British & American Foray in the Middle East
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20030223/ai_n12580720
Games With Frontiers; With a red pencil and an empty map of Arabia,
Sunday Herald, The, Feb 23, 2003 by Trevor Royle
” Things wasn’t going as swimmingly as Cox wanted
It was late November 1922 and the map of the Middle East was about to be redrawn by a middle-aged British colonial servant who was determined to put an end to the impasse. Otherwise, he told his aide, Major Harold Dickson, “at the rate they were going, nothing would be settled for a year”.
” The three representatives of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia
Sitting with Cox were the representatives of the territories whose future was being determined. Ibn Saud was the ruler of the Nejd (soon to become Saudi Arabia) and a British client, thanks to his support against the Turks in the first world war.
Sabih Beg was the representative of King Feisal of Iraq, formerly the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia but now a British mandate.
As for Kuwait, a British protectorate, its ruler Sheikh Ahmad Al Sabah, was not allowed to be present but was represented by Major JC More, the British political agent, who did all the talking.
” Shaddy, unprofessional, and hasty partitioning by Cox
Fearing that neither side would give ground, an exasperated Cox produced a red pencil and an empty map of what was known as Arabia. Telling the delegates “gentlemen, there are your borders,” Cox drew the angular lines which are today’s frontiers of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Nobody got what they wanted: Ibn Saud felt cheated of his desert inheritance, Iraq was denied access to the Gulf, its outlet being almost blocked by two adjoining Kuwaiti islands, Warba and Bubiyan, and Kuwait was sandwiched between two potential enemies.
” Pathatic attempt by Saud to suck up to Cox
“It was astonishing to see the Sultan of Nejd being reprimanded like a naughty schoolboy, and being told sharply that he, Sir Percy Cox, would himself decide on the type and general line of the frontier,” noted Dickson who had done most of the translating. “Ibn Saud almost broke down, and pathetically remarked that Sir Percy was his father and brother, who had made him and raised him from nothing to the position he held, and that he would surrender half his kingdom, nay the whole, if Sir Percy ordered.”
” Kuwait got shafted royaly
As for the nominal ruler of Kuwait, Sheikh Ahmad simply had the verdict handed down to him with the thought that “on this unfortunate occasion, the sword had been mightier than the pen, and that had he not conceded the territory, Ibn Saud would certainly have soon picked a quarrel and taken it, if not more, by force of arms.”
” How the border between Kuwait and Iraq was realized
The signatories went their different ways and it was left to Major More to demarcate the border between Iraq and Kuwait. This he did by marching out an unknown number of paces from the oasis of Safwan and placing a notice in the middle of the desert. His efforts, though admirable, were in vain: passing Bedouin caravans frequently moved the notice north or south depending on their allegiance to Iraq or Kuwait and the exact location of More’s noticeboard remains a matter for debate.
http://www.adduonline.com/articles/fahd.htm
FAHD OF SAUDI ARABIA
Thursday August 28, 2003
In On 8 January 1926 Abdul-Aziz Bin Abdul-Rahman ( Known as Ibn-Saud) was self-proclaimed king of Arabia. King Abdul-Aziz was embroiled in discussions with the British representative, Percy Cox, for the determination of the borders of the new entity. The British Public Records described king Abdul-Aziz’s demeaning stature at these meetings “like a naughty schoolboy” in front of Cox. When Cox insisted it was his decision as to the frontiers between Kuwait, “Ibn-Saud almost broke down and pathetically remarked that Sir Percy was like his father and mother who made him and raised him from nothing… and he would surrender half his Kingdom, nay the whole, if Sir Percy ordered. Cox took out a map and pencil and drew a line of the frontier of Arabia”. Surely no Muslim can ever read such a statement except with abject shame at the way the sacred sites of Makkah and Medinah and the land of Hijaaz were put in the hands of a family with such debased and dishonorable pedigree.
1926-1932, King Abdul Aziz Bin Abdul-Rahman (Ibn-Saud) courted the British unashamedly, showing sublime affection towards Britain’s envoys. He offered to put Arabia under their control. For his loyalty to the British crown, like so many other British agents, Ibn Saud was awarded a knighthood (presented to him by his self-proclaimed “father and mother” Percy Cox) and British documents referred to him as “Sir” Abdul Aziz Bin Saud for many years afterwards.
In On September 23, 1932 the self appointed king, Sir Abdul-Aziz Bin Abdul-Rahman replaced the names of Najd and Hijaaz by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and he laid the foundations of the current Pirate state.
http://books.google.com/books?id=OZrnZpS84xoC&pg=PA59&lpg=PA59&source=web&ots=6fIlR9HOmp&sig=T5-uhCEWs1kh4w7fbRmCLEm1I7E&hl=en
Shifting Lines in the Sand: Kuwait’s Elusive Frontier with Iraq By David H. Finnie
P. 52
Progress was slow, according to Dickson, “The talks were a wonderful example of the bargaining methods employed when representatives of two great oriental states get together and try to settle a problem. There was no give and take whatever… both sides making ridiculous demands all the time… The arguments went on for five whole days.” On the sixth day, Cox had had enough. He took Ibn Saud aside for a final chat, the two of them attended only by Dickson as interpreter. “[Cox] lost all patience over what he called the childish attitude of Ibn Saud… It was astonishing to see the Sultan of Jajd being reprimanded like a naughty schoolboy… Ibn Saud almost broke down, and pathetically remarked that Sir Percy was his father and mother… and that he would surrender half his kingdom, nay the whole, if Sir Percy ordered.” Meeting once more in plenary session, the conferees watched in awe as “Sir Percy took a red pencil and very carefully drew in on the map of Arabia a boundary line… This gave Iraq a large area of the territory claimed by Najd. Obviously to placate Ibn Saud, he ruthlessly deprived Kuwait of nearly two-thirds of her territory and gave it to Najd.”
Later than evening, Dickson witnessed what he called “an amazing sequel:”
Ibn Saud asked to see Sir Percy alone. Sir Percy took me with him. Ibn Saud was by himself, standing in the centre of his great reception tent. He seemed terribly upset. “My friend,” he moaned, “you have deprived me of half my kingdom. Better take it all and let me go into retirement.” Still standing, this great strong man, magnificant in his grief, suddenly burst out into sobs. Deeply disturbed, Sir Percy seized his hand and began to weep also. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. No one but the three of us was present, and I relate exactly what I saw.
P. 60
The emotional storm did not last long. Still holding Ibn Saud’s hand Sir Percy said: “My friend, I know exactly how you feel, and for this reason I gave you two-thirds of Kuwait’s territory. I don’t know ho Ibn Sabah will take the blow.”… Sir Percy was a very great man. Abdul Aziz Al Saud was a very great man too — and a very great actor besides.
Saudi Oil, Nazi Power, the CIA and Bush family profits
By Richard Sanders
coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade Philby “secretly joined forces” with the Wahhabis and helped make Ibn Saud king of the state that still bears his family name. Philby gave Ibn Saud “the intelligence information that ensured military victory for the House of Saud against Arab leaders supported by the British government.” Philby helped create the Arab Legion, an “armed force under British direction, ready for the (eventual) battle against the Zionist interlopers…. Ibn Saud’s forces captured Mecca and Medina by force in 1924 and 1925. [He] became king in 1926, with Philby as his trusted confidential and financial adviser.”
Loftus and Aarons make these key points: In the 1920s, “Jack Philby recruited Allen Dulles, first as his agent to influence U.S. policy against the Jewish homeland and then as his secret partner in the development of Saudi Arabian oil.
With Dulles’s help, Philby ensured the economic and political survival of Ibn Saud by creating a partnership with U.S. oil companies, allied
against British interests and in favor of Nazi Germany. In the 1930s, Dulles established an interlocking financial network among major Nazi corporations, U.S. oil men and Saudi Arabia.
Dulles led a team of U.S. and British investors that funded the early Nazi party and continued to do business with the Third Reich throughout
World War II.” Loftus and Aarons note that: “The Nazis would have remained a minor political party, and Germany would have remained a cash-starved country, weaponless and powerless, but for a massive influx of outside investment capital. The most important event of this period was the alliance between U.S. oil companies and Saudi Arabia. It was the indispensable precondition for war and the Nazi Holocaust…. The history
books do not even mention the secret partnership of Ibn Saud, Jack Philby and Allen Dulles. Together they were the secret source of oil, wealth and international influence that worked behind the scenes to put Hitler onto the world stage….
During the war, Dulles’ used Saudi oil to blackmail both Britain and the U.S. He amassed a huge fortune for himself, and his clients, like Ibn
Saud, Standard Oil and I.G. Farben. Then, at the end of the war and after it, he helped smuggle top Nazi spies out of Germany to work for the CIA, and “directed the smuggling of Nazi money back to his Western clients.”
Both G.H.Walker and Prescott Bush “worked with Allen Dulles to finance the Third Reich and then, when war broke out, cloaked their activities
under the cover of intelligence operations.” They were eventually charged with running Nazi front groups in the U.S. “The U.S. government found that huge sections of Prescott Bush’s empire had been operating on behalf of Nazi Germany and had greatly assisted the German war effort.” G.H.Walker was the President of the Union Banking Corp., an affiliate of Brown Brothers, Harriman, a bank specializing in getting U.S. millionaires to invest in Germany. Loftus and Aarons describe Union Banking as “an out-and-out Nazi money-laundering machine.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=trU7nY-T-4EC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&source=web&ots=sCAm57p3sG&sig=uyG3NJ9Oq3u2UyRkgo6SWLB6B1o&hl=en
The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed The Jewish … By John Loftus, Mark Aarons
P. 30
The ambiguous promise of a Jewish homeland in Palestine had little effect in terms of the United States’ commitment to the war effort. It did, however, have a major effect on Jack Philby. From that moment on, he would never turst his own government again. The Balfour Declaration, according to Philby, was “an act of betrayal for whose parallel, the shekels and the kiss and all the rest of it, we hve to go back to the garden of Gethsemane.” To put it bluntly, the declaration made Philby realize that Palestine was an unimportant square on the British chessboard and that the Arabs were merely pawns to be pushed around at will. To Philby, however, Palestine was the site of the third holiest shrine in Islam and the Arabs were noble princes.
While Hussein was fighting the Turks for the British, Ibn Saud, the young chieftain of the ultra-conservative Wahhabi sect, was sending terrorist raids against him. Philby was supposed to pressure Ibn Saud’s dissidents back intoline. Instead, it was the beginning of a long and mutually beneficial relationship, which ultimately set Philby against any policy of his own government that conflicted with Ibn Saud’s best interests.
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Waïl S. Hassan “Lawrence, T. E.” The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. David Scott Kastan. Oxford University Press 2005.
“His (Sherif Hussein) aim is the establishment of a Caliphate (not the only one) for himself, and independence for people speaking Arabic from their present irritating subjection to people speaking Turkish. His aims are thus in definite opposition to the Pan-Islamic party who are his strong obstacle (…) his activity seems beneficial to us, because it marches with our immediate aims, the break up of the Islamic block and the defeat and disruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because the states he would set up to succeed the Turks would be as harmless to ourselves as Turkey was before she became a tool in German hands. The Arabs are even less stable than the Turks. If properly handed they would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of small jealous principalities, incapable of cohesion and yet always ready to combine against an outside force. The alternative to this seems to be the control and colonization by a European power other than ourselves which would inevitably come into conflict with the interests we already possess in the Near East (…) If we can only arrange that his (Sherif Hussein) political change shall be a violent one, we will have abolished the threat of Islam, by dividing it against itself in its very heart. There will be a Khalifa in Turkey and a Khalifa in Arabia, in theological warfare, and Islam will be as little formidable as the Papacy when Popes lived in Avignon.” – T. E. Lawrence, January 1916.”
