John:

I agree with much - though perhaps not all - what you say.  (I think you
are plain wrong about the very genuine efforts made by the National Museum
staff, and some of the other stories being spread around - not by you -
suggesting that the staff themselves stole the collections and trashed the
museum to cover their tracks are beneath contempt.)

However, both Americans and the British (my own nationality) ought to be
feeling extremely uncomfortable about both the building up and the long
survival of the Saddam Hussein regime.  When there was the clearest
possible evidence that he started the Iran - Iraq war which cost over a
million lives over 8 years our governments both lied and insisted that the
Iranian "mad mullahs" had made un un provoked attack on our close ally,
Iraq.

When there was the clearest possible evidence that chemical weapons
were not only being made with US, German and British technology and
chemical supplies, and were being used against Iran, with an estimated
100,000 killed or permanently disabled by these chemical weapons, our
governments denied it, even when victims were brought to the West for
diagnosis and treatment.  Then when "Chemical Ali" killed 5,000 Kurds
within northern Iraq, again this was vehemently denied by both our
governments, and serious efforts were made to destroy the reputation of
the independent Western journalist who visited the site and first reported
the attack.

Throughout almost two decades our countries supported and supplied Saddam
Hussein and his regime with both conventional and chemical and biological
weapon supplies.  Why was the USA so certain that Iraq has weapons grade
Anthrax?  Because they supplied it.  In the United Kingdom a Government
Minister finally admitted in Court that he had - in effect - told a
British company to lie on an export licence in order to get the necessary
permit to supply prohibited equipment to Iraq.

The final arms delivery from Britain arrived just weeks before the 1990
invasion of Kuwait and occupation of Western property, particularly the
oil-fields. Only with that invasion did our two countries finally switch
their previously unswerving support for Iraq and Saddam Hussein, and
suddenly "discover" that for eight years or more Iraq had been using
chemical weapons, and was probably developing biological and nuclear
weapons as well.   Before that Saddam Hussein and his regime had been
protected because he was the enemy of the West's then current bogey man,
Iran. As President Johnson is reported to have said when briefed on the
gross criminal activities of Gen. Diem and his South Vietnam regime: "Yes,
he's a son of a bitch, but he's OUR son of a bitch".

I was one of very many around the world that was denouncing Iraq's gross
violations of international law and of human rights almost 20 years ago,
so I don't need any lessons or reminders about what the Saddam Hussein
regime has been up to.

I just think that we British and Americans - along with citizens of quite
a number of other Western powers - need to show a bit of humility about
our nations' pretty deplorable history of not just tolerating it, but
actively supporting and supplying it through the 1970s and 1980s.  Indeed,
is the recent unique level of hostility to Saddam Hussein (in a world
where there are quite a lot of other extremely nasty and dangerous people
and countries), because with the attack on Kuwait he broke away from our
countries' control and influence and became a dangerous "rogue elephant"?



Patrick Boylan

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