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
was by British forces in 1917, when Britain occupied territory that
was later to become Iraq. Chemical weapons were used in the process
of welding the Kurdish north, the Shia south and the Sunni tribes
around Baghdad, into an invented Iraqi "kingdom" to control the
region's oil. Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, found
"turbulent tribes" of Arabs were fighting this imperialism with
some success and encouraged the use of chemical weapons. There was
some opposition to this in Whitehall but Churchill wrote: "I do not
understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly
in favour of using poison gas against 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 weapons
stockpiles in the Middle East, with a ready supply of scud
missiles, to be used as delivery systems. According to the US
Defense Intelligence Agency, Syria began developing an offensive
chemical warfare program in the early 1970s "as a result of a
perceived Israeli threat", and now probably has a biological
weapons programme. CIA Director William Webster testified in 1989
that: "West European firms were instrumental in supplying the
required precursor chemicals and equipment. Without the provision
of these key elements, Damascus would not have been able to produce
chemical weapons." 2
IRAN: Many analysts think Iran is closer to producing a
nuclear weapon than Iraq, and the US government claims Iran may
have up to 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
weapons in Yemen in the 1960s, and is still thought to maintain
chemical weapons capability. Egypt is not believed to be pursuing
new WMD systems at this time, and actively supports a Weapons of
Mass Destruction Free Zone in the Middle East.4
ISRAEL: Israel has the oldest and largest nuclear weapons
programme in the Middle East. Its official position is ambiguous:
it claims it "will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons
into the region" and the established nuclear weapons states have
been happy with this. However, analysts agree that it has built
between 100 and 400 nuclear weapons during a programme that started
in the 1950s, a sophisticated arsenal bigger than
Britain's.5 Israel has not signed the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty or any other arms control treaty and
refuses UN inspections of its nuclear facilities.
Israel has missiles with a range of at least 3,500km, and the
only anti-ballistic missile system in the world. Its delivery
systems include three submarines that can be armed with nuclear
tipped cruise missiles.6 Israel is thought to have
considerable chemical and biological weapons programmes, but
information about them is scarce. Israel has allegedly used
chemical and biological weapons in the past.7
IRAQ: As of 1990, Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons
programme and large chemical and biological warfare stockpiles,
obtained with help from many companies in many countries and with
the explicit knowledge of the US and other western
governments.8 Much of its WMD capacity was identified
and destroyed by UN inspectors after the 1991 Gulf War (including
40,000 chemical weapons and 30 missiles designed to deliver them).
Iraq claims all its WMD stocks and facilities were destroyed. There
are questions, however, over how many of its chemical and
biological elements remain, although the majority of the
international community does not think Iraq is in possession of
nuclear weapons or has the capability to build them. Current
weapons inspections have revealed no trace of nuclear, chemical or
biological agents 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 the
Middle East. India and Pakistan shocked the world when they
publicly announced their nuclear weapons testing programmes through
the detonation of small yield (five to twenty-five thousand tons of
TNT equivalent) nuclear bombs. The West responded by imposing
economic and technical sanctions but these were mostly lifted in
order to ensure their support for the conflict in Afghanistan.
India and Pakistan have now become accepted members of the
international community and their illegal nuclear weapons
programmes are being largely ignored.
It is not hard to imagine why North Korea, for example, now
appears poised to follow suit. The five permanent members of the
Security Council - US, UK, France, Russia and China - collectively
have the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons of all: over 35,000 of
them. They are all working to keep these arsenals, to improve and,
if necessary, increase them. All nations must immediately ban
nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction to avoid
heading for a global nuclear, or other WMD, free-for-all.
Why the double standards?
The US, UK and most of Western Europe helped arm Saddam Hussein
with WMD, conventional weapons and delivery vehicles. A 1992 US
Senate committee report revealed that the US had exported chemical,
biological, nuclear, and missile-system equipment to Iraq,
including anthrax, exported by the US Center for Disease
Control.11 According to the report, this was done with
the full knowledge of the Reagan Administration, whose envoy,
Donald Rumsfeld, visited Saddam Hussein in 1984 to reopen US-Iraq
relations after declassifying Iraq from the status of a
terrorist-supporting state.
150 western companies, including 24 from the US, have supplied
Iraq with equipment and know-how for its WMD programmes since 1975.
Iraq supplied this information in its report to the UN in December
2002, but the US vetted the material due to its "sensitive" nature
prior to distributing 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
killed at least 5,000 Kurdish civilians in Iraq, and which the US
and UK governments repeatedly cite as a reason to get rid of Saddam
Hussein, western officials bent over backwards to play down the
truth and significance of these attacks. They initially blamed Iran
for the atrocity and "[i]n December 1988, Dow Chemical sold US$1.5
million of pesticides to Iraq, despite US government concerns that
they could be used as chemical warfare agents." An Export-Import
Bank official reported in a memorandum that he could find "no
reason" to stop the sale, despite evidence that the pesticides were
"highly toxic" to humans and would cause death "from
asphyxiation."13
It is clear these double standards are being applied because it
was in the strategic interest of the US and other governments to
support Saddam Hussein when he was waging war with their mutual
arch-enemy, Iran. Now that Iraq is no longer a strategic ally, it
must be disarmed at all costs, using whatever arguments the public
can be convinced to believe.
Greenpeace shares the belief that Iraq must be disarmed of any
weapons of mass destruction it may possess, but believes that all
other countries must be subject to the same rules. The tools for a
peaceful, non-violent transition to a world free of weapons of mass
destruction exist within the UN treaty system, and we call on all
countries to support 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.