A Greenpeace volunteer is sprayed by a water canon from the MV LYRA as he sets up a peace camp on the UK military supply ship bound for the Gulf today.
WMD in the Middle East
The first use of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East
wasby British forces in 1917, when Britain occupied territory that
waslater to become Iraq. Chemical weapons were used in the process
ofwelding the Kurdish north, the Shia south and the Sunni tribes
aroundBaghdad, into an invented Iraqi "kingdom" to control the
region's oil.Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, found
"turbulent tribes" ofArabs were fighting this imperialism with some
success and encouragedthe use of chemical weapons. There was some
opposition to this inWhitehall but Churchill wrote: "I do not
understand this squeamishnessabout the use of gas. I am strongly in
favour of using poison gasagainst uncivilised tribes."
1
Today, a snapshot of suspected WMD programmes in the Middle
East,whose development was aided by Western governments and
corporations,reveals a disturbing picture.
SYRIA: Syria has one of the largest chemical
weaponsstockpiles in the Middle East, with a ready supply of scud
missiles, tobe used as delivery systems. According to the US
Defense IntelligenceAgency, Syria began developing an offensive
chemical warfare program inthe early 1970s "as a result of a
perceived Israeli threat", and nowprobably has a biological weapons
programme. CIA Director WilliamWebster testified in 1989 that:
"West European firms were instrumentalin supplying the required
precursor chemicals and equipment. Withoutthe provision of these
key elements, Damascus would not have been ableto produce chemical
weapons." 2
IRAN: Many analysts think Iran is closer to producing
anuclear weapon than Iraq, and the US government claims Iran may
have upto several thousand tons of weaponised chemical
agents.3 Iran denies these allegations and regularly
calls for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
EGYPT: Egypt is widely believed to have used chemical
weaponsin Yemen in the 1960s, and is still thought to maintain
chemicalweapons capability. Egypt is not believed to be pursuing
new WMDsystems at this time, and actively supports a Weapons of
MassDestruction Free Zone in the Middle East.4
ISRAEL: Israel has the oldest and largest nuclear
weaponsprogramme in the Middle East. Its official position is
ambiguous: itclaims it "will not be the first to introduce nuclear
weapons into theregion" and the established nuclear weapons states
have been happy withthis. However, analysts agree that it has built
between 100 and 400nuclear weapons during a programme that started
in the 1950s, asophisticated arsenal bigger than
Britain's.5 Israel has notsigned the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty or any other arms controltreaty and
refuses UN inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Israel has missiles with a range of at least 3,500km, and the
onlyanti-ballistic missile system in the world. Its delivery
systemsinclude three submarines that can be armed with nuclear
tipped cruisemissiles.6 Israel is thought to have
considerable chemicaland biological weapons programmes, but
information about them isscarce. Israel has allegedly used chemical
and biological weapons inthe past.7
IRAQ: As of 1990, Iraq had an advanced nuclear
weaponsprogramme and large chemical and biological warfare
stockpiles,obtained with help from many companies in many countries
and with theexplicit knowledge of the US and other western
governments.8Much of its WMD capacity was identified and
destroyed by UN inspectorsafter the 1991 Gulf War (including 40,000
chemical weapons and 30missiles designed to deliver them). Iraq
claims all its WMD stocks andfacilities were destroyed. There are
questions, however, over how manyof its chemical and biological
elements remain, although the majorityof the international
community does not think Iraq is in possession ofnuclear weapons or
has the capability to build them. Current weaponsinspections have
revealed no trace of nuclear, chemical or biologicalagents in any
site visited9 or any evidence that Iraq has attempted to
re-start its nuclear programme.10
WMD in the rest of the world
The race for weapons of mass destruction is not isolated to
theMiddle East. India and Pakistan shocked the world when they
publiclyannounced their nuclear weapons testing programmes through
thedetonation of small yield (five to twenty-five thousand tons of
TNTequivalent) nuclear bombs. The West responded by imposing
economic andtechnical sanctions but these were mostly lifted in
order to ensuretheir support for the conflict in Afghanistan. India
and Pakistan havenow become accepted members of the international
community and theirillegal nuclear weapons programmes are being
largely ignored.
