Quotes of the Morning: A History Lesson

“Just a little history lesson..”
-Skippy

“[The United States] in a shift in policy, has informed friendly Persian Gulf nations that the defeat of Iraq in the 3-year-old war with Iran would be ‘contrary to U.S. interests’ and has made several moves to prevent that result.”
-Washington Post, January 1, 1984

“Mustard gas laced with a nerve agent has been used on Iranian soldiers in the 43-month Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, a team of U.N. experts has concluded... Meanwhile, in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, U.S. presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld held talks with Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz (sic) on the Gulf war before leaving for an unspecified destination.”
-UPI, March 24, 1984

“American diplomats pronounce themselves satisfied with relations between Iraq and the United States and suggest that normal diplomatic ties have been restored in all but name.”
-New York Times, March 29, 1984

“The United States helped Iraq develop its chemical and biological weapons programs in the 1980s while Britain sold Baghdad the antidote to nerve gas as late as March 1992, Britain's Channel Four television news said Thursday.
The program said it had found U.S. intelligence documents which showed 14 consignments of biological materials were exported from the United States to Iraq between 1985 and 1989.
These included 19 batches of anthrax bacteria and 15 batches of botulinum, the organism that causes botulism. The exports, backed by the State Department, were licensed by the Department of Commerce, it said.
The program said Iraq had bought other toxins from the United States while the atomic energy commission in Baghdad acquired human genetic material and E. coli bacteria for use as a culture medium.”
-Reuters, Feb 12, 1998

“You see, when Saddam was becoming a threat, when he was gaining biological weapons from the United States, we supported him. Heck, we established normal diplomatic ties with Iraq after they used chemical weapons against Iran. And who was the presidential envoy at the time? Why, that was Donald Rumsfeld. There is even a great picture of Rummy from that time shaking hands with Saddam. Heck of a guy.”
-Skippy

“I don’t know of anyone I’ve talked to in the region who would walk across the street to shake Saddam Hussein’s hand. If you sat down with the leadership of any country over there, you’d find they have a very low regard for that fellow. You’d also find they’re much smaller countries, and much weaker. ... The little guy in the neighborhood is fairly careful about what he says.”
-Donald Rumsfeld, August 5, 2002

“Yep, none of the neighbors would shake his hand (like Rumsfeld did), so we had no choice but to invade. Things have become a little… tense… since then.”
-Skippy

“Alluding to recent calls by several retired generals for Rumsfeld to resign, a reporter asked the 73-year-old defense secretary whether this visit — his 12th — would be his last trip to Iraq as Pentagon chief.
He replied with one word, and no smile: ‘No.’”
-Associated Press, April 26, 2006

“In a break from past practice, Rumsfeld did not speak to reporters traveling with him on the 13-hour flight to Baghdad. Before he left Washington he met behind closed doors with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and about 15 other Republican members of the Senate to discuss the administration’s $72 billion supplementary budget request, Ruff said.
[…]
Rumsfeld’s visit to Iraq coincides not only with important progress on the political front in Baghdad but also with a recent surge in American casualties, which are on pace this month to hit the highest total since last November, when 84 U.S. troops died in Iraq.
The rise in U.S. deaths comes even as the Iraqi security forces are given more of a lead role in battling the insurgency, with the Americans in support. It has been hoped that this shift of responsibilities would lead to fewer U.S. casualties.”
-Associated Press, April 26, 2006