Some war criminals go to jail and some just go to work for Bush

[xray s]

'Chemical Frans': 15, Donald Rumsfeld: 0
by Plutonium Page
Fri Dec 23, 2005 at 02:55:16 PM PDT
I'm sure many of you know this, but Donald Rumsfeld was Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, during which Saddam regularly used chemical weapons. The following paragraph, and the photo (which many of you have seen), are from the George Washington University NSA archives article, "Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984".


The U.S., which followed developments in the Iran-Iraq war with extraordinary intensity, had intelligence confirming Iran's accusations, and describing Iraq's "almost daily" use of chemical weapons, concurrent with its policy review and decision to support Iraq in the war... The intelligence indicated that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces, and, according to a November 1983 memo, against "Kurdish insurgents" as well...


Now, I'm not sure how many of you have been following the "Chemical Frans" story, so here's some very brief background. A little over a year ago, Frans van Anraat was arrested in Amsterdam on the charges that he had supplied Saddam Hussein with a compound used to make mustard gas, which in turn was used in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, resulting in many casualties. van Anraat was therefore nicknamed "Chemical Frans" (mentioned here).

Although van Anraat was wanted by the US for years, it is important to note that UNSCOM (the UN weapons inspectors) documented van Anraat's sales of chemicals to Iraq; obviously, the inspectors were independent, and and therefore were not strong-armed by the US into documenting a source of WMD materials.

Today, "Chemical Frans" was sentenced to 15 years in prison, the maximum sentence possible...(more)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/23/165516/80