US Censors Iraq’s Report

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While the major U.S. news media opines freely on Iraq’s 12,000-page weapons report, it should be remembered that the U.S. government seized the original Iraqi report on arrival in New York and censored at least 75 percent of the information it contained.

The non-permanent members of the UN Security Council recently received a severely truncated version of the original 12,000-page weapons dossier on Iraq. All data concerning foreign suppliers of Iraq was deleted, according to an independent German media.

Andreas Zumach, a Geneva-based correspondent for the Berlin-based newspaper, Die Tageszeitung (TAZ), reported in December that all information provided by Iraq related to assistance from foreign companies, research labs, and governments from the mid-1970s on was deleted from the edited version, which was reduced to 3,000 pages.

The five permanent UN Security Council member states, the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain approved of the censorship, according to TAZ.

From information gathered from UN diplomats and from two of the permanent members on the Security Council, TAZ reported that the U.S. government had pressured the other nations to accept its drastic censorship of the original report.

The U.S. appears to have been the nation that provided Iraq with the most support, in terms of supplies and services, to produce weapons of mass destruction, Zumach wrote.

Only one of the companies named in the report, Leybold Vacuum Systems, which is now based in Germany, responded to questions posed by American Free Press.

However, none of the companies contacted by AFP was willing to discuss its involvement with Iraq.

The Iraqi report provided a complete overview of the suppliers for the first time, TAZ wrote.

The original 12,000-page report named 24 U.S. companies, and numerous foreign firms that sold weapons-related technology to Iraq. It even says when and to whom in Iraq the supplies were delivered. Today, some of these companies are no longer American-owned firms.

The unedited Iraqi report shows that the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush strongly supported the arming of Iraq, from 1980 until the Gulf War of 1990.

Substantial construction units for the Iraqi nuclear and rocket programs were supplied with permission of the U.S. government.

For example, Iraq’s anthrax weapons program and the development of biological weapons came from U.S. laboratories. Iraqi military and armament experts were also trained in the United States.

According to Susan Wright, a U.S. arms-control expert from the University of Michigan, publication of this information would be “especially embarrassing for the U.S.A.”

It would “remind people in the United States of a very dark chapter, which the Bush administration would prefer to forget about.”

Whether the United States edited this information from the copies for the other four permanent council members is unclear, Zumach wrote.

—Exclusive to American Free Press, January 17, 2003

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Iraqi women demonstrate against the U.S. during a demonstration in Baghdad February 3, 2003. REUTERS/Faleh Kheiber