It is not hard to imagine why North Korea, for example, now
appearspoised to follow suit. The five permanent members of the
SecurityCouncil - US, UK, France, Russia and China - collectively
have thelargest arsenals of nuclear weapons of all: over 35,000 of
them. Theyare all working to keep these arsenals, to improve and,
if necessary,increase them. All nations must immediately ban
nuclear weapons andother weapons of mass destruction to avoid
heading for a globalnuclear, or other WMD, free-for-all.
Why the double standards?
The US, UK and most of Western Europe helped arm Saddam Hussein
withWMD, conventional weapons and delivery vehicles. A 1992 US
Senatecommittee report revealed that the US had exported
chemical,biological, nuclear, and missile-system equipment to Iraq,
includinganthrax, exported by the US Center for Disease
Control.11According to the report, this was done with
the full knowledge of theReagan Administration, whose envoy, Donald
Rumsfeld, visited SaddamHussein in 1984 to reopen US-Iraq relations
after declassifying Iraqfrom the status of a terrorist-supporting
state.
150 western companies, including 24 from the US, have supplied
Iraqwith equipment and know-how for its WMD programmes since 1975.
Iraqsupplied this information in its report to the UN in December
2002, butthe US vetted the material due to its "sensitive" nature
prior todistributing it to the non-permanent members of the
Security Council.12 A full version of the report was
leaked to the press.
Even after Iraq's horrendous 1988 attacks on Halabja, which
killedat least 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Iraq, and which the US
and UKgovernments repeatedly cite as a reason to get rid of Saddam
Hussein,western officials bent over backwards to play down the
truth andsignificance of these attacks. They initially blamed Iran
for theatrocity and "[i]n December 1988, Dow Chemical sold US$1.5
million ofpesticides to Iraq, despite US government concerns that
they could beused as chemical warfare agents." An Export-Import
Bank officialreported in a memorandum that he could find "no
reason" to stop thesale, despite evidence that the pesticides were
"highly toxic" tohumans and would cause death "from
asphyxiation."13
It is clear these double standards are being applied because it
wasin the strategic interest of the US and other governments to
supportSaddam Hussein when he was waging war with their mutual
arch-enemy,Iran. Now that Iraq is no longer a strategic ally, it
must be disarmedat all costs, using whatever arguments the public
can be convinced tobelieve.
Greenpeace shares the belief that Iraq must be disarmed of
anyweapons of mass destruction it may possess, but believes that
all othercountries must be subject to the same rules. The tools for
a peaceful,non-violent transition to a world free of weapons of
mass destructionexist within the UN treaty system, and we call on
all countries tosupport and further develop these mechanisms in
good faith.
References
1. Geoff Simons, IRAQ: FROM SUMER TO
SUDAN, London: St. Martins Press, 1994, pages 179-181
2. Nuclear
Threat Initiative: Syria: Chemical Developments
3. Nuclear Threat
Initiative: Iran. October 2002
4. Nuclear Threat
Initiative: Egypt. May 2002
5.
John Steinbach. Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: a Threat to
Peace. DC Iraq Coalition, March 2002
6. Israeli
Submariners Association. International and Professional Press
about the new Dolphin Submarines.
7. Michael
Dobbs. Washington Post. 30 December 2002
8.
Tony Paterson. U.S. Corps In Iraq. The Independent. 19 December
2002
9. Hans Blix, speaking to the NY Times, 31 January 2003
10. Mohammed el Baradei, 31 January 2003
11.
http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7B8B9E9869-3820-4A93-83CF-DA9E67BA4F44%7D
12. Tony Paterson.
Leaked report says German and US firms supplied arms to Saddam.
18 December 2002.
13. Michael Dobbs. Washington Post.
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup. 30 December 2002.