“In March [16] 1988, PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan] and Iranian forces captured the town of Halabja [in Iraqi Kurdistan]. The Iraqi government forces retaliated by launching a massive chemical weapons attack on the townsfolk of Halabja. Nearly 5,000 civilians were gassed to death.”
– Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, Page 37
In Iraq, “In 1988, as part of the Arabisation policy, to clear Kurds out of the country just north of Baghdad, there were several chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish villages in which 100,000 or more people were killed, including one on Halabja [on March 16, 1988] in which several thousand were eliminated in one day.”
– Tony Blair, A Journey, Page 381
On March 16, 1988, “waves of Iraqi aircraft dropped gas canisters on the [Kurdish] city of Halabja, spraying its 50,000 residents with a misty fog of nerve and blister agents, including sarin, tabun, mustard gas, VX nerve agent, and perhaps the biological agent aflatoxin. There is no precise tally of the dead, but estimates range from 3,200 to 7,000, with 15,000 to 20,000 more injured, many of them horribly.”
– Todd S. Purdum and The New York Times Staff, A Time of Our Choosing, Page 27
The March 1988 National Intelligence Estimate, titled ‘USSR: Withdrawal from Afghanistan,’ read: ” ‘We judge that the [Soviet-backed Afghan President] Najibullah regime will not long survive the completion of Soviet withdrawal even with continued Soviet assistance,’ the estimate declared. ‘The regime may fall before withdrawal is complete.’ The replacement government the CIA expected ‘will be Islamic–possibly strongly fundamentalist, but not as extreme as Iran. …We cannot be confident of the new government’s orientation to the West; at best it will be ambivalent, and at worst it may be actively hostile, especially toward the United States.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Pages 172-173
“In the Kurdish town of Halabja one sunny day in March 1988, Iraqi military planes had dropped nerve gas bombs while army helicopters sprayed poison gas on villagers. More than 5,000 Kurds died that morning.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– L. Paul Bremer with Malcolm McConnell, My Year In Iraq, Page 53
“In March 1988, the CIA’s authoritative special national intelligence estimate stated, ‘We believe that the [Soviet-backed Afghan President] Najibullah regime will not long survive the completion of Soviet assistance. The regime may fall before withdrawal is complete.’ The estimate went on, ‘[D]espite infighting, we believe the resistance will retain sufficient supplies and military strength to ensure the demise of the communist government.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page 12
“Apart from receiving the assistance of U.S. military intelligence, the Iraqis received direct military assistance from the United States, which sent teams of military advisers to assist the Iraqi top brass direct operations at the front [during a new offensive against the Iranians in February 1988].” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 222
During a conversation on Afghanistan on December 4, 1987, KGB chief Vladimir “Kryuchkov assured [acting CIA director Robert] Gates that the Soviet Union now wanted to get out but needed CIA cooperation to find a political solution. He and other Soviet leaders were fearful about the rise to power in Afghanistan of another fundamentalist Islamic government, a Sunni complement to Shiite Iran.”
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 169
In September 1987, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard “Shevardnadze had asked for American cooperation in limiting the spread of ‘Islamic fundamentalism.’ The CIA and others in Washington discounted warnings from Soviet leadership about Islamic radicalism. The warnings were just a way to deflect attention from Soviet failings, American hard-liners decided.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Page 168
Incorporated in September 1987, Brooklyn’s Alkhifa Center “had become bin Laden’s main American branch and a hub for outposts in Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, and New Jersey. (In all, recruitment for the Afghan jihad took place in twenty-six states.)” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., Page 136
“When the Iran-contra disclosures broke, [Vice President George H.W.] Bush told the Washington Post that he had not been aware that [Secretary of State George] Shultz and [Secretary of Defense Caspar] Weinberger had raised serious objections to selling weapons to Iran. ‘If I had sat there and heard George Shultz and Cap [Weinberger] express it strongly, maybe I would have had a stronger view. But when you don’t know something it’s hard to react. …We were not in the loop,’ he said. On August 6, 1987, the day the Post story appeared, Weinberger telephoned Shultz, incredulous that Bush had denied knowledge.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 76
“On May 17 [1987], the USS Stark was struck by two Iraqi missiles, with some three dozen U.S. sailors dying as a result. The Iraqis apologized and years later paid fair compensation, although whether it was in fact accidental remains unclear.”
– Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Page 29
“Jihad magazine, issue 53, April 1989, explained that accounts of the Jaji battle [in which Osama bin Laden’s Arab mujahideen prevailed over Soviet forces in Afghanistan] were a tremendous recruiting device for Arabs drawn to the Afghan jihad. ‘After the victorious battle of Masada [in Jaji] in [May] 1987 the youths started coming in waves. The number of young Arabs arriving in Afghanistan was getting much bigger.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Page 57
“The most significant manifestation of the pro-Iraqi bias of U.S. policy was the reaction to a Kuwaiti request in late 1986 that outsiders protect its [oil] tankers from the threat posed by Iran [during the Iran-Iraq War]. After months of diplomatic back-and-forth…the United States agreed to place American flags on eleven Kuwaiti tankers. The U.S. Navy would beef up its presence and activity in the region commensurate with that action. The Reagan administration went along with the ‘reflagging’ of tankers (Operation Earnest Will) in May 1987, but only after months of debate and in the face of considerable congressional opposition.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Page 28
“On April 17, 1987, Soviet helicopters and bomber jets hit Osama bin Laden’s new fortified compound at Jaji [Afghanistan], an assemblage of small crevices and caves dug into rocky hills above the border village. …The battle of Jaji marked the birth of Osama bin Laden’s public reputation as a warrior among Arab jihadists. …After Jaji he began a media campaign designed to publicize the brave fight waged by Arab volunteers who stood their ground against a superpower.”
– Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, Pages 162-163
On April 15, 1987, bin Laden’s mentor Abdallah Azzam published the book Join the Caravan, a call to jihad. In it, he quoted from the Prophet Muhammad: ” ‘The martyr is granted seven special favors by God: He is forgiven his sins with the first drop of his blood, he sees his place in Paradise, he is clothed in the raiment of faith, he is wedded with seventy-two wives from among the beautiful maidens of paradise, he is saved from the punishment of the grave, he is protected from the Great Terror (of the Day of Judgment), on his head is placed a crown of dignity…and he is granted intercession for seventy people of his household.’ ”
– Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, eds., Al Qaeda In Its Own Words, Page 119
On April 15, 1987, bin Laden’s mentor Abdallah Azzam published the book Join the Caravan, a call to jihad. In it, he wrote: ” ‘Jihad, which entails donating one’s money and risking one’s life, is an individual duty in every place conquered by the unbelievers, and remains so until every piece of land that was once Muslim has been liberated.’ ”
– Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli, eds., Al Qaeda In Its Own Words, Page 121
On March 2, 1987, “Vice President George H.W. Bush meets with Iraqi ambassador Nizar Hamdoon and tells him that two requests by Iraq for sensitive American technology had been approved over objections from the Defense Department.’ ”
– Philip Taylor, The War in Iraq, Page 12
On February 18, 1987, The Washington Post “approvingly quoted [President Ronald] Reagan: ‘[W]e must not, and need not, give recognition and protection to terrorist groups as a price for progress in humanitarian law.’ ”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 561
From a New York Times article on February 17, 1987: ” ‘President [Ronald] Reagan has faced more important but probably no tougher decisions than whether to seek ratification of revisions to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. If he said yes, that would improve protection for prisoners of war and civilians in wartime, but at the price of new legal protection for guerrillas and possible terrorists. He decided to say no, a judgment that deserves support.’ ”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 561
The February 1987 issue of Jihad magazine featured an article by Abdullah Azzam, titled ‘Jihad…Not Terrorism.’ It read: ” ‘We say it frankly without playing with words or deception. Plain and straight:
1. That Jihad is a religious duty for the Umma [Muslims around the world], so as to free the people and give them Islamic justice and protection of the religion.
2. That the religion of God and the blessed religion is that of all of humanity, and we want to spread it all over all four corners of the world.
3. Jihad in God’s will means killing the infidels in the name of God and raising the banner of His name. And we do not want to make this great Jihad only words to be said on podiums, or articles to be published in newspapers. Jihad is done in the will of God only if you fight the infidel with the sword until he submits to Islam.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Pages 34-35
During January 1987, “The United States Commerce Department approved exports to Iraq’s SCUD missile program. Gary Milhollin, the director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control appeared before the Subcommittee on Technology and National Security of the Joint Economic Committee on the 2nd of July, 1991. He stated that: ‘These exports allowed Iraq to extend SCUD range far enough to hit allied soldiers in Saudi Arabia and Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv and Haifa.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Philip Taylor, The War in Iraq, Page 12
Regarding the al Qaeda terrorists’ infiltration of the American military, journalist Peter Bergen said, “In November [13] 1986 [Egyptian Islamic Jihad sleeper agent] Ali Mohamed enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year stint. …Special Forces soldiers are dispatched to tackle the riskiest missions. …So Fort Bragg is pretty much the last place in the world you’d expect to find a bin Laden operative. Yet Ali Mohamed, it turns out, was an indispensable player in al-Qaeda.”
– Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., Pages 130-131
Harken Energy, a small oil company owned by international billionaire investor George Soros, purchased a failing oil company owned by George W. Bush in November 1, 1986, and put him on the board.
