A 2002 report by the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung listed 24 major U.S. companies named in the Iraqi report that illegally aided that nation's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in the 1980s. Some of the familiar names on their list included Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, Du Pont, Rockwell, Eastman Kodak, Bechtel and Unisys.
In addition, Die Tageszeitung reported that the U.S. government itself offered plenty of assistance to Saddam Hussein's weapons programs. The Departments of Energy, Defense, Commerce and Agriculture all covertly assisted Iraq's weapons programs in the 1980s.
When Iraq used chemical weapons during its 1980-88 war with Iran, the U.S. looked the other way since the U.S. was hoping Iraq would destroy Iran, or even better, both sides would destroy each other. Even the Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons laboratories pitched in by training Iraqi nuclear scientists and giving them non-fissile material for construction of a nuclear bomb.
And so the circle stays unbroken, aided by an ahistorical nation that is constantly getting fooled by its leaders.
That's why conservatives accused the Democrats of treason during the McCarthy era. That's why conservatives still blame the Democrats for "losing" the Vietnam War - even though 21,000 American deaths came during the Nixon administration. And that's why the Bush administration is attacking the people who honestly believe that what is happening in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster for our nation.
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