Iraq's quantom leap
Thanks to the U.S.


By Sharif N. Mafi
February 28, 2003
The Iranian

Has anyone ever seen an Iraqi laptop? Please raise your hand if you have ever seen a calculator made in Iraq, or for that matter, a cell phone manufactured in the Republic of Iraq. Heck, the Iraqis can not even assemble a refrigerator as far as I can tell.

Yet, the ever so spineless American mainstream media warns its audience, that the femme fatale of Iraqi bio-chemical industry, Dr. Rihab Taha, has single-handedly produced VX nerve agent, anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons. We are also told by CNN, on a regular basis that the Iraqis have somehow managed to manufacture multistage solid fuel al-Samoud ballistic missiles purely based on their own initiatives.

This is nonsense of a particularly high order, by no means fabricated outright, yet deceptive in its context. We all know that the Frankenstein of Baghdad used to toss over variety of missiles to Tehran and generously spray chemical weapons on Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.

Nevertheless, what is somehow left out of Thomas Friedman's New York Times columns or the briefings of White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, is how a country that does not possess the know-how of building a simple four door sedan can somehow make the quantum technological leap and build multi-stage guided missiles with navigation systems capable of carrying chemical warheads on an industrial scale.

So lets all give a big cheer to the people that provided these commodities to President Al-Takriti in the first place. A 1994 report by the Senate Banking Committee (The Riegle Report, 1994) concluded that "the United States provided the government of Iraq with micro-organisms; chemical warfare-agent precursors; chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings; chemical warfare filling equipment; biological warfare-related materials;
missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment."

So here we have it. Apparently, it's no secret how Iraq made the quantum theological leap to a missile manufacturing, bio-chemical producing machine. But this is the charm of the West; this is what makes it so alluring. They built this Frankenstein from scratch, they encouraged him, they supplied him, and when Frankie misbehaved they planned to do away with him.

Meanwhile their Congress issues reports, their NGOís investigate, and their mainstream Media renders judgment to keep the façade of a higher moral ground. Pity us, for we believe so deeply in their sincerity.



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