BY NORM DIXON
The Global Security Newswire on January 28 revealed that the US Army trained 19 Iraqi military officers in the United States in offensive and defensive chemical, biological and radiological warfare from 1957 to 1967. The information was gleaned from an official Army letter published in the late 1960s. The revelations further expose the hypocrisy of Washington's war propaganda today.
The Global Security Newswire is no haven of conspiracy theorists. It has impeccable US establishment credentials, being an offshoot of CNN founder Ted Turner's and former US senator Sam Nunn's Nuclear Threat Initiative.
While the training was described as "mostly defensive", it also included offensive instruction in such subjects as the principles of using chemical, biological and radiological weapons, and calculating chemical munitions requirements, according to a December 12, 1969, letter from then-Army Chief of Legislative Liaison Colonel Raymond Reid to then-US Representative Robert Kastenmeier. The letter was published later that month in the Congressional Record.
Iraqi and other foreign officers received the free instruction through the Pentagon's Military Assistance Program, according to the letter, at a time when the US was seeking to counter the Soviet Union's military and political influence around the world. Iran, then a close ally of Washington, and up to three dozen, mostly Western, countries also received instruction in chemical and biological weapons use from the early 1950s through to at least 1969, the letter said. The training was provided at the US Army Chemical School at Fort McClellan, Alaska, the letter said.
The instruction for Iraq was provided before US-Iraqi diplomatic relations were severed at the time of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and prior to Saddam Hussein taking power in Baghdad, first as vice president in 1968.
The letter prompted criticism from Kastenmeier, a prominent critic of US chemical warfare policy at the time.
Iraqi officers took two types of courses. One was called Chemical Officer Orientation, which provided general military education training such as map reading, weapons familiarisation and also "unconventional warfare" including "principles of CBR [chemical, biological and radiological weapons] employment", "conducting CBR training", "calculation of chemical munitions requirements", intelligence organisation and operations and various CBR protective measures.
The other course, called Chemical Officer Career Associate, included "all categories of training", including a small component that involved the offensive use of chemical and biological weapons, the letter said.
Reid's letter noted a difficulty in differentiating offensive and defensive instruction: "As you will note from the course descriptions, the emphasis is on defensive aspects. However, it is not possible to separate offensive tactics from defense since some knowledge of the offense is necessary to prepare an adequate defense... there can be no absolute guarantee that defensive tactics will not have some utility in framing offensive tactics."
All training was first approved, Reid's letter said, by the US ambassador and the chief military representative in the requesting country, as well as by the senior military commander responsible for the geographic region in which the country was located, the US Army and the assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs in coordination with the US Department of State.
Approval from the latter, Reid wrote, was intended to ensure that "training is conducted within the overall foreign policy objectives of the United States".
Kastenmeier, in his comments in 1969, expressed concern that the offensive components of the programs would "seem to weaken existing deterrents against the use of CBW [chemical and biological weapons]".
It is not clear when US Army training of foreign nationals in offensive chemical, biological and radiological warfare was discontinued, the Global Security Newswire noted. A spokesperson for the Pentagon's military assistance agency said the agency had no records on hand dating back to the time of the program.
The Army Chemical School, where the training was provided in the 1960s, remains in operation today, providing US soldiers and a detachment of foreign nationals with "defensive training" at Fort Leonard Wood, Montana.
From Green Left Weekly, February 5, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.