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20030223/ai_n12580720
Games With Frontiers; With a red pencil and an empty map of Arabia,
Sunday Herald, The, Feb 23, 2003 by Trevor Royle
Drawn up by Sir Mark Sykes, a British MP who had travelled extensively in the Middle East, and by Francois Georges Picot, the scion of a French colonial family, the agreement allowed each country to gain spheres of influence and exploitation – Syria and Lebanon would go to France, Iraq and Trans-Jordan to Britain. At the same time the decision was taken to offer Zionist leaders a stake for a Jewish National Home in what would become Palestine, even though the territory concerned was 93% Arab.
Lawrence, T.E., Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London: Penguin Books, 1988.
“The [British] Cabinet raised the Arabs to fight for us by definite promises of self-government afterwards. Arabs believe in persons, not in institutions. They saw in me a free agent of the British Government, and demanded from me an endorsement of its written promises. So, I had to join the conspiracy, and, for what my word was worth, assured the men of their reward…I risked the fraud on my conviction that Arab help was necessary to our cheap and speedy victory in the East, and that better we win and break our word than lose.”
1902 – Sir Campbell Bannerman, Prime Minister of Britain [1905-08]
“There are people (muslims) who control spacious territories teeming with manifest and hidden resources. They dominate the intersections of world routes. Their lands were the cradles of human civilizations and religions. These people have one faith, one language, one history and the same aspirations. No natural barriers can isolate these people from one another … if, per chance, this nation were to be unified into one state, it would then take the fate of the world into its hands and would separate Europe from the rest of the world. Taking these considerations seriously, a foreign body should be planted in the heart of this nation to prevent the convergence of its wings in such a way that it could exhaust its powers in never-ending wars. It could also serve as a springboard for the West to gain its coveted objects.”
Building Modernity on Desert Mirages by JOHN KIFNER.
“And of all the artificial countries created by the victorious European powers who drew arbitrary lines on maps after World War I, none was more artificial than the tiny, poor, lawless leftover patch of desert that would become Jordan. Even the flag was artificial. The green, red, white and black banner that fluttered over Arab raiders led by the Hashemite family against the Ottoman empire — the basis for today’s flags of Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization — was designed by a British Foreign Service officer named Sir Mark Sykes and produced by his army’s supply shop in Cairo.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=hdfLNSnUx-AC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&source=web&ots=PK9w6qWoAq&sig=DE05Zo32Kw1KPGK0nhPCmBEZqAo&hl=en
Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam By Robert Dreyfuss
P. 41
Lawrence said, “If the Sultan of Turkey were to disappear, then the Caliphate by common consent of Islam would fall to the family of the prophet, the present representative of which is Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca. Hussein’s activities seem beneficial to us, because it marches with our immediate aims, the breakup of the Islamic block and the disruption of the Ottoman Empire, and because the states he would set up would be as harmless to ourselves as Turkey was. If properly handled the Arab States would remain in a state of political mosaic, a tissue of jealous principalities incapable of cohesion, and yet always ready to combine against an outside force.
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http://books.google.com/books?id=1b87CVa9xu4C&pg=PA111&lpg=PA111&source=web&ots=AugjFgUiwA&sig=Zp1PqUJ4Oi8w9YCWy5nlzd8qowI&hl=en
Far-flung Lines: Essays on Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie … By Greg Kennedy, Keith Neilson, Donald
Far Flung Lines shows how the British Empire used its maritime supremacy to construct and maintain a worldwide defence system that would protect its vital imperial interests.
P. 111
While all eyes were fixed on the German offensive that was launched on the Western front in late March, the Eastern Committee began its work. On 24 April, the question of the future of mesopotamaia was discussed. Curzon pointed out that the concept of “self determination” and Lloyed Georige’s statement — contained in his speech of 5 January — that the fate of mesopotamia would be decided at a post-war peace conference meant that committee’s deliberations were somewhat constrained. However, Curzon posited that in the case of Allied victory, Britian should “construct a State with an ‘Arab Facade,’ ruled and administered under British guidance”. The region of Basra, given “the political and commerical interests involved,” should be kept “entirely in British hands.” Immediately, the sort of strategic thinking that had motivated he de Bunsen committee earlier began to re-appear. The Director Military Intelligence (DMI), Jaor-General Sir G.M.W. Macdonogh, suggested that the area around Basra be extended northward and towards Persia to create “defensible strategic frontier.”
http://www.rupe-india.org/34/colony.html
Western Imperialism and Iraq:
From Colony to Semi-Colony
As the Ottoman empire fell into decline, Britain and France began extending their influence into its territories, constructing massive projects such as railroads and the Suez canal and keeping the Arab countries deep in debt to British and French banks.
” Speculation of oil rich region in Iraq
When Germany, a relative latecomer to the imperialist dining table, attempted to extend its influence in the region by obtaining a ‘concession’1, to build a railway from Europe to Baghdad, Britain was alarmed.By this time the British government — in particular its navy — had realised the strategic importance of oil, and it was thought that the region might be rich in oil. Britain invested £2.2 million in the Anglo-Persian oil company (a fully British firm operating in Iran) to obtain a 51 per cent stake in the company. Gulbenkian, an adventurous Armenian entrepreneur, argued that there must be oil in Iraq as well. At his initiative the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) was formed, 50 per cent British, 25 per cent German and 25 per cent Royal Dutch-Shell (Dutch- and British-owned).
” Securing Iraq during negotiations with Arabs (Hussien)
During the war British carried on two contradictory sets of secret negotiations. The first was with Sharif Husayn of Mecca. In exchange for Arab revolt against Turkey, the British promised support for Arab independence after the war. However, the British insisted that Baghdad and Basra would be special zones of British interest where “special administrative arrangements” would be necessary to “safeguard our mutual economic interests.”
” Carving up the region among French and Britain. Russian exposture of such secret treaty to Arabs
The second set of secret negotiations, in flagrant violation of the above, was between the British and the French. In the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, Iraq was carved up between the two powers, with Mosul vilayet going to France and the other two to Britain. For its assent Tsarist Russia was to be compensated with territory in northeast Turkey. When the Bolshevik revolutionaries seized power in November 1917 and published the Tsarist regime’s secret treaties, including the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Arabs learnt how they had been betrayed.
” The mandate systems
The ‘mandate’ system, a thin disguise for colonial rule, was created under the League of Nations, the predecessor to today’s United Nations. Mandate territories, earlier the possessions of the Ottomans were to be ‘guided’ by the victorious imperialist powers till they had proved themselves capable of self-rule.
” How Britain intended to keep the Iraqi dissenters at bay
However, anti-imperialist agitation in Iraq troubled the British from the start. In 1920, with the announcement that Britain had been awarded the mandate for Iraq, revolt broke out against the British rulers and became widespread. The British suppressed the rebellion ruthlessly—among other things by bombing Iraqi villages from the air (as they had done a year earlier to suppress the Rowlatt agitation in the Punjab). In 1920, Secretary of State for War and Air, Winston Churchill, proposed that Mesopotamia “could be cheaply policed by aircraft armed with gas bombs, supported by as few as 4,000 British and 10,000 Indian troops”, a policy formally adopted at the 1921 Cairo conference. (“The Hidden History of the Iraq War”, Edward Greer, Monthly Review, May 1991)
” The installment of puppet government which its strings can be pulled by Britain
In the words of Curzon, the foreign secretary, Britain wanted in the Arab territories an “Arab facade ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff…. There should be no actual incorporation of the conquered territory in the dominions of the conqueror, but the absorption may be veiled by such constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer state and so on.”
” Rise of nationalistic outrage over a dictatorship of King Fiasal
The British High Commissioner proclaimed emir Faysal I belonging to the Hashemite family of Mecca (who had been expelled from the French mandate Syria) as the King of Iraq. The puppet Faysal promptly signed a treaty of alliance with Britain which largely reproduced the terms of the mandate. This roused such strong nationalist protests that the cabinet was forced to resign, and the British High Commissioner assumed dictatorial powers for several years.
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/the_iraqi_holocaust_90_years_of_imperial_genocide
The Iraqi Holocaust: 90 Years of Imperial Genocide
December 15th, 2007By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
This policy in Iraq — which included both the colonial phase of direct rule and the transition to effective indirect rule under decolonisation — was candidly described by Lord George Curzon, then British Foreign Secretary, who noted that what the UK and other Western powers desired in the Middle East was an:
“Arab facade ruled and administered under British guidance and controlled by a native Mohammedan and, as far as possible, by an Arab staff…. There should be no actual incorporation of the conquered territory in the dominions of the conqueror, but the absorption may be veiled by such constitutional fictions as a protectorate, a sphere of influence, a buffer state and so on.” [William Stivers, Supremacy and Oil: Iraq, Turkey, and the Anglo-American World Order, 1918-1930, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1982, p. 28, 34]
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHU407A.html
Winston S. Churchill: departmental minute (Churchill papers: 16/16) 12 May 1919 War Office
from Companion Volume 4, Part 1 of the official biography, WINSTON S. CHURCHILL, by Martin Gilbert (London: Heinemann, 1976)
I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.
I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1992/h920324g.htm
MY ADVICE TO THE PRIVILEGED ORDERS
Henry B. Gonzalez, (TX-20)
(House of Representatives – March 24, 1992)
[Page: H1681]
As a matter of fact, I feel that all of those who consider the so-called Persian Gulf war to be over to be very deceptively mistaken. It has just barely started. We have not seen the end of it at all, because rather than stabilizing, we have destabilized this area that is potentially the most explosive in the world.
I said in last week’s statement that in revealing the incredible sort of self-divided policy of an administration or two where we started out since 1983, when President Reagan removed Iraq from the list of terrorist nations to peddle all kinds of goods, commercial as well as military to Iraq, to suddenly find that as late as the spring and early summer of 1990, just 2 years ago, we were still doing that, only to find that the invasion on August 2, led to a precipitous decision to enter into a state of war.
But there again, where is the moral right? The first one to use gas against Arabs was Winston Churchill, the British, in the early 1920’s. They were Iraq Arabs they used them against.
In the words of Winston Churchill, or his military head, it was used in order to subdue the, quote/unquote, recalcitrant Arabs.
So where is the moral right? Who are we to preach?
Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. “Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam”.
London: St. Martins Press, 1994.
In 1917, following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the British occupied Iraq and established a colonial government. The Arab and Kurdish people of Iraq resisted the British occupation, and by 1920 this had developed into a full scale national revolt, which cost the British dearly. As the Iraqi resistance gained strength, the British resorted to increasingly repressive measures, including the use of posion gas.
This would entail “the provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not death…for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes.”
Churchill remained unimpressed by such considerations, arguing that the use of gas, a “scientific expedient,” should not be prevented “by the prejudices of those who do not think clearly”. In the event, gas was used against the Iraqi rebels with excellent moral effect” though gas shells were not dropped from aircraft because of practical difficulties […..]
Today in 1993 there are still Iraqis and Kurds who remember being bombed and machine-gunned by the RAF in the 1920s. A Kurd from the Korak mountains commented, seventy years after the event: “They were bombing here in the Kaniya Khoran…Sometimes they raided three times a day.” Wing Commander Lewis, then of 30 Squadron (RAF), Iraq, recalls how quite often “one would get a signal that a certain Kurdish village would have to be bombed…”, the RAF pilots being ordered to bomb any Kurd who looked hostile. In the same vein, Squadron-Leader Kendal of 30 Squadron recalls that if the tribespeople were doing something they ought not be doing then you shot them.”
