Expendable tyrants and blood money By: phila

By Philip Althouse

A common perception of many Americans is that our political system revolves around money and power. Maybe a bit of amnesia as well. Most Ohioans—if they ever knew-- have forgotten the scandal over Ohio-based Matrix Churchill Corporation’s arms deals with Iraq. Matrix Churchill was the North American subsidiary of Matrix Churchill, Ltd. a British company. In October 1987 Matrix Churchill Ltd, then known as TI Machine Tools of Coventry, was purchased by Technology Development Group (TDG) of the U.K. through an intermediary and promptly renamed Matrix Churchill Ltd. TDG was controlled by agents of the Iraq government. Ohio’s Matrix Churchill functioned as a procurer of equipment from U.S. suppliers for clients in Iraq. The procurement department at Matrix Churchill received orders directly from TDG, Iraqi businesses or Iraq’s commercial attaché in Washington, D.C. Among materials shipped to Iraq via Matrix Churchill was steel used in the manufacture of scud missiles.

 After the Persian Gulf invasion in the fall of 1992, three senior officials at Matrix Churchill Ltd. were put on trial in
 Britain for illegal shipment of equipment for military use to Iraq. The charges were dropped after it was learned that
 the British government had approved the shipments. Some of the evidence used in the prosecution of the Matrix
officials came from an investigation launched by the House Banking Committee into activities of the Italian Banca
 Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) a year earlier.
 http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/kissinger_bnl.html 

 The Atlanta branch of the BNL came under investigation by Congress for fraud in using loans from the U.S.
 Department of Agriculture to finance Iraq’s pre-war military buildup. Informants also told the FBI that the bank had
 provided large unreported loans to foreign countries, including Iraq. The Banking Committee discovered that BNL
helped to finance Matrix Churchill operations. During the period of BNL’s illegal activities, it was a client of
Kissinger Associates (KI), an international consulting firm founded by Henry Kissinger.
 KI’s strategic support to BNL was enhanced by the presence of Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger
 who served as the firm’s Vice Chair and President. Eagleburger became Secretary of State under President
George H.W. Bush. Scowcroft became Bush’s National Security Advisor.
The Banking Committee’s investigation also revealed that Scowcroft held stock in numerous companies that
were involved in military equipment manufacturing or were clients of KI. 

Making money from arms sales to Iraq didn’t offend the Reagan-Bush realpolitik at work in the Middle East. So it was under the watchful eye of our government that U.S. companies sent live cultures for bacteriological research, anthrax, mustard gas, and other weapons to Iraq. Atrocities and war crimes that flowed from the sales were fine so long as they fit U.S. strategy-namely to use Iraq as a check against expansion by Islamic fundamentalists in Iran. Hussein was tolerable—even an ally—until he began to challenge U.S. regional dominance. Then he became a despot whose regime needed to be toppled. 9/11 provided the perfect provocation for the Neocons who dominate the Bush administration. They seized the opportunity to hatch plans to make the U.S. the world’s sole superpower. http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm [Wolfowitz doctrine]; http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0309&article=030911 [Project for a New American Century].

But that’s not the end of the story. In December 2003 President Bush named James Baker, III special envoy on Iraq’s debt. At that time Baker was senior counselor and an equity partner in the Carlyle Group, where Baker had an estimated $180 million stake. A consortium whose members include the Carlyle Group and the Albright Group (headed by former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright) made a secret deal with Kuwait to whom Iraq owed an estimated $57 billion in reparations from Iraq’s military invasion of Kuwait. In return for assignment of the debt to a foundation created by the consortium, Baker and company pledged to use their influence to secure repayment of the debt in return for a tidy commission.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein [James Baker, Carlyle Group and Iraq debt to Kuwait]

Remember that Baker replaced William Gates on the Iraq Study Group. Lawrence Eagleburger is a member.

And while you’re listening to the pundits applaud Iraq for executing Hussein don’t forget who aided and abetted his crimes against humanity. Don’t forget their blood money either.