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 117
On October 1, 1986, President Ronald “Reagan signed into law the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which fundamentally changed the command relationship structure between the military and the civilian executive branch of the government. …Unfortunately, senior military leaders in the Pentagon were bitterly opposed to the changes. Essentially, the new legislation had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reporting directly to the President as well as the Secretary of Defense. Prior to this, the Chairman’s position on the Joint Chiefs rotated regularly among the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, which tended to result in favoritism toward the military service in power at the time. The new law also removed the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the formal chain of command for regional combatant commanders. Henceforth, combatant commanders would report directly to the secretary of defense. And finally, the new legislation required the President of the United States to annually outline a national security strategy and present it to Congress.”
– Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 53
In September 1986, President Ronald Reagan formed “an interagency task force, the Alien Border Control Committee (ABCC), whose purpose was to block entry of suspected terrorists and to deport militants who either had come into the country illegally or had overstayed their visas. The CIA and FBI joined the ABCC effort.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Page 17
“…on August 4 [1986], [Vice President George] Bush met in Cairo [Egypt] with President Hosni Mubarak and asked him to pass on to Saddam Hussein the same message he had given King Hussein of Jordan [that he be more aggressive in the war with Iran and use his air force]. Saddam had previously rejected U.S. advice to escalate the bombing, but now, because of the cost of the war, he desperately needed American money and weapons. In addition, CIA officials began directly providing the Iraqi military both with highly classified tactical intelligence and technical equipment to receive satellite intelligence so Iraq could assess the effects of its air strikes on Iran. During the 48 hours after Bush’s meeting with Mubarak, the Iraqi air force flew 359 missions.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 75
On July 30, 1986, Vice President George “Bush went to Jordan to perform the most delicate part of his [Middle East] mission, initiating the transfer of military intelligence to Saddam. According to two Reagan administration officials, Bush told King Hussein that Iraq needed to be more aggressive in the war with Iran and asked that Saddam Hussein be urged to use his air force against targets inside Iran.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 75
“On July 29 [1986], Israeli counterterrorism adviser Amiran Nir briefed [Vice President George] Bush at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem and told him that Iran had agreed to release American hostages in exchange for four thousand missiles.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 74
On April 5, 1986, “a bomb tore through a discotheque in West Berlin, killing an American soldier. The Reagan administration quickly identified Muammar Gadhafi of Libya as a sponsor of the attack and warned that Libya was encouraging follow-up attacks on American targets. Ten days later [April 15, 1986], more than 100 American bombs rained down on Libya. The Reagan Administration described them as the first shots in a broader ‘war against terrorism.’ ”
– Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Pages 486-487
On April 15, 1986, “President [Ronald] Reagan ordered a series of air strikes on Libya. U.S. intelligence indicated that strongman Moammar Kadafi had sponsored a terrorist attack on a German nightclub popular with off-duty American servicemen, in which one soldier had been killed and more than sixty wounded. The United States responded with 200 aircraft dropping approximately sixty tons of bombs. The President’s message to terrorists around the world couldn’t have been clearer. Such attacks on American citizens were going to be met with harsh retaliation.”
– Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 53
On April 5, 1986, Libyan agents bombed a nightclub in West Berlin, Germany, killing two American servicemen and wounding scores more. “…the U.S. [retaliation] bombing of Libya in [April 15] 1986 failed to deter Libyan-sponsored terrorism. Indeed, the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in December [21] 1988 by terrorists whom the United States and the United Kingdom have identified as Libyan intelligence agents was probably carried out in retaliation against the U.S. raid on Tripoli, which killed several dozen civilians.”
– Yonah Alexander, ed., Combating Terrorism, Page 45
In an April 8, 1986, article in The Washington Post, a Reagan Administration aide commented on the potential misuse of Stinger missiles sold to the mujadhadeen. ” ‘Some of these guys are a lot closer politically, religiously, and philosophically to [Iran’s Ayatollah Ruholla] Khomeini than they are to us,’ the aide said. ‘There is concern that one of these guys could show up in Rome aiming a Stinger at a jumbo jet.’ ”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 109
On February 26, 1986, “the Reagan administration decided to ship in Stinger ground-to-air missiles [to the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan]; it would take another seven months for rebels to be trained, equipped, and effective in shooting down Soviet helicopters. Russian officials later claimed that the new weapon actually slowed the troop withdrawal. They also acknowledged that it had forced them to fly their helicopters and aircraft at far higher altitudes and thus lose their effectiveness on the ground.”
– Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page 22
“On February 25, 1986, [head of the Soviet Union Mikhail] Gorbachev told the Politburo that Afghanistan had turned into a ‘bleeding wound’ and that troops would depart in a phased withdrawal–half by the end of 1987 and the rest in 1988.”
– Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page 22
The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) “was established under President [Ronald] Reagan, on February 1, 1986, to combat a wave of terror attacks backed by Iran and Syria. It was supposed to break down the bureaucratic barriers among CIA operations, which were divided into Near East, Middle East, and Africa stations.”
– Richard Miniter, Losing Bin Laden, Page 5
In January 1986, “with [President] Ronald Reagan’s authorization, [CIA Director William] Casey created the Counterterrorism Center [CTC]. [CIA officer Duane] Clarridge was chosen as its chief. He had a support staff of two hundred CIA officers, mostly analysts, and ten people loaned from other agencies. CTC had no field agents, however, and had to rely on CIA station chiefs abroad for surveillance, action, or informer recruitment. …the FBI agreed to supply most of CTC’s field and operational assistance.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, Pages 15-16
“Saddam Hussein didn’t just sympathize with terrorists. He had paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and given sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Nidal, who led attacks that killed nineteen people at an Israeli airline’s ticket counters in Rome and Vienna [on December 27, 1985], and Abu Abbas, who hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered an elderly, wheelchair-bound American [on October 7, 1985].”
– George W. Bush, Decision Points, Page 228
“On August 30 [1985] Israel sold more than five hundred U.S.-origin TOW missiles (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-command) to Iran.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 72
“…secretly, the White House was…preparing to send weapons to Iran in an arms-for-hostages deal. On June 11, 1985, just two days after Thomas Sutherland, a dean at American University in Beirut [Lebanon], was kidnapped, the National Security Council drafted a presidential directive advocating that the United States help Iran obtain selected weapons. The opposing faction in the [Reagan] administration–principally Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger—was irate. ‘This is almost too absurd to comment on,’ Weinberger wrote in a memo. ‘It’s like asking [Libyan leader Muammar] Qadaffi to Washington for a cozy chat.’ ”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 72
” ‘Our tilt to Iraq was timely when Iraq was against the ropes and the Islamic revolution was on a roll,’ [CIA National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East Graham] Fuller wrote to CIA Director William Casey on May 17, 1985. ‘The time may now have come to tilt back.’ Fuller argued that the United States should once again authorize Israel to ship U.S. arms to Iran.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 71
“In April 1985, President [Ronald] Reagan signed NSD 166, a secret national security directive calling for the CIA to expel the Russians from Afghanistan ‘by all means available.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Peter Lance, Triple Cross, Page 18
On March 27, 1985, President Ronald Reagan signed “National Security Directive 166, which…authorized using ‘all available means’ to drive Soviet forces out of Afghanistan.”
– Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page 22
“The Reagan administration and, to an even greater extent, the Bush Sr. administration, spent nearly a decade secretly arming Iraq through direct and indirect sales. The direct sales were of ‘dual-use’ materials, which are goods ostensibly made for civilian purposes but have military applications as well. …The Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations allowed the sales over the objections of the Pentagon, which believed these products would inevitably be used for military purposes. One government official explained that in March 1985, high-technology export licenses, which previously had not been approved by the U.S. government to Iraq, ‘started to go through as if someone had suddenly turned a switch.’ The indirect method involved sales of conventional and chemical weapons to third parties, generally friendly governments, who then sold the weapons to Iraq. U.S. arms dealers made out handsomely, as did dozens of U.S. multinational corporations…” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Pages 167-168
“The Reagan and Bush I administrations…authorized sales of deadly chemical and biological agents to Iraq [starting on February 8, 1985], including anthrax and bubonic plague.”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Page 34
–
The lead article in the December 28, 1984 first issue of Jihad magazine, a periodical published by Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam’s Services Office, read: ” ‘To the supporters of Jihad. To all the supporters of the Jihad on Earth. We remind you that the Afghan Jihad is a necessity for the Muslims, even if the number of Russian enemies and others are double your number. And, in God’s name, you will defeat your enemies. Because one of you is superior to ten of your enemies, and even in the worst case, you are double them. The call to Jihad in God’s name is a part of this Earth and it is the satisfaction of the conscience. And it leads to eternal life in the end, and is relief from your earthly chains.’ ”
– Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Page 33
According to the UN Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. took the lead in ratifying on December 10, 1984, there are ” ‘no circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency,’ that could be ‘invoked as a justification of torture’ or ‘other acts of cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment’ used to get prisoners to divulge information. …It defines torture as ‘severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental.’ ”
– Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, Page 150
“…on November 26, 1984, just days after his reelection, [President Ronald] Reagan restored full diplomatic relations with Iraq. This move came under extreme influence from U.S. business interests but against the advice of many within Reagan’s administration.”
– Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Pages 158-159
“Soon after the restoration of full diplomatic relations [with Iraq, on November 26, 1984], the Americans sent a CIA liaison team to Baghdad to deliver satellite photos and other intelligence gleaned from U.S. AWACS surveillance aircraft based in neighboring Saudi Arabia. The intelligence liaison between Langley, Virginia, the CIA headquarters, and Baghdad was soon established on such a regular footing that Saddam designated three senior officers from the Estikhbarat, Iraq’s military intelligence, to liaise directly with the Americans.”
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 215
“…on November 26, 1984, full diplomatic relations [with Iraq] were reestablished and Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon took office in the Iraqi Embassy. That same day, [Iraqi] Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz was welcomed by President [Ronald] Reagan at the White House. Iraq was America’s new friend in the region.”
– Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek, Page 36
“…in November [26] 1984, following a White House visit by Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz and an Iraqi decision to close the Baghdad headquarters of the Abu Nidal terrorist group, the United States and Iraq reestablished diplomatic relations after a break of seventeen years.”
– Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, Page 28
“In November 1984 warmer U.S.-Iraqi relations resulted in the full restoration of diplomatic relations and American companies were encouraged to participate in the construction of Iraq’s new pipelines through Jordan and Saudi Arabia to provide Baghdad with new outlets for its oil sales.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 215
“Despite the fact that the United States had openly condemned Iraq’s use of lethal chemical weapons against Iran, diplomatic relations between the two countries [U.S. and Iraq] were fully restored in November 1984. (They had not existed since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.)” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 52
In The Iraq War Reader, Joost R. Hiltermann wrote: “In November 1984, shortly after Reagan’s reelection, diplomatic relations between the Washington and Baghdad were restored.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 43
–
On October 25, 1984, Secretary of State George Shultz “warned against America acting as a global Hamlet while terrorism was on the rise. ‘The magnitude of the threat posed by terrorism is so great that we cannot afford to confront it with halfhearted and poorly organized measures,’ Shultz warned.”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 33
In a speech on October 17, 1984, Middle East Envoy Donald Rumsfeld said he “summarized my conviction that the United States and free people everywhere needed to come to grips with terrorism as a preeminent threat of the future: ‘Increasingly, terrorism is not random nor the work of isolated madmen. Rather, it is state-sponsored, by nations using it as a central element of their foreign policy. …A single attack by a small weak nation, by influencing public opinion and morale, can alter the behavior of great nations or force tribute from wealthy nations. Unchecked, state-sponsored terrorism is adversely changing the balance of power in our world.’ ”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 33
“Beginning in [October 1] 1984, the Centers for Disease Control began providing Saddam’s Iraq with biological materials–including viruses, retroviruses, bacteria, fungi, and even tissue that was infected with bubonic plague. Among the materials that were sent were several types of West Nile virus and plague-infected mouse tissue smears.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Pages 68-69
“In [June 21] 1995, the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] Director David Satcher, wrote a letter to the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. In it he stated that the CDC shipped a number of ‘viruses, retroviruses, bacteria and fungi to Iraq from October 1, 1984 thru October 13, 1993.’ ”
– Philip Taylor, The War in Iraq, Page 10
“A suicide car bomber had destroyed it [the four-story American embassy in East Beirut, Lebanon] on September 20, 1984, killing 14 people, just 17 months after its seven-story predecessor along the waterfront had been blown sky high.”
– Robert Baer, See No Evil, Page 107
In September 1984, “Osama bin Laden and [his mentor] Abdullah Azzam launch the Services Office in Peshawar, Pakistan, to support Arabs seeking to join the jihad against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page 263
In June 1984, “Vice President George H.W. Bush telephoned the president of the Export-Import Bank and persuades him to approve $500 million in loan guarantees so Iraq can build an oil pipeline.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Philip Taylor, The War in Iraq, Page 8
The Reagan Administration wanted to help Iraq build an oil pipeline to the port of Aqaba in Jordan to get around Iran’s blockade of Iraq’s Persian Gulf ports. However, the U.S. agency, Export-Import Bank, refused to cover the loan because of Iraq’s shaky credit. “As a result, the Reagan administration had to lobby to get the bank to overlook its own guidelines. On June 12, 1984, Charles Hill, executive secretary to Secretary of State George Shultz, sent a confidential memo to Vice President [George H.W.] Bush, suggesting Bush call William Draper, chairman of the Export-Import Bank, and pressure him to provide the okay for the loan. Bush was the logical choice for this task…Draper and he were old friends…Draper reversed the previous position of the Export-Import Bank and agreed to provide the financing. Bush’s lobbying of the bank marked the point at which he began to take an active role in the covert policy to support Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 70
“In May 1984, Vice President George H. W. Bush visited the region [Pakistan] and peeked across the border into Afghanistan from the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. Armed with a $14 million check for humanitarian relief, Bush told the refugees, ‘Across the border, a brutal war is being waged against the people of Afghanistan. I know your resistance will continue until the Soviets realize they cannot be able to subjugate Afghanistan.’ We do not know exactly where bin Laden was at that moment, but during this period he was in nearby Afghanistan…Chances are, this is the closest that Osama bin Laden and George H.W. Bush ever got physically. They were in the same region at roughly the same time. And most important, they were fighting for the same cause.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 106
“[O]n April 5, 1984, following a tour of the region [the Strait of Hormuz] by Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld, [President Ronald] Reagan signed NSDD [National Security Decision Directive]-139, requiring a plan to prevent Iraqi defeat in the Iran-Iraq War.”
– Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek, Page 35
“In an April 5, 1984, ‘Top Secret’ National Security Division Directive, the Reagan administration condemned chemical weapons use, but also called for the preparation of ‘a plan of action designed to avert an Iraqi collapse.’ As a result, the United States allowed programs to go forth that may have aided Iraq’s development of biological and chemical warfare.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Pages 68-69
“As terrorist attacks multiplied and public concern mounted, National Security Directive 138 was adopted [on April 3, 1984], announcing the policy of using force against terrorists and moving from ‘defense to offense.’ Secretary of State George Shultz warned terrorists that they would pay a price for further attacks on the United States and that America was prepared to take ‘preventive or preemptive actions’ against terrorists.”
– Yonah Alexander, ed., Combating Terrorism, Page 44
“According to a New York Times report from Baghdad on March 29, 1984, ‘American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.’ ”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Page 29
According to an August 5, 2002 report by Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, “On March 24, 1984, the day of [Middle East Envoy Donald] Rumsfeld’s visit [to Iraq], UPI [United Press International] reported: ‘Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a team of UN experts has concluded.”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Page 29
“He [Middle East Envoy Donald Rumsfeld] returns [to Iraq] in March [24] 1984 to assure Iraq that U.S. protests against the use of chemical weapons should not interfere with a warm relationship between the two countries.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 302
In March 1984, “European-based doctors examined Iranian troops and confirmed that they had been exposed to mustard gas [during combat in the Iran-Iraq War]. Iran followed up on these gas attacks with a draft resolution, calling on the United Nations Security Council to condemn Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. According to Joyce Battle from the National Security Archive, ‘The U.S. delegate to the U.N. was instructed to lobby friendly delegations in order to obtain a general motion of *no decision* on the resolution.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Philip Taylor, The War in Iraq, Page 7
“The U.S. State Department had also concluded that Iraq was using chemical weapons in a report [as well as a public condemnation] on March 5, 1984.”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Page 29
“From 1983 to 1988, the Iraqi air force dropped between 13,000 and 19,500 chemical bombs on Iran and on the Kurdish city of Halabja. On March 5, 1984, the U.S. State Department issued a public statement condemning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons in the war against Iran. In private, however, the Reagan administration was eager to ensure that Hussein knew the U.S. government still supported his regime. Just four days after the public condemnation, the State Department told the Export-Import Bank that it should start granting short-term loans to Iraq ‘for foreign relations purposes.’ ”
– Antonia Juhasz, The Bush Agenda, Pages 166-167
In The Iraq War Reader, Joost R. Hiltermann wrote: “In the first Iranian offensive after Rumsfeld’s visit, in Febraury 1984, Iraq used not only large amounts of mustard gas but also the highly lethal nerve agent tabun. It was the first recorded use of tne nerve agent in history.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 43
” ‘[T]he situation in Lebanon is difficult, frustrating, and dangerous,’ [President Ronald] Reagan said in a radio address to the nation in early February [4] 1984. ‘But that is no reason to turn our backs on friends and to cut and run. If we do, we’ll be sending one signal to terrorists everywhere: They can gain by waging war against innocent people.’ ”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 27
“On January 1, 1984, the Washington Post reported that the United States, ‘in a shift in policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the three-year-old war with Iran would be *contrary to U.S. interests* and has made several moves to prevent that result.’ ”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Pages 28-29
“…on December 20, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, serving as a special envoy of President [Ronald] Reagan…traveled to Baghdad [Iraq] and, with a warm smile and handshake (captured by photograph), assured Hussein that the latter could count on America being in his corner in his war with Iran.”
– Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, Page 259
“On December 20 [1983], Donald Rumsfeld travels to Baghdad as a presidential special envoy to meet Saddam Hussein. Although Iraq is using chemical weapons almost daily, Rumsfeld does not raise the issue with Saddam.”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 302
” ‘It was [President Ronald] Reagan’s Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, who traveled to Baghdad ‘with a handwritten letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein [on December 20, 1983] and a message that Washington was willing at any moment to resume diplomatic relations.’ ”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Pages 28-29
“In the infamous video of [then-Middle East Envoy] Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein on December 20, 1983, the once and future secretary of defense has been sent by [President] Ronald Reagan at the height of the Iran-Iraq War to assure Hussein of America’s unwavering friendship.”
– Eugene Jarecki, The American Way of War, Page 102
“The U.S. rapprochement with Saddam gathered momentum in December 1983 when [Middle East Envoy Donald] Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad [Iraq]. During the visit Rumsfeld met with Saddam and delivered a personal letter from President Reagan. The visit must have been a success for, after Rumsfeld returned to Washington, the United States began to exert pressure on its allies not to supply arms to Iran.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 215
“According to David Mack, a former U.S. diplomat who accompanied [Middle East Envoy Donald] Rumsfeld on his [December 1983] Bagdad [Iraq] mission, the American desire to reopen formal channels with Iraq reflected the different U.S. geopolitical priorities that existed for the Middle East at that time. ‘We were looking to bring pressure to bear on Syria, and it seemed a good idea to patch up our differences with Baghdad. …Relations had been improving with Baghdad from the late 1970s onward, but it was a difficult and slow process. It was very difficult for us to read the signals coming out of Baghdad. But with the war [against Iran] going so badly for Saddam, and the Syrians causing us a lot of grief in Beirut [Lebanon], we thought it made sense to deal with Saddam. We wanted to build a Cairo [Egypt]-Amman [Jordan]-Baghdad axis that would drive [Syrian] President [Hafez al-] Asad crazy.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 214
In The Iraq War Reader, Joost R. Hiltermann wrote: “As President Ronald Reagan’s special envoy for the Middle East, Rumsfeld in December 1983 made the first visit by an American official of his seniority to Baghdad, where he met President Saddam Hussein and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Iraq had broken off diplomatic relations with the United States in June 1967. Now both sides hoped that the talks in Baghdad would facilitate a resumption of formal ties.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 42
Regarding the defense of American oil interests in the Persian Gulf, President Ronald Reagan said, in National Security Decision Directive 114 on November 26, 1983: “[W]e should assign the highest priority to access arrangements which would facilitate the rapid deployment of those forces necessary to defend the critical oil facilities…”
– Ronald Reagan, “U.S. Policy Toward the Iran-Iraq War,” Federation of American Scientists, NSDD 114, Nov. 26, 1983
” ‘Vietnam taught us to think twice before again getting involved in the affairs of other nations, so some people question the justification for U.S. economic and military assistance to Central American countries and worry about getting sucked into their military conflicts,’ [Representative Dick] Cheney [R-WY] wrote [in his monthly newsletter ‘Congressman Dick Cheney Reports to Wyoming’ in November 1983]. But avoiding involvement is not an option. ‘From a strategic standpoint, the United States cannot sit back and allow the Communists to take over Central America. They already control centrally located Nicaragua, and have vowed to export their war to other nations.’ ” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 190
“A State Department memo [dated November 1, 1983] confirmed Iraqi chemical weapon producers were buying materials ‘from Western firms, including possibly a U.S. foreign subsidiary,’ and added that ‘it is important that we approach Iraq very soon in order to maintain credibility of U.S. policy on CW (chemical weapons) as well as to reduce or halt what appears to be Iraq’s almost daily use of CW.’ ”
– Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 67
“On October 25, 1983, President [Ronald] Reagan dispatched some 2,000 U.S. troops to Grenada in an effort to put down a Cuban-backed Marxist coup that had taken place two weeks earlier. The coup targeted the Grenadian prime minister, Maurice Bishop, who was also a Marxist, and resulted in his ouster and later his death. Cold war tension in Central America and the Caribbean had been building for years, and denying the Soviet Union a foothold in the western hemisphere was an important component of Reagan’s anticommunist foreign policy.”
– Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 174
“…on October 25, 1983, 9,600 U.S. troops were involved in the invasion of Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean Sea. Their mission was to rescue some 600 American medical students who had become hostages of Cuban and Grenadian forces in the wake of a bloodless coup (believed to have been backed by the Soviet Union). Nineteen Americans were killed and 116 wounded in the first deployment of U.S. troops into direct combat since the Vietnam War. The mission ended with the successful evacuation of all the medical students, but a postinvasion analysis determined that the operation was marred by inadequate intelligence, unacceptable interservice rivalry, disorganization, and poor leadership. As a result, the Army revised its training procedures and got serious about achieving joint warfighting interoperability and effectiveness.”