Similarly, Wing-Commander Gale, also of 30 Squadron: *If the Kurds hadn’t learned by our example to behave themselves in a civilised way then we had to spank their bottoms. This was done by bombs and guns.
Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasise that *The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.* It was an easy matter to bomb and machine-gun the tribespeople, because they had no means of defence or retalitation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also useful laboratories for new weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use against tribal villages. The ministry drew up a list of possible weapons, some of them the forerunners of napalm and air-to-ground missiles:
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock] man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/19/iraq.arts
Our last occupationGas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq
Jonathan Glancey The Guardian, Saturday April 19 2003
Iraq is the product of a lying empire. The British carved it duplicitously from ancient history, thwarted Arab hopes, Ottoman loss, the dunes of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Kurdistan at the end of the first world war. Unsurprisingly, anarchy and insurrection were there from the start.
The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south, bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to “police” them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain’s League of Nations’ mandate.
An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British occupation swept through Iraq in the summer of 1920. In went the RAF. It flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines. The rebellion was thwarted, with nearly 9,000 Iraqis killed. Even so, concern was expressed in Westminster: the operation had cost more than the entire British-funded Arab rising against the Ottoman Empire in 1917-18.
Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used “against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment”. He dismissed objections as “unreasonable”. “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _” In today’s terms, “the Arab” needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job.
Conventional raids, however, proved to be an effective deterrent. They brought Sheikh Mahmoud, the most persistent of Kurdish rebels, to heel, at little cost. Writing in 1921, Wing Commander J A Chamier suggested that the best way to demoralise local people was to concentrate bombing on the “most inaccessible village of the most prominent tribe which it is desired to punish. All available aircraft must be collected the attack with bombs and machine guns must be relentless and unremitting and carried on continuously by day and night, on houses, inhabitants, crops and cattle.”
“The Arab and Kurd now know”, reported Squadron Leader Harris after several such raids, “what real bombing means within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured, by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape.”
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2004/1028colonize.htm
Iraq in the DNA of Imperialism
By Luciana Bohne *
Iraq News Net
October 28, 2004
With the ingratitude typical of occupied people, Iraqis rebelled with a resistance 100,000 strong. Winston Churchill placed the control of Iraq in the hands of the Royal Air Force, asking if it would be possible for the RAF to use some kind of asphyxiating bombs. Indeed, Churchill’s enthusiasm for poisoned gas was total: “I do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favor of using gas against uncivilised tribes.”
Poisoned gas, was used on Arabs and Kurds. There are still Iraqis alive who remember the terror-RAF bombings of their villages in the ’20s, “sometimes they raided three times a day.” RAF Wing Commander, Sir Arthur Harris, Bomber Harris of Dresden in WW II, then said, “The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes, a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured.”
When the rebellion was quelled, the British looked around to find an “Arab facade” on their rule of Iraq. They selected the son of a British ally in WW I—Prince Faisal of the Hashemite dynasty, a Sunni from Arabia, and made him King of Iraq in 1927. King Faisal was succeeded in 1933 by his son, Ghazi, an anti-British nationalist, whom the British found uncooperative. He died conveniently in a car accident, strongly suspected to have been arranged by His British Majesty’s government in London.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2719939.stm
Britain’s role in shaping Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn
Author and analyst
What to do about Iraq is hardly a new question for the UK. For it was Britain that drew the map of Iraq, and it has never ceased to play a significant role there.
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20030223/ai_n12580720
Games With Frontiers; With a red pencil and an empty map of Arabia,
Sunday Herald, The, Feb 23, 2003 by Trevor Royle
On the other side of the River Jordan was the mandated territory of Palestine, soon to become the battleground for Jews and Arabs as British forces attempted to hold an impossible peace. The emirates in the Persian Gulf were also included in the agreement – they became “protected states” in treaty with Britain, a handy arrangement when oil was discovered in their territory in the following decade.
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http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/pande.htm
History in the Service of Imperialism by Dr. B. N. Pande
A glimpse into official British records will show how this policy of Divide-et-Impera was taking shape. The Secretary of State Wood in a letter to Lord Elgin [Governor General Canada (1847-54) and India (1862-63)] said: ‘We have maintained our power in India by playing off one part against the other and we must continue to do so. Do all you can, therefore to prevent all having a common feeling.’
George Francis Hamilton, Secretary of State of India wrote to Curzon, ‘I think the real danger to our rule in India not now, but say 50 years hence is the gradual adoption and extension of Western ideas of agitation organisation and if we could break educated Indians into two sections holding widely different views, we should, by such a division, strengthen our position against the subtle and continuous attack which the spread of education must make upon our system of government. We should so plan educational text-books that the differences between community and community are further strengthened (Hamilton to Curzon, 26th March 1886).
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http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1097chessboard#a1097chessboard
Zbigniew Brzezinski. [Source: USIS, American Embassy]Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publishes a book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, in which he portrays the Eurasian landmass as the key to world power, and Central Asia with its vast oil reserves as the key to domination of Eurasia. He states that for the US to maintain its global primacy, it must prevent any possible adversary from controlling that region. He notes: “The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.”
He predicts that because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious Central Asian strategy can not be implemented, “except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” [Brzezinski, 1997, pp. 24-25, 210-11] The book also theorizes that the US could be attacked by Afghan terrorists, precipitating a US invasion of Afghanistan, and that the US may eventually seek control of Iran as a key strategic element in the US’s attempt to exert its influence in Central Asia and the Middle East. [Brzezinski, 1997]
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http://www.netnative.com/news/06/mar/1090.html
A Century Of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order
by F. William Engdahl
In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an “arc of crisis” and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union. The Shah will later comment in exile, “I did not know it then, perhaps I did not want to know?
But it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted. What was I to make of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran? Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.”
P. 171-174
* George Ball’s recommendation on sacking monarchy and replacing it with Islamic opposition as an arc of crisis against the wave of communism and diminishing Soviet’s influence on the Islamic beltway.
In November 1978, President Carter named the Bilderberg group’s George Ball, another member of the Trilateral Commission, to head a special White House Iran task force under the National Security Council’s Brzezinski. Ball recommended that Washington drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the fundamentalistic Islamic opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. Robert Bowie from the CIA was one of the lead ‘case officers’ in the new CIA-led coup against the man their covert actions had placed into power 25 years earlier.
Their scheme was based on a detailed study of the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism, as presented by British Islamic expert, Dr. Bernard Lewis, then on assignment at Princeton University in the United States. Lewis’s scheme, which was unveiled at the May 1979 Bilderberg meeting in Austria, endorsed the radical Muslim Brotherhood movement behind Khomeini, in order to promote balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. Lewis argued that the West should encourage autonomous groups such as the Kurds, Armenians, Lebanese Maronites, Ethiopian Copts, Azerbaijani Turks, and so forth. The chaos would spread in what he termed an ‘Arc of Crisis,’ which would spill over into Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.
* Shah saught to have a more sensible petroleum deal with British. Britain was not taking enough oil according to the contracts and shah wanted to raise the price of oil.
During 1978, negotiations were under way between the Shah’s government and British Petroleum for renewal of the 25-year old extraction agreement. By October 1978, the talks had collapsed over a British ‘offer’ which demanded exclusive rights to Iran’s future oil output, while refusing to guarantee purchase of the oil.
London was blackmailing and putting enormous economic pressure on the Shah’s regime by refusing to buy Iranian oil production, taking only 3 million or so barrels daily of an agreed minimum of 5 million barrels per day. This imposed dramatic revenue pressures on Iran, which provided the context in which religious discontent against the Shah could be fanned by trained agitators deployed by British and U.S. intelligence.
* Broadcasing propaganda using government control BBC to pave the way for fundamentalists
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Persian-language broadcasts, with dozens of Persian-speaking BBC ‘correspondents’ sent into even the smallest village, drummed up hysteria against the Shah. The BBC gave Ayatollah Khomeini a full propaganda platform inside Iran during this time. The British government-owned broadcasting organization refused to give the Shah’s government an equal chance to reply.
* Carter was largely kept in the dark by the Republican
Indications are that the actual planners of the Iranian Khomeini coup in London and within the senior ranks of the U.S. liberal establishment decided to keep President Carter largely ignorant of the policy and its ultimate objectives. The ensuing energy crisis in the United States was a major factor in bringing about Carter’s defeat a year later.
* Indication of oil companies keeping the supply reserves intentionally low to hike up the prices
There was never a real shortage in the world supply of petroleum. Existing Saudi and Kuwaiti production capacities could at any time have met the 5-6 million barrels per day temporary shortfall, as a U.S. congressional investigation by the General Accounting Office months later confirmed.
Unusually low reserve stocks of oil held by the Seven Sisters oil multinationals contributed to creating a devastating world oil price shock, with prices for crude oil soaring from a level of some $14 per barrel in 1978 towards the astronomical heights of $40 per barrel for some grades of crude on the spot market.
Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam
by Robert Dreyfuss
pp. 236-243
* Fundamentalists take over and Brzezinski’s decision to pull back from military coup d’tat
After the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is deposed in Iran and Ayatollah Khomeini takes over as Iran’s new leader in February 1979, the US is interested in continuing to work with the Iranian government. At first the US is taken aback by the new fundamentalist Islamic government, and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski contemplates fomenting a military coup to stop Khomeini. But Khomeini is fiercely anti-communist, and Brzezinski soon decides that Iran’s new government can become part of an effective anti-Soviet alliance he calls the “arc of crisis’ (see November 1978-February 1979). The US embassy in Teheran, Iran, remains open, and more US officials come to Iran and begin tentative talks there.
pp. 264-265
* Collaboration between CIA and perhaps MI6 in feeding Iranian regime after the revolution
The CIA in particular begins secretly collaborating with Iranian intelligence, providing information about the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The CIA and Iran both covertly work to destabilize the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan.
pp. 240-243
* Brzezinksi meets Bazargan in Algeria, US takes in Shah for cancer treatment, Khomeini sees the opportunity to knock out Bazargan’s influence by arranging the take over the embassy.
In early November 1979, Brzezinski secretly meets with Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, as well as Iran’s foreign minister and defense minister, in Algiers, Algeria. But shortly before the meeting, the US agrees to allow the Shah, dying with cancer, to come to the US for medical treatment. Khomeini is enraged, and on November 4, just three days after the Algeria meeting begins, Khomeini arranges for students to take over the US embassy in Teheran and seize hostages. This realigns political forces in Iran and allows Khomeini to sideline Bazargan and other others meeting in Algeria, rendering the negotiations there moot. Brzezinski’s attempts to create a de facto alliance with Iran collapse. The US hostages will be held for over a year before finally being freed.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Fm0Q2-K5CVEC&pg=PP1&ots=b04CY2cm9P&sig=h_WfUlKH2VyKEY6z0KHfQ1RuGzI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA91,M1
George Ball: Behind the Scenes in U.S. Foreign Policy
By James A. Bill
P. 90-91
* George Ball touts for replacement of shah with government that represents people.
