Olent, I never suggested that the Reagan administration didn’t know Saddam was a bastard. And yes, they did approve the sale of those Apaches. None of that is speculation; indeed, no one disputes those facts. And there were (admittely arguable) reasons for backing Saddam at the time. Saddam was a nasty piece of work, but so was the regime in Iran. So was the Soviet Union, for that matter.
But everything we’ve seen about the transfer of biological agents indicates it was a grevious mistake rather than an attempt to give Saddam bioweapons. You’re throwing out an accusation on nothing more than your subjective view of the administration’s “attitude” towards Iraq. That’s hardly concrete evidence.
The maxim of not attributing to malice what can be attributed to stupidity applies here. As I noted in the other thread, the Reagan administration is culpable on this because it happened on their watch, but they’re only culpable for negligence – somebody at CDC should’ve been thinking about this kind of thing. The evidence to date simply does not point to a deliberate attempt to arm Saddam with biological weapons.
No. It is completely possible that he was mistaken. He tried to link a routine (if in retrospect mistaken and naive) commerce department approval of a transaction of less than $10,000 directly to the highest levels of a prior administration.
It is a lie, pure and simple. He claimed Fox news didn’t carry the story – it took a search of 1/10th of a second to disprove it. Another lie, pure and simple. Do the search yourself – in addition to the story I linked, they republished the exact same story, word for word, that the OP linked to. 1/10th of a second.
-emphasis mine
WSLer said REAGAN, not NORTH.
Besides, it’s accepted usage to employ the name of the president as a marker for the actions of the entire administration. I don’t find ATCC samples to be a terribly frightening export, but it was Reagan and friends that allowed them, while at the same time disallowing many “under $10,000” transfers of computer technology.
Dewey, I’m not saying there was any intent to provide Saddam with bioweapons, either. I’m saying the attitude in the mid-80s was “Support Iraq no matter what 'cos they’re fighting Iran”. If Reagan had thought, instead, “Well, we really can’t support Iraq unconditionally because he’s gassed enemy soldiers, which just ain’t right. Maybe we should restrict some of the more potentially dangerous stuff like radioactive materials and biological agents”, then things might have turned out differently. Besides, what if some CDC flack had decided not to fill the order? Iraq could have turned it into a minor diplomatic incident and gone to its powerful buddies in Congress to make CDC fill the order. They had the keys to the city at the time.
Just because the test results from the clinic came back positive doesn’t mean you can take it out on me, smegma slurper.
And I’m no liar, the news story specifically said President Reagan. Whether it was Oliver North or some bozo in the commerce department, it came down on Reagan’s watch, therefore he takes the blame, pure and simple.
Also, at the time I made the post, Fox didn’t have anything on it up on the site.
It’s not my fault they were late bringing it up, so go back to molesting baby ducks, willya?
Look, if you’re looking to say the Reagan administration was negligent here, I’ll agree (in fact I have…repeatedly). There should have been safeguards in place to prevent that transfer. Iraq’s claims of medical research should not have been taken at face value.
But you’re suggesting more than that. You’re suggesting that the administration looked at the scene, decided it was likely that Iraq would use the samples to build bioweapons, and went ahead with the transfer anyway. And that level of culpability just isn’t supportable by the facts before us.
What we have here is a relatively small transaction presumably carried out by bureaucrats at CDC and Commerce. I doubt this was seen as a big issue at the time, and certainly not the kind of thing high muckety-mucks would bother themselves with. As it turns out, hindsight being 20/20, that that view was mistaken.
Hey, the government fucks up sometimes (see: 9-11 hijacker visas). But you shouldn’t impute malice to that which can be attributed to stupidity.
Where does the story specifically say Reagan, except to note that he was president at the time? Where does it say he knew or even should have known about something that at the time was seen as so insignificant? The only expert quoted in the story says that “I don’t think it would be accurate to say the United States government deliberately provided seed stocks to the Iraqis’ biological weapons programs.” And yet you titled this OP, “Reagan gave Iraq bioweapons germs back in the 1980’s.” Liar.
And the site didn’t have a story when you posted, but it had two when I posted 28 minutes later? You didn’t bother to check past the first page, did you? Liar.
With so much shit emanating from your keyboard, it’s unsurprising that you are a maggot.
Reagan was a loveable, avuncular doofus who read his lines with total sincerity because he unequivocably believed his handlers. That isn’t his fault, its ours.
Umm, maggots=shit, explain please, 'cause there is no logical connection that I could find.
Your first question answers itself. And it also makes your claim of my being a liar, (and please explain that one to me, and use small letters) utterly pointless, as I explained in my previous post, that since it happened under Reagan’s watch, Reagan has to take the fall/blame.
After all, Reagan claimed that he couldn’t recall anything about Iran-Contra, but he still is held responsible for it.
Also, your second accusation of liar, again is disproved as I explained in my original post that there wasno mention of it when I looked on the Foxnews site. I didn’t spend a hell of a lot of time there, and so it’s not that surprising that something eventually showed up. Again, something I have no control over, as I don’t work for Fox News or any of its subsidiaries.
You’re right; my apologies. It’s just that the Reagan administration was responsible for so much shit, I think I’ve developed a knee-jerk reaction. Next time I’ll try to marshall my facts before flying off the handle (to mix metaphors).
Oh, and I check Foxnews.com several times a day. I have it bookmarked. I know I saw that story before I went for my run at 5:00 because I was thinking about it while running. I note that the OP wasn’t written until three hours later.
Liberals blame Reagan for everything that’s wrong with the world with the same passion that conservatives blame Clinton for everything that’s wrong with the world.
