can't Iraq have them?
Actually, the US military has signed a treaty banning the use of chemical and biological weapons. The US stores of these weapons have been in the process of being destroyed by civilian contractors (I have a family member who supervises the destruction of old US chemical plants). As a military pilot and former Army ground-pounder, I have NEVER seen a doctrine that calls for the use of chemical or biological agents. ALL of the US military's doctrine concerning these weapons is focused on force protection from a NBC attack. We keep biological weapon serums around to protect us from an attack, not to develop new weapons. And we have a significant chemical protection system NOT so we can use the weapons, but to protect our forces from attack.
Be careful of what you read. Just because it appears on the internet and seems well-written doesn't mean it's true. And just because they (the anti-war activists) say they are "out for the truth" doesn't mean they won't lie to further their political aims. And always remember this....the protests are backed by ANSWER and Not In My Name, both of which are offshoots and backed by organizations such as the International Socialist Union and the Socialist Worker's Party. So it's fair to say that both of those anti-war organizations have much deeper rooted anti-American/anti-capitalist/anti-establishment mentalities, and they are using the war to provide a greater stage for their political views.
Finally, I find it horribly backwards that the efforts of the anti-war groups often serve to promote Saddam's propaganda and thus protect his regime. Also, many anti-war web sites (such as Indymedia.org) promote the "resistance" as if it was somehow being waged by valiant Iraqi freedom fighters defending their homeland. In fact, the "resistance" is often in the form of Special Republican Guard units and Fedayeen Saddam units using extremely underhanded tactics and deplorable violations of human decency, such as dressing as civilians and luring in Allied troops, dressing as Allied troops and accepting Iraqi surrenders only to execute the regular Iraqi troops, and using places such as hospitals as operating bases.
Pretending that these efforts are somehow valiant examples of self-defense are sickening. If you don't like the US justification of war, fine. But come to your senses....the forces the Allied troops are fighting and taking losses from are far from noble, and are amongst the most brutal military forces in the world.