Relying heavily on National Security Advisr Brzenzinski and preoccupied with the Camp David Accords, Carter completely misread and misunderstood the explosive situation in Iran. On the advice of Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, Carter called in George Ball for an independent assessment. Ball, who had a long acquaintance with Iran and had visisted the country a half dozen times, set up office in the White House on November 30, 1978. skeptical of the government information on Iran, Ball consulted with outside experts. After nearly two weeks of study, he prepared a paper that included an analysis and policy recommendations. After presenting his report to a cabinet-level group thta included Brzenzinski, Ball met with President Carter to discuss his conclusion.
In an eighteen-page memorandum entitled “issues and Implications of the Iranian Crisis,” Ball argued that the shah was finished as an absolute monarch. He pointed out that military repression was doomed to failure and that it risked turning Iran into another Lebanon. He recommended that the shah transfer full power to a government responsive to the people. He suggested a “council of notables” composed of responsible opposition figures known for their personal and professional integrity.
* Brzenzinski had faulty information given to him by Iran’s ambassador and believed Shah can be salvaged.
Although Ball’s proposal was mild, given the lateness of the date, Brzenzinski opposed it strenuously. The national security adviser, working with a profound ignorance of Iran and relying on distorted information provided him by the shah’s ambassador to the United States, Ardeshir Zahedi, had taken charge of Iran policy. Brzenzinski believed the shah could be salvaged and that a military government could maintain control. Like Zahedi, Brzezinski imagined a restoration similar to the one of the 1953, when covert U.S. action helped the shah return to power after a nationalist insurrection.
When Ball went in to present his report to Carter, to his surprise, “there was Zbing sitting there.” Carter told Ball that he appreciated the report but he would not accept its recommendations since he would not presume to tell another head of state what to do. Ball argued that Carter, in suggesting that the shah step down, would only be responding to friend’s desperate plea for advice. Under the influence of Brzezinski, the president put aside Ball’s report.
According to George, Ball, the only positive result of his consultantship to Carter was his argument that the president not send Brzezinski to Tehran. Apparently, Brzezinski felt that his presence in iran would in some way help the shah. Ball listened to Brzezsinki’s plan and sharply told Carter, “With all due respect, [this] is the worst idea I have ever heard.” Knowing that Ball had dheard many bad ideas over his long career, the president was impressed. He vetoed the idea of a Brzezinski Tehran trek.
* Brzezinski sent ill-prepared general as an advisor to take things under control at no vail.
After Ball left the White House, he watched in disgust as Carter and Brzezinski bumbled and stumbled their way through disastrously conceived policies concerning Iran. Such policy involved sending an ill-prepared miliary general to Iran as political mediator, the ill-advised admission of the shah into the United States, thus precipitating the hostage crisis, and the ill-fated hostage rescue attempt in April 1980. One result was the honorable resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and his replacement by Edmund Muskie.
http://books.google.com/books?id=w-l6M4pOnUkC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=brzezinski+khomeini&source=web&ots=kwa3i7STNs&sig=vkqpnydJer0k8dKPfToEX4CVdG8&hl=en
America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures Or Clash of Interests?
By Fawaz A. Gerges
P. 60-62
* Carter was getting conflicting and inaccurate intelligence and assessements. Sullivan called for containment of Khomeini but later switched to the idea of infusing military with Khomeini for smooth transition meanwhile maintaining the stability of military.
From the outset of the Iranian crisis, President Carter’s task was complicated by conflicting advice from his aides. On the one hand, administration officials were divided over the most eefective approach to adopt toward the new revolutionaries. On the other hand, “many of Carter’s best intelligence source,” argues James Bill, “provided him with a deeply flawed and inaccurate picture of Iran.” Although initially the U.S. ambassador to Tehran, William Sullivan, called for quarantining Khomeini and working with the Shah, he subsequently changed his mind and advocated a dialogue between the military and Khomeini. Such a dialogue, stated Sullivan, might smooth the transition to a new political pact.
* The majority feared support of Khomeini as his seizure would result in domination by fundamentalists and leftists.
With the exception of Sullivan and a few voices in the State Department, most U.S. officials strongly opposed any overture to Khomeini, fearing the adverse effects of Khomeini’s seizure of power on Western interest: His Iran would become an easy target for radical leftist and religious forces. Brzezinksi argued that Khomeini represented the forces of “Islamic fundamentalism that were now openly challenging the existing order.” Similarly, General Robert Huyser, who was sent to Tehran to “encourage the military to stage a coup,” came to a similar conclusion: Khomeini’s return to Iran would constitute the greatest potential for complete disaster.”
* Brzezinski and Huyser wanted the military coup but Sullivan saw the political scene of Iran falling apart. Carter was getting too many contradictory reports hence adhering to Brzezinski’s advice which was Sovietcentric in nature.
Of all Carter’s advisers, Brzezinski and Genearl Huyser lobbied hardest or a military solution in Iran – a military takeover if necessary. Contradicting Brzezinksi and Huyser, Ambassador Sullivan reported that Iran’s political structures were breaking apart, including the military. Conflicting advice resulted in Carter’s indecision and wavering posture, which in turn often led to the President following the advice of Brzezinski. After the Shah’s departure from Tehran, some U.S. policy makers encourage the Iranian armed forces to execute a coup in the event that Khomeini decided to return home from his exile in Paris. As Carter stated: “The threat of a military coup is the best way to prevent Khomeini from sliding to power.”
* Badly informed Carter admininstration and ill-prepared to deal with the revolution.
Nevertheless, when it came to formulating a consistent policy toward revolutionary Iran, the United States was at a loss. This difficulty arose not only because of conflicting advice wihtin the Carter administration but also due to the fact that the administration, noted Iran desk offcier Henry Precht, was ill-informed about the new religious men who controlled political life in Iran. furthermore, argues Iranian specialist James Bill, powerful Pahlavi supporters in the United States sought to discredit the revolution by portraying the revolutionaries as uncivilized, barbaric, and fanatical and the revolution itself as a fleeting aberration that lacked the support of the Iranian people. To this must be added the strong, anti-American behavior of the new revolutionaries who advocated the “export of revolution” into neighboring countries.
* Carter preferred to deal with the provisional government rather than directly with the revolutionaries.
Far from exploring the opportunities for reconciliation with the powerful clergy in Tehran once the Shah was overthrown, the Carter adminstration backed away from the unknown and untried Islamists, preferring to deal with the Western-edcuated moderates who were nominally in charge of the provisional government. The advocates of change within the Carter administration usually lost on the Iran issue. U.s. officials mistrusted the mullahs as well as underestimated their political strength and the captivating power of their message. President Carter had only contempt for the “street mobs” who whipped up anti-American feelings to a fever pitch and for Khomeini’s “irrational” statements and actions. “We are dealing with crazy people in Iran,” wrote Hamilton Jordan, Carter’s Chief of Staff.”
P. 63
* Gary Sick speculated that Khomieni’s worldview was far away from Carter’s vision.
At the heart of this U.S. misreading of the Iranian scene, notes Gary Sick, NSC staff member for Iran and chief assistant to Brzezinski throughout the Iran crisis, lies a deep cultural bias: It is the contradiction between two value systems and world conceptions — Khomeini’s Islamic-theocratic worldview versus Carter’s essentially Wester-secular one. According to Sick, although both Khomeini and Carter were deeply religious men, their faiths had almost nothing in common: “Khomeini was the archetype of the medieval prophet emerging from the desert with a fiery vision of absolute truth. His god was a harsh and vengeful deity — full of fury, demanding the eye and tooth of retribution for human transgressions of divine law…. He was a man riven with hate — hatred for the shah, hatred for Carter and American, hatred for those who dared oppose his vision.
The tension between the religious and secular, adds Sick, was a major contributing factor to the failure of both Iranians and Westerners to understand and gauge properly each other’s fears and aspirations. In his explanation of the U.S.-Iranian crisis, Sick puts a lot of weight on the unbridgeable chasm between two impossibly different cultures, as reflected in the very different personalities of Carter and Khomeini: “We are all prisoners of our own cultural assumptions.”
http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=3475
U.S. and Iran remain on ‘collision course’ says Bill
News · W&M News · 2004 archive · U.S. and Iran on ‘collision cour
Author: Bill Walker, Source: W&M News
Date: Mar 19, 2004
* James A. Bill has found it frusturating of a lack of understanding of Iranian unrest and society by the American embassy.
Through countless interviews with Iranian officials, political leaders, citizens and dissidents, Bill developed a personal understanding of the growing unrest in the country and the increasing repression of the Shah’s regime. Just as distressing as the repression, the young scholar found, was the lack of understanding and sensitivity he found in the American embassy.
“Less than ten percent of U. S. diplomats spoke Persian fluently. The comparable numbers for the British and Soviet embassies were 45 and 70 percent, respectively,” Bill recalled. “The American community in Tehran clustered around the commissary. With sales of $4 million annually, the commissary imported huge amounts of liquor, cigarettes, pet food and Coke. In 1970, American aircraft lifted 79 tons of processed cat and dog food to Tehran. In the words of one Iranian, ‘the American’s dogs eat better than the average Iranian.’”
http://books.google.com/books?id=FNBpbh-mDcoC&pg=PA252&lpg=PA252&source=web&ots=i0GfIyxY3f&sig=Tzz7Z7hWpqQV6yEh1qbRHqJ4aPY&hl=en#PPA246,M1
The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations
By James A. Bill
P. 246-247
* American ambassador to Iran, William H. Sullivan, a direct guy who thought he can get shah under wrap
William H. Sullivan was a distinguished white-haired, ramrod-straight man who spoke quietly and directly. He exuded personal strength and confidence. Sullivan had just served for four years as ambassador to the Philippines, and before that he had held posts in Washington and in Laos and Vietnam, where it was widely rumored that he directed a wide range of American intelligence operations. He had no experience in the Middle East. Sullivan was not pleased with the Tehran appoitnment, but he had a reputation as a man who knew how to deal with authoritarian leaders. Yet as one foreign service officer confided after Sullivan had been briefed by State Department officials, “the shah likes to deal with tough guys. he’ll have Sullivan eating out of his hand the same way he did Helms and MacArthur. The shah is no Marcos.”
* Sullivan was debreifed by advisor in State Department and wanred the situation was not what it seemed on the suface.
Sullivan did his homework before he left for Iran. The American Pahlavi supporters weighed in with praise for the shah, with special emphasis on the stability of his regime. But Sullivan carefully listened to the other side when he was briefed by academics and the middle-level State Department Iran specialists. These advisers strongly recommended that Sullivan would do well to break out of the old circle of Iranian hangers-on who encircled and encrusted the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They warned him that all was no as it appeared on the surface in Iran and that the Pahlavi regime had a number of soft spots. Sullivan spent a day listening in apparent boredom to the State Department team. But his questions and comments made it clear that he had indeed listened well.
* Although he made a good contact with the Iranian system, he realized the U.S. was not cognizant of intricacies of Iranian politics.
He was also duly impressed with Asadollah Alam, who had made a career of gaining the favor of American and British ambassadors. Sulivan was professional enough to realize, however, that the United States did not really understand the intricacies of Iraniana politics. Even John Stempel, who had served as political officer in Iran since 1975, admitted that “American did not realize what was happening in Iran.” Sullivan attempted to improve American intelligence in Iran but never really succeeded. By the time he made a serious effort to do so, the most extreme members of the Iranian opposition refused to have anything to do with American officials.
* Sullivan preferred a quitet and indirect approach to quelling the unrest.
Although Ambassador Sullivan may have personally supported a human rights policy, he strongly disagreed with the vigor of the approach pusued by the Bureau of Human Rights in the Department of State. Sullivan and Charles Naas, his deputy chief of mission, preferred an indirect, quiet approach, and as a result significant tension developed between the mission in Tehran and the bureau in Washington. Although Sullivan, like Carter himself, failed to push the shah seriously on this issue, he did cooperate to an extent with the International Commission of Jurists and the Butler missions, whose legalistic approach he preferred to the more frontal political tack of Amnesty International. In a letter of December 1977 to William Butler, Sullivan compare the approaches as follows:
You both come to more or less the same conclusions, but Amnesty’s approach is that of looking at a glass half empty while yours can be described as looking at a glass half full. It would be my judgment that the Amnesty paper will be poorly received here merely because of its tenor, rather than because of its contents. On the other hand, your observations, while they amount to the same thing, would be considered constructive and therefore might be more persuasive.
P. 248
* Sullivan’s main concern was economic but he did realized the social aspect of the Iran was not stable due to lack of democratic participation of various elements in the country which has been giving rise to oppositions that saught to have sayings in the political process or promoting a new social and political foundations for Iran (i.e. Marxism or Islamism). He understood that shah’s departure may become permenant which led to his recommendation for contingency plans.
Sullivan’s major concern was economic in nature, and he focused his most serious analysis on the Iranian industrialization program. In the process, he underestimated the social and political fragility of the Pahlavi regime, and it was not really until November 1978 that he realized that the shah was in serious trouble. As late as May 5, 1978, Sullivan signed off on a memorandum prepared by his deputy Jack Miklos that contained the following assessment: “In a major sense Iran has now reached the position of a stable and moderate middle-level power well-disposed toward the United Statees which has been a goal of our policy since the end of WWII. There are no outstanding issues of such serious magnitude that they need be identified in this memorandum.” Sullivan had been so confident in the shah’s control of the situation that he had taken an extensive home leave during the middle of the revolution, from June to late August 1978. On Novermber 9, 1978, he wrote his now famous cable entired “Thinking the Unthinkable” in which he cautiously but seriously indicated that the United States had best begin preparing contingency plans in case the shah did not survive politically.
* Realizing the dire situation in Iran, he makes an attempt to notify the Washington and asks to establish a direct dialogue with Khomeini which was ignored by Brzezinski and State Department’s Vance.
Sullivan was enough of a professional to admit that he had been much too opimistic and that is was now timeto face facts. Althoughhe had come very late to the realization that the shah was unlikely to mke it, he became increasingly sure of it through Novermber and December 1978. he attempted to get the message to Washington, even recommending that the United States establish direct contact with Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris. But Sullivan found his increasingly desperate mesages ignored in Washington. Not only had Zbigniew Brzezinski and his staff taken charge of Iran policy, but Secretary of State Vance himself refused to believe that the shah was in serious trouble. As David newsom noted, “Vance was among the very last to admit, even to himself, that the shah might collapse.” The fact that Sullivan received no response to his important cable of November 9 was symptomatic of the misunderstanding and lack of communication that henceforth marked Carter foreign policy toward Iran.
P. 249
* Brzezinski thought shah’s military can muscle his way out of the tight situation. He took under this wings Gary Sick and David Aaron who had no deep understanding of the Iranian situation. Moreover, he took shah’s ambassador’s friend, Ardeshir Zahedi, which not coincidentally fed him with pro-shah tenet.
National Security adviser Brzezinski had consistently argued that only a hard-line, no-nonsense policy from the shah could save the day. Although he had been particularly slow to recognize the shah’s difficulties, he always felt that tough action by the shah’s military forces would scatter the opposition, which he believed consisted of communists on the left and a few reactionary religious leaders on the right. Brzezinksi was reinforced by his deputy David Aaron, a humorless, steely-eyed bureaucrat who had become an instant expert on the Middle East. Naval captain Gary Sick represented Brzezinksi’s Iran expertise. Sick was a bright, sensitive individual, but he had very little background in Iranian affairs, and, as a consummate loyalist, he simply reinforced Brzezinski’s distored views. Brzezinski’s major understanding of Iran came from his friend, Iranian ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi, with whom he maintained close contact throughout the crisis. Brzezinski and Zahed spent the last half of 1978 reinforcing one another’s opinions on the situation on Iran.
* George Ball was amazed by how Brzezinski operated through his channels and always under some global sphere, mostly likely to hinder communism.
Policy conflict between the national security adviser and his staff on the one hand and the Department of State on the other hand was inevitable. Old foreign policy hand George Ball was horrified by Brzezinski’s bureaucratic imperialism. Ball stated: “He was operating in a free-wheeling manner, calling in foriegn ambassadors, telephoning or sending telegrams to foreign dignitaries outside State Department channels, and even hiring a press adviser so he could compete with the Secretary of State as the enunciator of United States policy.” In describing Brzezinski’s pompous justifications for policy recommendations, which were always framed in some grand global context, Ball quoted his father, who described his tactic as “a flair for making little fishes talk like whales.”
P. 250
* Sullivan was opposing Brzezinski’s recommendations which made him take contradictory actions. In return, Sullivan became frusturated and his response almost cost him his job until Vance intervened.
By the time Vance belatedly understood what was going on in Iran, he found that Brzezinksi had preempted him and had the ear of the president. Sullivan was another matter. He was at least as tough as Brzezinksi. Furthermore, Sullivan was on the ground in Iran and had received some difficult on-the-job education in Iranian politics. When Brzezinksi failed to respond to Sullivan’s suggestions or merely took contradictory actions to those Sullivan recommended, Sullivan responded with increasingly caustic cables. Brzezinski used these to turn President Carter against Sullivan. Only vance’s intervention kept Carter from firing Sullivan on the spot. This type of confrontation occurred up and down the U.S. policy-making hierarchy.
* It was reported Bazaar was closed when Taliqani was released from prison and protests at university of Tehran was hammered. The atomospher in other cities indicated that a revolution is around the corner.
In early November 1978, for example, State Department officials Carl Clement, George Griffin, and Stephen Cohen (Bureau of Human Rights) traveled to Tehran, arriving there on November 4. That day Clement and Cohen visited the Tehran bazaar, which was partially closed since many bazaaris had gone to meet Ayatollah Taliqani, who had just been released from prison. Major riots that resulted in heavy casulaties also erupted at Tehran University that day — a day that would be commemorated on year later by the taking of American hostages. While in Iran, these three officials split up and traveled widely, visiting such cities as Tabriz, Isfahan, and Khurramshahr. It was the explosive situation in the provinces that convinced them that a genuine revolution was in progress.
* David Aaron Gary Sick listened to the founding of officers but decided to keep the support behind the shah.
On their return to Washington, Clement, Griffin, and Cohen arranged a meeting with Under Secretary David Newsom to explain the seriousness of the situation they had witnessed in Iran. The three officers and Iran desk officer Henry Precht subsequently met with Brzezinski’s deputy David Aaron and NSC Iran-watcher Gary Sick, both of whom listened to the evidence and eyewitness accounts for nearly an hour. Aaron, who was somewhat more liberal version of Brzezinski, was unimpressed by what he heared. At one point, he reportedly asked Henry Precht, “Tell me Henry, who exactly is the opposition?” “The people, David, the people,” Precht acidly responded. In the end, Aaron simply said, “Well you fellows may be right but we have no choice but to support the shah.” When the State Department officials asked Gary Sick what he thought, he tersely responded, “I agree with David.”
* Sullivan and Sick played a blaming game as to which side wasn’t enitrely take a necessary action based on the known reprots.
The sad state of the situation is seen in the fact that Sick has since condemned Sullivan for failing to ask for advice from Washington. Sullivan, on the other hand, has written that he was deeply puzzled and frustrated because he was never provided any instructions from Washington. It seems true that Sullivan’s credibility suffered back in Washington because of his earlier consistent optimism about the shah’s chances. It is also clear, however, that the major foreign policy making forces in Washington had determiend that the shah was to be supported at all costs and that his regime could be protected through the application of enough military force. Nothing was going to change their minds.
* Powerful influences — Nelson Rockefeller (Vice president to Gerald Ford 1974-1977), John J. McCloy (banker who later became a prominent United States presidential advisor, World War II, as Assistant Secretary of War, 1947 to June 1949,
McCloy was president of the World Bank, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank from 1953 to 1960, chairman of the Ford Foundation from 1958 to 1965; he was also a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation from 1946 to 1949, and then again from 1953 to 1958, From 1954 to 1970, he was chairman of the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations in New York, to be succeeded by David Rockefeller, who had worked closely with him at the Chase Bank), and Henry Kissinger — in Washington signaled that they rather keep the shah.
p. 251
Brzezinski was genearlly supported in this stance by Harold Brown and the Department of Defense, James Schlesinger and the Department of Enery, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Stansfield Turner and the Central Intelligence Agency. Furthermore, several powerful American businessmen and Pahlavi supporters such as John J. McCloy, Nelson Rockefeller, and Henry Kissinger were applying pressure on American policymakers to support the shah with whatever it took and at all costs. At a special meeting of high-level decision makers in the situation room of the White House on November 2, 1978, for example, Brzezinski reported that he had received a telephone call from Nelson Rockefeller, who critized the government for apparently doing little to support the shah.
* shah believed the military action was counterproductive and he could not stand murdering his own people in scores. Brzezinski went on the rampage of accusing everyone as being indecisive.
A seldom-mentioned irony is that th eshah himself indicated that further military mearsures would be counterproductive and would result in such bloodshed that his dynasty would be hated and his family’s very existence would be in mortal danger. he would have nothing to do with such measures. The shah was also incredulous when he heard that Brzezinski had vetoed Sullivan’s proposal that the United States make direct contact with Khomeini in paris. After watching his trooops kill over ten thousand of his own people in the streets of Iran’s cities, the shah determined that violent tactics were doomed to fail. Because of this position, the monarch found himself criticized by Brzezinski as being weak, vacillating, and indecisive. Later, in February 1979, Brzezinski was as disgusted with the Iranian military as he had been earlier with the shah, since “the Iranian military evidently did not have the will to act.” Ultimately, in Brzezinski’s eyes everyone was cavillating: Ambassador Sullivan, the shah, and the Iranian military itself.
* Clear indication of discontent between the State Department and NSC. Precht vs. Vance and Brzezinski
The Department of the State-National Security Council tension carried heavy professional and personal costs. As the crisis developed, the White House increasingly cut Henry Precht and his colleagues at State out of the decision-making process. On December 19, 1978, Precht wrote a revealing letter to Ambassador Sullivan in Tehran. This communication was marked “Official-Informal-Secret-Eyes Only” and captured the frustration of an official who, in retrospect, had as good as grasp of events unfolding in iran as anyone in Washington:
I presume you are aware of the Top Secret list of questions that was sent out over the weekend for the Shah. I have no been shown the list, such is the level of distrust that exists in the White House towards the State Department (and egotistically, I feel, towards myself). I am afraid that we are losing valuable time and that events may sweep us by, depriving the U.S. of the opportunity to recoup its position in Iran.
I have probably confided more than I should to a piece of paper, but I doubt I have much of future anyway. I would ask you to protect me for the sake of the education of the young. Whatever the risks, I believe it important to give you my frank assessment of how things are shaping up on the Iranian front these days.
P. 252
Divided
against itself, preoccupied with other international issues, and somewhat restrained in its capacity to do bureaucratic battle by a code of professional ethics, the Department of State watched Brzezinski and his staff arrogantly shape a policy that placed America on the losing side in a revolution. This policy seriously compromised American national interests and was partionally responsible for the extremism and anti-Americanism that broke forth in Iran after the revolution.
