Madam, - Vincent Browne's column of December 17th on US links with Saddam Hussein was misleading.
Firstly, it implied that the US was a major supplier of weaponry and military and other assistance to Saddam. This is incorrect.
"The Military Balance", published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) for 1980-81 (the year Saddam started the Iran-Iraq War) and for the years just before the US invasion of Iraq shows that almost all Saddam's weapons systems were supplied by the Soviet Union and France.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute confirms that 95 per cent of military supplies to him came from France, the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. Saddam fought the Iran-Iraq war with Soviet tanks and artillery, Soviet and French aircraft, and French electronic air defences. US weapons supplies were inconsequential.
Secondly, Mr Browne writes that the US helped Saddam with biological weapons, that Saddam used such weapons against the Iranians and Kurds, and that the US helped Saddam's nuclear weapons programme, all while hypocritically complaining about his usage of biological and other weapons. This is all incorrect.
The IISS in "Iraq's WMD - A Net Assessment" examined the position of Iraq's WMD and gave extensive details of the history of their development. It is clear from it and many other sources that Iraq never used biological weapons in the Iran-Iraq war or against the Kurds.
From the "Net Assessment", and other sources, including the UN, it is clear that Iraq used chemical weapons repeatedly against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war and against the Kurds; there is no evidence the US was involved in this. There is also no evidence that the US was involved in Iraq's nuclear weapons development. There is, however, considerable evidence in the "Net Assessment" and elsewhere that Iraq's nuclear developments were assisted by France and others.
Finally, Mr Browne suggested that the CIA effectively brought Saddam to power. A seven-man team including Saddam tried and failed to kill the Iraqi leader in 1959. This was followed in 1963 by an army coup which led subsequently to the then president moving against the Ba'ath party and the imprisonment and escape of Saddam. This in turn was, followed by a further coup in 1968, when Saddam became deputy president and finally president in 1979.
No direct link is possible between American actions and the subsequent accession of Saddam to power; and even if there was, no one then knew what crimes he would commit.
If the column had replaced all references to the US with France, all references to US presidents with Jacques Chirac (Saddam's closest foreign friend) and dropped all references to biological weapons, it would have been more accurate. Certainly, if Saddam does "spill the beans", Jacques Chirac is the one most at risk. - Yours, etc.,
RICHARD F.WHELAN, Brighton Hall, Foxrock, Dublin 18.
Madam, - In berating Philip Donnelly's exquisite letter of January 2nd exposing the hypocrisy of the anti-Bushists and the anti-war movement, Brendan Butler, co-ordinator of the NGO Peace Alliance, recounts (January 6th) America's role in arming Saddam in the 1980s. He is correct to highlight this shameful episode.
But he is utterly illogical to imply that because America acted wrongly in supporting this murderous tyranny in the past, it should not act rightly to depose it in the present. Is no one allowed to reform from bad behaviour to good?
Saddam used to murder 30,000 of his citizens per year. The casualties of the Iraq war were well below this and the current killing rate but a tiny fraction. Why would the anti-war movement wish this had not happened? - Yours, etc.,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin.