From the January 2003 Idaho Observer:

Weapons of Mass Destruction -- WMDs R U.S.

by Hari Heath

The steady cadence of the media drumbeat begins the march to another war. This time they are playing the tune of those “weapons of mass destruction” in the “evil empire” of Saddam Hussein. The proper public hysteria, micro-managed with the politics of terror, terror, terror, is being fine tuned as we march off to yet another war for the dominion over oil.

All the satellites are beaming, the presses are rolling and the airwaves crackle with a mass bombardment of information from the prevaricating presstitutes. By the sheer volume of information pressed against the collective mind, the witless masses that dare to vote and pay taxes will be corralled and herded towards the oiligarchy's next goal: More oil, of course.

National Guard units have been called into duty to support the thousands of active duty troops already deployed for the next war. Another weapons-test-fest for the latest in military technology is scheduled soon for the land of Baghdad. We'll get those bad guys -- whoever they are.

Slight problem. The truth.

Not to worry, it shall be overcome as it always is. Oil is more important than truth. The oiligarchy has been turning the truth on its head ever since it discovered the value of that crude stuff. And Saddam Hussein's “weapons of mass destruction” are just the ruse they need to establish yet another conduit of petro-power.

The UN inspectors have been looking all over Iraq for his weapons of mass destruction. They can't find any. Even the ones we sent him when President Jr.'s father publicly held the reins in the 1980s and 90s.

Where did they go? Did the evil one of Baghdad use them all up on his own people and his neighbor, Iran? Are the UN inspectors coming up empty-handed because this is just another UN incursion of incompetence?

A brief history of WMDs

Biological and chemical “weapons of mass destruction”(WMDs) are nothing new. Among the earliest known uses of biological weapons were the catapulting of infected human corpses into castles that were under siege, where they would cause sickness to those within the walls. Blankets infested with smallpox-carrying bedbugs were used on our native peoples in the 1800s.

Chemical weapons in the form of mustard gas found use in WWI. These horrible chemicals were subsequently banned for use in war by international treaty. So much for treaties. Has there ever been a treaty that was honored?

Our own President Truman was the first to unleash a true WMD. He ordered what proved to be the incineration of 140,000 Japanese with two atomic bombs in August, 1945 -- still the only time nuclear weapons have been used in war.

The Russians used a poison gas called “yellow rain” in Afghanistan and Laos. Our Soviet former enemies-turned-friends-turned (well, it's still turning) also had an anthrax factory explode towards the end of “the Cold War,” killing hundreds of their own people.

During WWII, the British manufactured 5,000,000 anthrax cattle cakes to drop on Germany under the name of “Operation Vegetarian.” George Rosie of the Glasgow Herald said, “The aim of Operation Vegetarian was to wipe out the German beef and dairy herds and then see the bacterium spread to the human population.”

The Germans surrendered before this British WMD plan was carried out, but the anthrax cakes were tested on an island off Scotland that was not cleared of contamination until 1990.

The U.S. and WMDs

The story of U.S. involvement in the development, manufacture and use of WMDs could fill a library. And that's just the unclassified documents. No mere article could begin to cover the subject.

Rest assured, that no stone has been left unturned in the U.S. government's quest to know everything about anything that has the potential to kill, maim, destroy or debilitate. Once known, the more promising killers have been developed.

These include: A nuclear arsenal capable of incinerating all life on the planet several times over; radio frequency weapons, lethal and otherwise; electromagnetic pulse weapons; global weather modification technology, enhanced, engineered and modified infectious biological agents; eugenics and its related fields to re-engineer the human organism and; all the chemicals a petroleum-based super-power can dream of.

U.S. WMD deployment

The chemical, biological and nuclear testing in Fort Greely, Alaska, has reportedly caused major health problems among civilian and military populations. Modified B61-11 bombs with depleted uranium were dropped as recently as March 17, 1958. Sarin gas, mustard gas, VX nerve agent, 2,4D, 2,4,5T, biological infectious agents serratia marcescens, E. coli and LVS have been tested there since the 1950s.

CBS News correspondent Vince Gonzales reported that during the 1990s, the Pentagon conducted more than 100 secret biological warfare tests at sea. In 1996, Pentagon officials told the VA, “They do not possess” any information about the tests. Two years later they admitted they had 15 bound volumes relating to just one of the tests, “Operation Autumn Gold,” conducted near Hawaii in 1963.

The Army is coming under fire recently for using live bacilius subtilus when training troops with their Biological Integrated Detection System (BIDS). Neighboring civilian populations have complained of ill-health effects and local farmers report stillborn and deformed livestock including a five-legged calf. Similar training exercises have been conducted in Missouri, Utah, Alabama and Louisiana.

If the historical pattern of U.S. WMD testing holds true, it will be decades before we learn the truth about current clandestine WMD operations -- if we ever do.

George Shultz, Donald Rumsfeld, Iraq and WMDs

In his book, “Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State,” George Shultz refers to a declassified CIA report which notes Iraq's use of mustard gas in August of 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the State Department and/or the National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq's use of chemical weapons at that time.