* George Ball was asked to assess the situation. NSC didn’t welcome him.
At the urging of Michael Blumenthal and with the consent of Brzezinski, President Carter called on George Ball to carry out an independent study of the situation and to develop policy recommendations. Ball energetically began his research on November 30, 1978, and sought the advice of a wide network of Iran specialists. On at least one occasion, State Department official George Griffin managed to slip an Iran scholar up the backstairs of the White House and into Ball’s office. The NSC staff did not welcome input recommended by the Department of State.
* Ball recommends to replace shah with a government responsible to people. He also saught to open up the channel of communication to Khomeini.
Ball prepared an eighteen-page memorandum for the president entitled “Issues and Implications of the Iranian crisis.” In this hard-hitting report, Ball sharply criticized the basis of the Nixon Doctrine and stated that the United States bore much of the responsiblity for the shah’s megalomania. He argued that the shah was finished as absolute monarch. Ball pointed out that military repression was doomed to fail and that it risked turning Iran into another Lebanon. Ball recommended that the shah transfer full power to a government responsive to the people. The mechanism that Ball favored for such transfer was a Council of Notables composed of responsible individuals carefully selected by the United States. In ball’s view, “I thought this was the only way we could protect it from becoming a government of the shah’s own designation.” At the same time, Ball urged the president to open a disavowable channel of communication to Ayatollah Khomeini.
* Ball’s heed was not taken into account.
Although Ball’s propsal was mild, given the lateness of the date, only Acting Secretary of State Christopher gave it unqualified support. Ball submitted the memorandum on December 11, 1978. The next morning he met with Brzezinski, who was very “dubious” and who indicated that he thought a restoration similar to the one of the 1953 could be accomplished. Ball went in to see Carter that afternoon, and, to his surprise, “there was Zbing sitting there.” Carter told Ball that he liked the report but that he would not accept its recommendation since he would not tell another head of the state what to do. Ball replied that Carter would only be responding to a friend’s needs, a friend who had sought the president’s advice. Partly under the influence of Brzezinksi, Carter failed to take George Ball’s advice. Brzezinski later admitted that he had makde a mistake in seeking the independent opinion because this violated a basic law of bureaucratic tactics: “One should never obtain the services of ‘impartial’ outside consultant regarding an issue that one feels strongly about without first making certain in advance that one knows the likely contents of his advice.”
* George prevents Brzezinski to travel to Iran for better understanding of the situation.
According to George Ball, about the only positive result of his activites was that he convinced the president not to send Zbigniew Brzezinksi to Tehran. Apparently, Brzezinski felt that his presence in Iran would provide Washington with new insights into the Iranian politics scene while bolstering the courage and position of the shah. Ball incredulously told Carter that this plan, “with all due respect is the worst idea I have ever heard.” Given the fact that Ball had obviously heard many bad ideas over his long diplomatic career, this statement made an impresson on the president, who decided to cancel the Brzezinski trek.
P. 252-254
* State Department sends Robert Huyser as an adviser to Iranian military as a liaison
The futile efforst of George Ball were soon replaced by a recommendation by the Department of Defense and supported by Brzezinski to send a high-ranking U.S. military official to Iran as a liasison to teh Iranian military forces, who seemed to hold the key to Iran’s political future. The man selected was Gen. Robert “Dutch” Juyser, deputy commander-in-chief of the U.S. European Command under Alexander Haig. General Huyser had been traveling to Iran since the late 1960s and had close personal and professional relationship with Iranian military leaders. He has also pointed out that “I had many audiences with the Shah, at which a mutual respect of the trust were established.” That year he had already visited Iran twice — in April and again in August.
* Huyser’s mission was to stabilize the military to support shah and back Bakhtiar and if his government fell, stage a coup d’etat.
Dutch Huyser arrived in Iran on January 4, 1979. His charge was to hold the Iranian military together and to send a sharp signal that the United States stood behind the current regime. He has said, “In general terms I was sent there by the Government of the United States to stabilize the Iranian military and to encourage the Iranian military to support their legal government.” The military was to bak Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar; if the Bakhtiar government fell, then Huyser was to encourage the Iranian generals to carry out a coup d’etat. According to Huyser, “if that government collapsed, then at exactly the right moment, I was to see that the military took action.”
* The U.S. had spying electronic monitoring devices in Iran to have an eye on Soviets. The last one standing went under seige when the Iranian employees hold up 22 American technicans for their backpay. Two officers flew and rescued the technicals (CIA hired employees). Huyser was hoping he could hold the military together after revolution so they still can utilize such sites.
The decision to protect the integrity of the military was closely interwined with another matter of considerable concern to American officials. It involved the supersecret, sophisticated electronic listening posts at Bihshahr and Kapkan in northern Iran. From these posts the United States had been closely monitoring Soviet missile and space activities. The Kapkan site, located forty miles east of Mashhad, was especially valuable to the United States and was considered irreplaceable. Although the Bihshahr station had been closed in December 1978, Kapkan continued to operate until the local Iranian employees mutinied, demanded their backpay, and held the twnty-two American technicians there captive. In a harrowing, little-known missiong, two American military leaders still in Tehran, Capt. H. F. Johnson and Col. T. E. Shaefer, along with two resourceful Iranian employees and 30 million rials, flew to Kapkan in an Iranian C-130 piloted by an unfriendly Iranian air force officer. After paying the local employees, they returned with the twenty-two technicians, who were actually employed by the CIA. This quiet rescue mission saved American lives but left the listening posts in Iranian hands. Huyser and other American officials had hoped to hold the military together in order to ride the revolution out so that, among other things, American might continue to operate these valuable intelligence sites.
* Huyser’s responsbilities sort of clashed with Suvillian’s. He was badly informed with regards to Khomeini’s support in Iran and conjectured Communists are behind them or will take control once religious right comes on top.
Huyser’s presence in Iran undercut Ambassador Sullivan’s authority; it seemed evident to all that the White House now had its own representative in Tehran. Huyser’s mission was a dramatic indication of Washington’s two-track, collision-course, contradictory policy toward Iran. Huyser was a direct, competent officer, but he was badly over his head in the Iranian political thicket. Traveling around north Tehran in a bulletproof vest and closeted daily with five or six of the shah’s leading generals, Huyser never understood Iran. He has admitted that th e never heard Khomeini’s name before April 1978 and that he estimated that only 10 or 20 percent of the Iranian population supported Khomeini. Like the myopic military officers he advised, he appeared to believe that the communists were somehow standing behind the religious leaders. While he pointed out that the Iranian generals “saw a Communist behind every mosque,” he also argued “that if Iran became an islamic Republic, it would eventually end up in the Communist camp.”
P. 255
* Huyser and Sullivan were getting mixed signal from different departments
Over dinner in the evening at the ambassador’s residence, Huyser and Sullivan would discuss the day’s events. After dinner they would both call Washington from two secure telephone circuits. In Sullivan’s words: On one line I would speak to Under Secretary of State Newsom or Assistaant Secretary Saunders. On the other, Huyser would speak with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, David Jones, or with Secretary of Defense Hardold Brown. We would then compare notes after our conversations to try to sort out what Washington was attempting to convey to us. There were times when we felt we must have been talking to two different cities.
* They were professional but disagreed sharply on assessements — especially on military — and such division and mix signals were meant to be doomed at the time of crisis.
Since they were both thorough professionals, Huyser and Sullivan respected both one another and one another’s opinions, something that was uncommon among American decision makers in Washington. Nonetheless, they disagreed sharply in their assessement of the Iranian military. Sullivan felt it was deeply split, quite demoralized, and would fall apart in the face of the crisis that loomed ahead. Huyser curiously overestimated the strength of teh shah’s armed forces despite their leaders’ personal and professional rivalry, their appalling lack of planning, and their refusal to take responsiblity. Huyser witnessed this firsthand every day of the month he was in Tehran. When he drafted a cable to Washington giving his positive assessement of the military’s solidarity, he asked for Sullivan’s opinion. Sullivan said he did not agree, and Huyser included the dissenting view in the telegram. In a poignant moment after Huyser had left the ambassador’s office, Sullivan turned to his deputy chief of mission and said that he strongly believed his assessment to be correct, but “Goddamn, I wish in this case that I am wrong.” In the end, Sullivan was proven right; even Huyser came to admit that “Yes, the military did collapse, ten days after Khomeini returned to Iran and seven days after I departed.”
P. 256
* Civilians were brought in to determine the future the country. Also, the rivarly among officers.
Despite this, high-ranking American military advisers who remained in Iran after Huyser left were shocked by the February 1979 collapse of the Iranian military. In retrospect, they explained the collapse in the following terms. First, in a major meeting of four hundred flag and middle-grade officers, a decision was made to permit the civilian and constituational forces to determine the future of the country. Second, the hard-lin senior officers lost their credibility because of intense personal rivalries, infighting (especially in the air force), and clumsy political moves. General Manuchehr Khosrowdad, for example, took himself out of the game by intemperate, frontal verbal attacks on prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who simply had him removed as commander of army aviation and relegated to the command of a secondary military support group.
* Some soldiers and middle-level officers due to religious proclivity, had switched sides to opposition along with some high-level officers. Many soldiers began defecting.
In general terms, no one should have been surprised by the collapse of the military. It had been under incredible pressure for months. The rank-and-file soliders were very religious and naturally susceptible to the ideas and proclamations of their cleric leaders. But even the officer class had been successfully penetrated, and a number of the high ranking officers began to work quietly with the opposition. These included such officers as Gens. Hatam, Na’ini, and Bakhshazar. The families of important military men were targeted for special attention and extraordinary pressures by teh religious revolutionaries. Throughout 1978 and early 1979, thousands upon thousands of soldiers had defected. By the time Gen. Abbas Qarabaghi became chief of staff in early December 1978, defections were numbering on thousand a day and rising.
* The opposition asserted that Sullivan had far more knowledge regarding the situation than general Huyers as he had closeted himself, communicating with top ranking generals only as a means of extracting information.
The Iranian revolutionary opposition considered Ambassador Sullivan much more knowledgeable about the situation in Iran than General Huyser. In their words: “While Sullivan situation, his views were ignored in Washington because they were bad news and therefore unacceptable. On the other hand, everyone eargerly awaited Huyser’s report.” In the opinion of the Iranian opposition, Huyser had “very little information” because he closeted himself only with the highest-ranking Iranian generals. In his own accounts, Huyser had admitted no contact whatsoever with the opposition forces and has indicated that he spent 4 1/2 to 7 or 8 hours every day (with one exception) with the Iranian commanders.
* Presence of military advisor rather than civilian fueled the extermists and oppositions.
Besides further dividing the policy-making establishment in Washington, the Huyser mission had profoundly negative effects in the Iranian political context. The opposition forces viewed Huyser’s presence as an obvious U.S. attempt to intervene directly and militarily in a last-ditch effort to save the Pahlavi regime. The fact that the United States had chosen to send a high-ranking military emissary rather than an important civilian diplomat hurt the secular moderate opposition and contribted to the extremist climate. The shah himself saw this as a hostile act designed to hasten his exit. And a small group of high-level Phalavi loyalists in the military viewed Huyser’s mission as an attempt to keep them froma bloody coup in order to install a military government.
P. 258
* After the untimely call to shah to express support of Jalah Square massacre, State Department wanted the president to contact Khomeini as a means to gain Iranian people’s support to squash the anti-Americanism sentiments which both Huyser and Sullivan agreed upon.
