were shakeing hands with saddam and helping him eradicate his own people.
You can't always put a lot into a photo of two people shaking hands. The handshake doesn't connotate anything more than a willingness to have a discussion. Heck, I've seen pictures of Arafat and Shiron shaking hands. (I know I butchered those spellings, my apologies.)
A lot of us helped supply Iraq. USA blew it when it provided some biological warfare materials to Iraq to be used in a purely self defense strategy. (Which it wasn't...duh!) Yes, that was wrong. But don't think France, Germany, China or the USSR is smelling any sweeter. Most of Iraq's military is made up of French and Soviet weapons...do a little research on your own and see just where most of his arms come from. Iraq certainly wasn't flying Eagles, Tomcats or Phantoms. The kicker though is how France sold Iraq (the #2 in oil reserves) a
nuclear power plant! They didn't need the energy, you know. That was brokered by some guy named Chirac...who runs some little country way east of me. But France (and Germany, and USSR) continued to arm Saddam...possibly even to just a few months ago. Tsk, tsk, boys. Don't you be throwing any stones.
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Additional French corporate contacts followed, such as Protec – who furnished millions of dollars' of equipment to six separate plants for making mustard gas and nerve agents, with a capacity of hundreds of tons of nerve agent per year.[5]
Over the last thirty years Mr. Chirac has facilitated, both in and out of government office, the sale and/or transfer to Iraq of:
. . . petrochemical plants, desalinization plants, gas liquefaction complexes, housing projects, telecommunication systems, broadcasting networks, fertilizer plants, defense electronics factories, car assembly plants, a new airport, a subway system, and a navy yard, not to mention Exocet, Milan, HOT, Magic, Martel and Armat missiles; Allouette III, Gazelle, and Super-Puma helicopters; AMX 30-GCT howitzers; Tiger-G radar, and a nuclear reactor capable of making the bomb.[1]
Saddam has stated:
As for financiers, industrialists and above all those responsible for military industry, the question must be put to French politicians: Who did not benefit from these business contracts and relationships with Iraq? . . . With respect to the politicians, one need only refer back to the declarations of all the political parties of France, Right and Left. All were happy to brag about their friendship with Iraq and to refer to common interests. From Mr. Chirac [now the center-right president] to Mr. Chevenement [the socialist former defense minister] . . . politicians and economic leaders were in open competition to spend time with us and flatter us. We have now grasped the reality of the situation [of France's support for the 1991 Gulf War, a betrayal in Saddam's eyes]. If the trickery continues, we will be forced to unmask them, all of them, before the French public.[3]
