05-17-2004, 08:49 AM
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GFY Assassin
Industry Role:
Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 2,993
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Quote:
Originally posted by xenophobic
Did everyone else keep their receipts too?
The 12,000-page weapons declaration that Iraq delivered to the United Nations on Dec. 7 details the history of its chemical weapons program before the 1991 gulf war, listing dozens of foreign companies that provided most of the chemicals and equipment needed for the program.
American officials and private weapons specialists say the list identifies 31 major foreign suppliers - including two based in the United States.
Of the 31 companies named in 1996, most are European, including 14 from Germany, 3 each from the Netherlands and Switzerland and 2 each from France and Austria.
Spokesmen for both TUI and one of the successor companies of Hoechst said their major chemical units were sold off years ago; the spokesmen said they were convinced that Preussag and Hoechst had done nothing wrong in their dealings with Iraq.
The Iraqi declaration said that in 1982, Preussag provided Iraq with 30 tons of phosphorous oxychloride, a chemical used to make the deadly nerve gas sarin, and equipment for its chemical weapons laboratories. Hoechst is identified as the seller of 10 tons of phosphorous oxychloride.
Alcolac, the Baltimore company, pleaded guilty in 1989 to federal export violations involving shipments of chemicals that could be used by Iraq to make mustard gas.
According to the Iraqi declaration, officials said, Alcolac provided thiodiglycol, the mustard gas precursor, while Al Haddad, the other American company, was the source of 60 tons of a chemical that could be used to make sarin.
There is no telephone listing for Al Haddad in Nashville, where it was based. News reports in the 1980's identified the company's owner as Sahib al-Haddad, an Iraqi by birth, who denied that he had shipped any chemicals to Iraq for use in weapons.
By sheer bulk, a Singapore-based company may have been the largest supplier of the chemicals used in the 1980's to make chemical weapons, including 3,300 tons of a chemical that can be used to make nerve gas and 950 tons of an separate chemical used to make mustard gas and sarin.
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Don't go there yet -- I want to watch them squirm about the discovered WMD first, then you can make them dance to that other tune. |
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