But Carter never did this. In fact he vetoed any direct American contacts with Ayatollah Khomeini, contact that was strongly recommended by most knowledgeable American advisers and that was a one issue on which both Ambassador Sullivan and General Huyser agreed. After seriously considering approving a mission that was to be headed by former State Department official Ted Eliot to meet with Khomeini in paris, Carter backed away when Brzezinski, through the means of the clever bureaucratic tactics of stalling and intrigue, smothered the idea.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccloyJ.htm
The CHAIRMAN: JOHN J MCCLOY & THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT
by Kai Bird
* John McCloy had strong ties with Iranian Shah through venture banking (Chase) and legal counsel, handling $2 billion/year of Iranian Eurodollar transactions.
John McCloy developed a close relationship with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran), who gained power in Iran during the Second World War. McCloy’s legal firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, provided legal counsel to Pahlavi. The Chase International Investment Corporation, which McCloy established in the 1950s, had several joint ventures in Iran.
Kai Bird (The Chairman: John J. McCloy: The Making of the American Establishment) has argued: “Each year, the bank handled some $2 billion in Iranian Eurodollar transactions, and throughout the 1970s Iran had at least $6 billion on deposit at various branches around the world.” As one financial commentator pointed out: “Iran became the crown jewel of Chase’s international banking portfolio.”
* Iran had half a billion in loans. McCloy tried to persuade Carter to protect shah. After shah fled, he argued that the U.S. has an obligation to protect him here in the States.
McCloy became concerned that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would be overthrown. This was a major problem as outstanding loans to the regime amounted to over $500 million. McCloy went to see Robert Bowie, deputy director of the CIA. Bowie, who had just returned from Iran, was convinced that the communist Tudeh Party was behind the protests and were guilty of manipulating the Fedayeen and Mujahadeen. Over the next few months, McCloy organized a campaign to persuade President Jimmy Carter to protect the regime. This included David Rockefeller, Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger making deputations to the administration.
* But Carter feared that shah’s entry to the U.S. would cause an uproar in Tehran and result in endangering lives of American citizens.
McCloy asked President Carter to allow the Shah to live in the United States. Carter refused because he had told by his diplomats in Iran that such a decision might encourage the embassy being stormed by mobs. As a result McCloy made preparations for the Shah to stay in the Bahamas. David Rockefeller arranged for his personal assistant at Chase Manhattan, Joseph V. Reed, to manage the Shah’s finances.
* In return Rockefeller created plan, Project Alpha, to get shah into the U.S.. He used Chase money to buy favoritable views from the academic and also pressuring Carter through meetings and incessant nagging to officials with regard to the situation. They even mounted an attack through conservative magazines.
Rockefeller also established the highly secret, Project Alpha. The main objective was to persuade Carter to provide a safe haven for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (code-named “Eagle”). McCloy, Rockefeller and Kissinger were referred to as the “Triumvirate”. Rockefeller used money from Chase Manhattan Bank to pay employees of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy who worked on the project. Some of this money was used to persuade academics to write articles defending the record of Pahlavi. For example, George Lenczowski, professor emeritus at the University of California, was paid $40,000 to write a book with the “intention to answer the shah’s critics”.
Kissinger telephoned Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor to Carter, on 7th April, 1979, and berated the president for his emphasis on human rights, which he considered to be “amateurish” and “naive”. Brzezinski suggested he talked directly to Jimmy Carter. Kissinger called Carter and arranged for him to meet David Rockefeller, two days later. Gerald Ford also contacted Carter and urged him to “stand by our friends”.
McCloy, Rockefeller and Kissinger arranged for conservative journalists to mount an attack on Carter over this issue. On 19th April, George F. Will wrote about Carter and the Shah and said; “It is sad that an Administration that knows so much about morality has so little dignity.”
McCloy had meetings with President Carter in the White House on 16th May and 12th June where he outlined his reasons for providing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with sanctuary. Carter listened politely to his arguments but refused to change his mind.
During the summer of 1979 McCloy contacted Zbigniew Brzezinski, Cyrus Vance, Walter Mondale and Dean Rusk about the Shah being allowed to live in the United States. McCloy told them that Carter’s refusal to provide sanctuary to an old U.S. ally was “ungentlemanly” and dismissed the idea that lives in Iran might be jeopardized. Vance later recalled that: “John (McCloy) is a very prolific letter writer. The morning mail often contained something from him about the Shah”.
* After a while Brzezinski switched sides and advised Carter to let Shah in. Carter was very concern with the situation in Tehran and American embassy and truely was against shah’s invitation to the country.
In July 1979, Mondale and Brzezinski told Jimmy Carter that they had changed their minds and now supported asylum for the Shah. Carter replied: “F*** the Shah. I’m not going to welcome him here when he has other places to go where he’ll be safe.” He added that despite the fact that “Kissinger, Rockefeller and McCloy had been waging a constant campaign on the subject” he did not want the Shah “here playing tennis while Americans in Tehran were being kidnapped or even killed.”
* Rockefeller made a scene by indicating that if shah doesn’t get treatment, he’ll die and it’ll look aweful on administration. Carter finally reluctently gave permission to shah to come to the U.S.. Two weeks later, the Embassy is overrun.
In October, 1979, David Rockefeller’s assistant, Joseph V. Reed, called the State Department and claimed that the Shah had cancer and needed immediate treatment in a U.S. medical facility. Cyrus Vance now told Carter that the Shah should be allowed in as a matter of “common decency”. Carter’s chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, argued that if the Shah died outside the United States, Kissinger and his friends would say “that first you caused the Shah’s downfall and now you’ve killed him.” Carter replied: “What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?”
Faced with the now unanimous opposition of his closest advisers, the president reluctantly agreed to admit the Shah. He arrived at New York Hospital on 22nd October, 1979. Joseph V. Reed circulated a memo to McCloy and other members of Project Alpha: “Our mission impossible is completed. My applause is like thunder.” Less than two weeks later, Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and took hostage 66 Americans. Thus beginning the Iranian Hostage Crisis.
* McCloy asks for freeze of Iran’s assets, gulloping the loan as the interest payment was in default.
McCloy now persuaded Jimmy Carter to freeze all Iran’s assets in the United States. This was the day before Iran’s $4.05 million interest payment was due on its $500 million loan. As this was not now paid, Chase Manhattan Bank announced that the Iranian government was in default. The bank was now allowed to seize all of Iran’s Chase accounts and used this money to “offset” any outstanding Iranian loans. In fact, by the end of this process, the bank ended up in profit from the deal.
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http://wikileaks.org/wiki/US_Special_Forces_counter-insurgency_manual_FM_31-20-3
US Special Forces counter-insurgency manual FM 31-20-3
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/How_to_train_death_squads_and_quash_revolutions_from_San_Salvador_to_Iraq
How to train death squads and quash revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq
How to covertly train paramilitaries, censor the press, ban unions, employ terrorists, conduct warrantless searches, suspend habeas corpus, conceal breaches of the Geneva Convention and make the population love it
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# Halliburton #
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http://www.ameinfo.com/113274.html
Halliburton opens corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates
Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL) announced at a regional energy conference in the Kingdom of Bahrain the opening of a corporate headquarters office in the United Arab Emirates.
Bahrain: Monday, March 12 – 2007 at 07:59
Based in Dubai, Lesar will work closely with Halliburton Eastern Hemisphere Senior Vice President Ahmed Lotfy to further strengthen the company’s activities in the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe/Eurasia regions.
‘This is already a strong market for Halliburton and we are excited to position the company in this key business area,’ he adds. ‘Halliburton continues to introduce innovative technologies, such as the Geo-Pilot® and EZ-PilotTM rotary steerable tools and GasPerm 1000 fracturing agent, among others, which help to enable our customers to recognize even greater returns on their drilling and production operations.’
Halliburton’s energy services operations have recently celebrated key contract wins, expanded service offerings across the divisions, and experienced increased utilization of integrated services and technologies throughout the Eastern Hemisphere. During 2006, more than 38 percent of Halliburton’s US$13 billion oil field services revenue was generated from the Eastern Hemisphere. The area encompasses four regions with more than 16,000 employees, more than 80 percent of which are localized.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/halliburton-from-bushs-favourite-to-a-national-disgrace-440126.html
Halliburton: From Bush’s favourite to a national disgrace
It is a symbol of American cronyism, the beneficiary of lucrative Iraq contracts thanks to its relationship with Dick Cheney. Now Halliburton is relocating to Dubai – and US politicians are outraged. By Andrew Buncombe
Wednesday, 14 March 2007
Halliburton, which is in the process of spinning off its KBR arm, has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Bush administration, and indeed, with previous US governments. It has most recently been in the public eye for its contracts in Iraq – the Logcap (or Logistics Civilian Augmentation Programme) under which it provides military support services such as meals, laundry and fuel supplies and the Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract. Reports say the estimated value of the contracts stands at more than $25bn. A number of its contracts were awarded on a no-bid basis – which drew criticism not just from watchdogs but from other companies seeking their share of the spoils of the so-called Iraqi “reconstruction” projects.
Industry observers say Halliburton enjoys a near unique position within the US corporate world. “People always look at Dick Cheney and say he is the poster-boy of cronyism but at a bureaucratic level there has also been a lot of revolving doors from the Army Corps of Engineers to Halliburton or else consultants to Halliburton,” said Charlie Gray of HalliburtonWatch.Org, a project of the Centre for Corporate Policy, a non-profit group based in Washington. He added: “Given the multiple ongoing investigations into Halliburton’s alleged wrongdoing, policy-makers should closely scrutinise Halliburton’s latest move, and whether it will allow the company to further elude accountability. Moreover, this underscores the need for Congress to bar companies that have broken the law, or avoided paying taxes, from receiving federal contracts.”
Pratap Chaterjee, director of CorpWatch, another watchdog organisation, agreed that Halliburton’s position was remarkable. But he said the company was not simply close to the Bush administration – to which it has been a sizeable political donor – but that it had enjoyed a relationship with previous US administrations. He pointed out that KBR’s predecessor, Brown and Root, had operated in Vietnam and had faced similar accusations of over-charging and corruption as well as allegations that it was too close to President Lyndon Johnson. Indeed, a young Illinois congressman called Donald Rumsfeld travelled to Vietnam to investigate such allegations. Brown and Root also won contracts from President Bill Clinton for work in the Balkans. Long before that, Erle Halliburton, who died in 1957, had loaned his yacht to the US military during the Second World War.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=22571&version=%201&template_id=%2037&parent_id=17
US, UAE move to formalise military tiesPublished: Thursday, 13 January, 2005, 12:02 PM Doha Time
ABU DHABI: The US and the United Arab Emirates have held the first meeting of a Joint Military Commission (JMC) aimed at formalising their growing defence co-operation, a senior Pentagon official said yesterday.
Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs Peter Rodman said the UAE would take delivery of the first batch of 80 US-built F-16 Falcon fighters in May and confirmed that an Emirati military air flight training centre involving “outside” countries was now operational.
“I’m here for what we hope will be the first of a regular series of bilateral meetings with our friends in the UAE,” Rodman said after he led a team from the Pentagon, Centcom and State Department in two days of talks with Emirati military officials headed by newly named armed forces chief of staff General Hamad Mohamed Thani al-Rumaithi.
“We have these forums with other friends around the world,” including a number of Arab countries, to “talk about co-operation, the strategic situation in the neighbourhood, sometimes arms sales … It’s a way of formalising interaction.”