Nathaniel Hurd stated in “U.S. Diplomatic and Commercial Relationships with Iraq, 1980-August 2, 2000,” that, “Iraq reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1962, and significantly increased CW use in 1983... Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters. Analysts recognized that 'civilian' helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.”

How much does the current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld know about Iraq and it's WMD use? The American Gulf War Veterans association (AGWVA) reports that Rumsfeld, acting as a Middle Eastern envoy on December 19, 1983, carried a handwritten note from President Reagan to Saddam Hussein to “resume our diplomatic relations with Iraq.”

On March 23, 1984, Iran accused Iraq of poisoning 600 of its soldiers with mustard gas and Tabun nerve gas. March 24, 1984, the UPI wire service reported that a team of UN experts had concluded that: “mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers.” Meanwhile, on the same March 24, 1984, Rumsfeld returned to Baghdad and held talks with foreign minister Tariq Aziz.

Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward reported December 15, 1986, that, “the CIA began to secretly supply Iraq with intelligence in 1984 that was used to 'calibrate' mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops.” What was Rumsfeld doing in Iraq in 1984? Making the world safe for the oiligarchy?

Saddam Hussein is accused of using chemical weapons on his own people. But did he have help with such a heinous act? Mark Phythian, in his book, “Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine,” states “...the Secretaries of Commerce (Baldridge) and State (Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters, officially for crop spraying. It is believed that U.S.-supplied choppers were used in the 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village Halabja, which killed 5,000 people.”

Follow the money?

Joyce Riley vonKleist, a former Air Force flight nurse and researcher into the causes behind Gulf War Illness, reports that, “It is public record that the U.S. not only armed Iraq from 1983 through August 1, 1990, but that they also provided the money to Iraq to purchase the weapons via the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazianale del Lavoro (BNL), George Bush, Sr., and the Export-Import Bank. Iraq received $5 billion funneled through the Commercial Credit Corporation, ostensibly for food credits. It is also public information that at least $2 billion from the defaulted loan was repaid by the U.S. citizen taxpayers. So who funded Iraq? Those of you who pay your taxes.

The AGWVA further reports that, “There is irrefutable evidence to show that the United States government provided and encouraged Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States Department of Commerce and The American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) provided at least 80 shipments of biological agents that were not attenuated nor weakened and were capable of reproduction. These shipments included such virulent agents as Anthrax, West Nile Virus and clostridium botulinum (S.R. 103-900, May 25, pg. 264).

Who is the real “axis of evil?” Are Presidents Bush Jr. and Sr. really nothing less than the inner and outer wheel bearings for this axis of evil? And who are the players behind their administrations?

Who is now telling us that we must attack Iraq because Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction (which the UN can't find) including the potential for nuclear weapons? Who is telling us he has used them on his own people (Kurds) and the Iranians, and he has a history of lying to the world? I smell something crude bubbling out of the ground.

Put the shoe on the other foot

If the U.S. “allowed” the same unfettered inspections of our country's WMD facilities, how long would it take the UN to find not just a “smoking gun, but many “smoking” arsenals of WMDs? The mandated “Report” on U.S. WMD development, manufacture and deployment would likely have a 13,000 page table of contents.

A parade of white UN SUVs could pull right into our chemical weapons depot in Umatilla, Oregon. Decades of incinerations have only made a dent in our national stockpile of CWs in Umatilla.

What a hey-day the UN inspectors would have investigating the scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Or the ill-named National institute of Health (NIH) where many of our modern-day diseases were invented for our mass destruction.

Why not make a stop down at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for a briefing on the government's current “smallpox” plans? If “our” government is planning to inject us with a known-to-be-deadly cowpox vaccine, under the guise that it will prevent a smallpox outbreak, isn't that the same thing as using biological weapons on your own people? And once the outbreak is created, will mass vaccinations be mandated, under the guise of an emergency, at a FEMA center set up near you? Can this be anything but a WMD used by a government on its own people?

Irony, insanity and treason

We live in a world where hollow-point bullets are prohibited from use in war by the Geneva Convention because they cause to much damage, yet B-52s can drop cluster bombs which lay down acres of shrapnel. Go figure.

Similar logic is being exercised by the Bush regime. We are told we are going to Iraq because Saddam might be developing a nuclear weapon (with our technology) and he may have chemical and biological weapons (courtesy of two Bush administrations, their corporate colleagues and your tax dollars).

Meanwhile, Security Council Resolution 687, paragraph 14, calls for removing all WMDs from the Middle East, yet Israel has had a large nuclear arsenal for 40 years. Do we plan to invade Israel, demand unfettered UN inspections, require a full report of all their WMD activities and locations and impose a regime change? Why not?

Israel also operates the Mossad intelligence agency which has infiltrated and spied on our nation for decades and they appear to have deliberately sunk the USS Liberty in the 60s, killing many Americans. So what do we do about it? We give it $billion$ in aid payments every year.

Can it now be truly said, that treason governs U.S. WMD policy?