– Ricardo S. Sanchez with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle, Page 52
“…on October 23, 1983, six months and five days after the American embassy bombing [in Beirut, Lebanon]–the United States suffered its worst peacetime military loss ever. A suicide driver drove a truck filled with explosives through the front door of a building [in Beirut] the marines had converted into a barracks. Two hundred and forty-one troops were killed. A French barracks was also destroyed by a truck bomb, killing fifty-eight.”
– Robert Baer, See No Evil, Page 72
On October 23, 1983, six months after the embassy bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, “an almost identical suicide truck bomb destroyed the Marine barracks a few miles away at the Beirut airport; 242 Marines died in their bunks that Sunday morning. Another 58 French troops were killed almost simultaneously when another suicide truck bomb detonated at the French base. In both cases, the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.”
– Peter Lance, 1000 Years For Revenge, Page 181
On October 23, 1983, “a huge truck bomb had exploded at the airport barracks in Beirut [Lebanon]… By [the next] morning the U.S. death toll was 241, more than in any other single day since the World War II battle of Iwo Jima.”
– Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 140
“In an effort to show America’s resolve [after the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 23, 1983], Vice President George H.W. Bush was dispatched to Beirut. ‘We’re not going to let a bunch of insidious terrorists, cowards, shape the foreign policy of the United States,’ Bush vowed.”
– Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, Page 10
In The Iraq War Reader, Murray Waas wrote: “In October 1983, [U.S. chargé d’affaires in Baghdad William] Eagleton cabled his superiors, recommending: ‘We can selectively lift restrictions on third party transfers of U.S. licensed military equipment to Iraq.’ “ [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Eds. Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, Page 31
“On September 27 [1983], NSA [National Security Agency] sent an urgent warning message to the White House, the CIA stations in Beirut [Lebanon] and Damascus [Syria], and the Second Marine Radio Battalion SIGINT [signals intelligence] detachment in Lebanon, indicating that a terrorist attack might be mounted against the United States in the near future. But amazingly, neither the Pentagon nor the commander of the U.S. Marine contingent in Beirut, Colonel Timothy Geraghty, seems to have reacted to this warning, which may well have gotten lost in the maze of the U.S. military’s bureaucracy.” The marine barracks in Beirut were attacked on October 23, 1983, leaving 241 dead.
– Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Page 179
Hostilities increased against Marines stationed in Beirut, Lebanon, in the summer of 1983. “In September [1983], against the wishes of the U.S. commanders on the ground, the White House authorized ships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet standing offshore to shell Muslim positions outside the capital. Although [Secretary of State George] Shultz, in later testimony before an angry Congress, and [President Ronald] Reagan, in his personal diary, described the naval shelling as purely defensive, in effect it turned the United States into a combatant in the Lebanese conflict, implicitly changing U.S. policy from peacekeeping to intervention on the side of the Christians.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 140
“On April 18, 1983, in what would become a model for similar suicide attacks, a delivery van pulled up outside the U.S. embassy in Beirut [Lebanon]. The van had been stolen from the embassy the year before, so it was admitted to the protected compound and parked under the portico at the front of the seven-story building. Inside was a suicide bomber bearing four hundred pounds of explosives. When the device detonated, the sides of the embassy pancaked down. Sixty-three people died, including seventeen Americans–eight of them CIA staff. Though a group calling itself ‘Islamic Jihad’ took responsibility, the attack was the work of Hezbollah.”
– Peter Lance, Triple Cross, Page 13
On April 18, 1983, a truck loaded with explosives made a run at the American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. “Just as it crashed through the lobby’s door–at exactly 1:03 P.M., local time…it exploded. Even by Beirut standards, it was an enormous blast. …Sixty-three people, including seventeen Americans, were killed in what was then the deadliest terrorist attack against the U.S. ever, but the CIA was hardest hit. Six officers died, including the chief, his deputy, and the deputy’s wife…Never before had the CIA lost so many officers in a single attack.”
– Robert Baer, See No Evil, Pages 66-67
“On April 18, 1983, sixty-three people, including the CIA’s Middle East director, were killed and 120 were injured when a 400-pound suicide truck bomb destroyed the U.S. embassy in Beirut [Lebanon].” The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.
– Peter Lance, 1000 Years For Revenge, Page 181
“The [April 18, 1983] bombing of the American embassy and the U.S. marine compound in Beirut [Lebanon] was in fact the key turning point in Washington’s decision to build bridges with Baghdad [Iraq]. …Within weeks satellite intercepts of telephone conversations confirmed American suspicions–the terrorists responsible for the bombing had been guided by Teheran [Iran]. The United States was now unofficially at war with Iran.”
– Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall, Page 214