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1171773,00.html
The Dubai Deal You Don’t Know About
Thursday, Mar. 09, 2006
By DAREN FONDA
Yet while one Dubai company may be giving up on U.S. ports, another one shows no signs of quitting the U.S.—or of giving up a contract with the Navy to provide shore services for vessels in the Middle East. The firm, Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS), is an old British company that last January was sold to a Dubai government investment vehicle for $285 million. ISS has more than 200 offices around the world and provides services to clients ranging from cruise ship operators to oil tankers to commercial cargo vessels. In the U.S., the company operates out of more than a dozen port cities, including Houston, Miami and New Orleans, arranging pilots, tugs, linesmen and stevedores, among other things. The firm is also a defense contractor which has long worked for Britains Royal Navy. And last June, the U.S. Navy signed on too, awarding ISS a $50 million contract to be the husbanding agent for vessels in most Southwest Asia ports, including those in the Middle East, according to an unclassified Navy logistics manual for the Fifth Fleet and a press release from ISS.
Why is a Dubai shipping services company doing business with the Pentagon when handing over U.S. port operations to the emirate would supposedly compromise national security? Because it makes sense. Call it the reality of living in a globally connected business world. Your IBM laptop is now manufactured by a Chinese company that may outsource customer support to an Indian firm and the logistics to FedEx. Dubai companies aren’t just buying overseas assets like hotels in New York and wax museums in London; they’re providing jobs and business for U.S. companies. Boeing, for one, can only hope it doesn’t receive a frosty reception the next time it wants to sell airplanes to Dubai’s booming airline, Emirates. Rival Airbus would be more than happy to take advantage of Washington’s creeping protectionism.
The Navy, for one, has long understood that it would be virtually impossible to rely solely on Western-owned companies for critical services. It simply couldnt operate without local firms providing logistics support at the 200 ports its ships visit around the world. After the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, the Navy undertook a wide-scale review of contracting procedures, including those involving ship husbanding. As a result of that review, the Navy took several steps to increase the security of ships in foreign ports, but maintained its system of contracting. We’ve been doing business in the Persian Gulf for 60 years, says a Navy official who was unable to confirm the details of the ISS contract. Moreover, Dubai is considered one of the best-equipped ports for the Navy—its also a crucial logistical base for operations in the region, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/HCtOiI.html
Halliburton Connected to Office in Iran
Dow Jones, 1 February 2001
Halliburton Co., the U.S. oil-services giant until recently headed by Vice President Richard Cheney, has opened an office in Tehran and operated in Iran in possible violation of U.S. sanctions, Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reported.
Since 1995, U.S. laws have banned most American commerce with Iran. Halliburton Products and Services Ltd. works behind an unmarked door on the ninth floor of a new north Tehran tower block. A brochure declares that the company was registered in 1975 in the Cayman Islands, is based in the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Dubai and is ‘non-American.’ But, like the sign over the receptionist’s head, the brochure bears the Dallas company’s name and red emblem, and offers services from Halliburton units around the world.
But a U.S. official said a Halliburton (HAL) office in Tehran would violate at least the spirit of American law. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control declined to comment on a specific company, referring inquiries to a Web site summary of Iran sanctions that bans almost all U.S. trade and investment with Iran, specifically in oil services. The Web site adds: ‘No U.S. person may approve or facilitate the entry into or performance of transactions or contracts with Iran by a foreign subsidiary of a U.S. firm that the U.S. person is precluded from performing directly. Similarly, no U.S. person may facilitate such transactions by unaffiliated foreign persons.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/feb/12/iran.oil
Halliburton faces Iran inquiry
David Teather in New York
The Guardian, Thursday February 12, 2004
Halliburton, the company formerly run by Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, was last night facing another investigation, this time over possible business dealings with Iran.
The oil services company said it had received a letter from the US treasury department, informing it that an inquiry into allegations that Halliburton might have broken trade embargoes had been reopened.
The investigation relates to when Mr Cheney was running the company. He was chief executive between 1995 and 2000 before quitting to run for office with George Bush, taking with him a $36m (£19m) severance package.
Halliburton said the investigation, originally begun in 2001, had been reopened but gave no other detail. Reuters quoted treasury sources saying that new information had come to light which prompted a fresh investigation.
The news agency claimed to have seen documents which detailed business dealings between a Halliburton subsidiary registered in the Cayman Islands and an Iranian oil company called Kala.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134836,00.html
Cheney Pushed for More Trade With Iran
Saturday, October 09, 2004
Vice President Dick Cheney (search), who has called Iran “the world’s leading exporter of terror,” pushed to lift U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran while chairman of Halliburton (search) Co. in the 1990s. And his company’s offshore subsidiaries also expanded business in Iran.
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards (search) criticized Cheney in Tuesday night’s debate for his position on Iran during the 1990s, and Edwards said he supports expanding the sanctions against Iran.
Cheney countered that he now supports sanctions against Iran but sidestepped the issue of Halliburton’s involvement, saying it was being raised by Democrats “to try to confuse the voters.”
Halliburton’s foreign subsidiaries did about $65 million in business with Iran last year, company documents say. A federal grand jury is investigating whether Halliburton or its executives deliberately violated the U.S. ban on trade with Iran.
Foreign subsidiaries of American companies can do business with Iran as long as no Americans participate in or direct that business. Halliburton says it did not break that law.
While he headed the Houston-based oil services and construction company, Cheney strongly criticized sanctions against countries like Iran and Libya. President Clinton cut off all U.S. trade with Iran in 1995 because of Tehran’s support for terrorism.
Cheney argued then that sanctions did not work and punished American companies. The former defense secretary complained in a 1998 speech that U.S. companies were “cut out of the action” in Iran because of the sanctions.
At an energy industry conference in 1996, Cheney said sanctions were the greatest threat to Halliburton and other American oil-related companies trying to expand overseas.
“We seem to be sanction-happy as a government,” Cheney said. “The problem is that the good Lord didn’t see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments.”
Although Cheney maintained his opposition to unilateral U.S. sanctions during his first months as vice president, the Bush administration renewed the trade ban with Iran in March 2001.
“It is neither prudent nor appropriate for our company to establish our own country-by-country foreign policy,” Halliburton said in a January statement amid criticism of its Iran deals.
Much of Halliburton’s business with Iran comes through Halliburton Products & Services Ltd., a subsidiary incorporated in the Cayman Islands and based in the United Arab Emirates. Halliburton Products & Services opened a Tehran office in early 2000, before Cheney left Halliburton to become Bush’s running mate.
Halliburton Products & Services Ltd. does between $30 million and $40 million in business each year with Iran, Halliburton said in response to a challenge by New York City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. Other foreign subsidiaries did about $25 million in business with Iran in 2003, the company said.
Halliburton also has kept alive a U.S.-based subsidiary called Kellogg Iran, Inc. Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Gist said that company has not done anything since 1977, before Cheney acquired Kellogg Iran’s former parent company for Halliburton.
Click to access REPORT_Halliburton_Iran.pdf
DICK CHENEY, IRAN AND HALLIBURTON:
A GRAND JURY INVESTIGATES SANCTIONS VIOLATIONS
At issue is a foreign subsidiary of Halliburton, called “Halliburton Products & Services Limited,” that has only one source of revenue: business with the Iranian government and its national oil company. While U.S. sanctions law prohibits American companies, like Halliburton, from doing business with Iran, a loophole in the law allows the foreign subsidiaries of a U.S. company to conduct business with terror-sponsoring states. However, Halliburton may have
egregiously abused that loophole by conducting decision-making on Iran operations not out of the foreign subsidiary, but out of the U.S. parent company or its U.S.-based subsidiaries – a serious violation of the law.
In order to comply with terrorist sanctions law, neither Halliburton (the U.S. parent company) nor any of its U.S. subsidiaries here or overseas can engage in any decision making with regard to, or become involved in, business transactions between the foreign subsidiary – Halliburton Products and Services – and Iran. The foreign subsidiary must be truly independent in order to legally take advantage of the loophole.
After initially closing an investigation of Halliburton in early 2001, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control reopened the case in January 2004, after CBS News’ 60 Minutes broadcast an expose of Halliburton Products and Services’ longtime business practices with Iran.
IS HALLIBURTON LIMITED AN INDEPENDENT SUBSIDIARY?
In order to abide by U.S. terrorist sanctions law, Halliburton Limited must maintain a completely separate and independent operation from any U.S. subsidiary of Halliburton. But as this page from Halliburton’s online corporate directory shows, Halliburton Limited shares an office suite, phone and fax lines with KBR, Halliburton’s U.S. subsidiary. It is hard to argue that Halliburton is maintaining such independence when the two subsidiaries are so intertwined: ( http://www.halliburton.com/ofc_loc/location_search.jsp?USA=0&rgn=ME&cnt=United%20Arab%20Emirates )
[W]hen Vice President Cheney was chief executive of Dallas-based Halliburton Co., a major oil equipment supply company, in the mid-1990s, he blasted the
Iran sanctions as “self-defeating.” “There seems to be an assumption that somehow we know what’s best for everybody else, and that we are going to use our economic clout to get everybody else to live the way we would like,” he said in 1996 in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.
– John Ward Anderson, “Iran Throwing Off Its Isolation; U.S. Remains Dubious After Decades of Mutual Distrust,” The Washington Post, March 31, 2001, p. A18
“We’re kept out of there primarily by our own government, which has made a decision that U.S. firms should not be allowed to invest significantly in Iran,
and I think that’s a mistake.”
“While American companies have to sit on the sidelines, oil companies from the rest of the world have invested in Iran’s energy sector, sometimes without
operating the same high standards.”
– Dick Cheney Speech before the World Petroleum Congress Calgary, Canada June 13, 2000 (the month before joining the Bush-Cheney ticket)
Halliburton’s 1997 Year End lobbying report filed with the Senate and the House of Representatives. The lobbying report indicates that Iran and Libya sanctions were one of the few issues Halliburton focused its lobbying efforts on in that year, while Dick Cheney was CEO. Halliburton’s 1998 lobbying reports have similar references to lobbying on Iran and Libya sanctions.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/45012/000004501204000228/edjune10q2004_final.htm
FORM 10-Q
UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
[X] Quarterly Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
For the quarterly period ended June 30, 2004
OR
[ ] Transition Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
For the transition period from _____ to _____
Commission File Number 1-3492
HALLIBURTON COMPANY
(a Delaware Corporation)
75-2677995
5 Houston Center
1401 McKinney, Suite 2400
Houston, Texas 77010
(Address of Principal Executive Offices)
Telephone Number – Area Code (713) 759-2600
P. 27
Operations in Iran. We received and responded to an inquiry in mid-2001 from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Treasury Department with respect to operations in Iran by a Halliburton subsidiary that is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. The OFAC inquiry requested information with respect to compliance with the Iranian Transaction Regulations. These regulations prohibit United States citizens, including United States corporations and other United States business organizations, from engaging in commercial, financial, or trade transactions with Iran, unless authorized by OFAC or exempted by statute. Our 2001 written response to OFAC stated that we believed that we were in full compliance with applicable sanction regulations. In January 2004, we received a follow-up letter from OFAC requesting additional information. We responded fully to this request on March 19, 2004. We understand this matter has now been referred by OFAC to the Department of Justice. In July 2004, we
P. 65
Office of Foreign Assets Control inquiry
We have a Cayman Islands subsidiary with operations in Iran, and other European subsidiaries that manufacture goods destined for Iran and/or render services in Iran. The United States imposes trade restrictions and economic embargoes that prohibit United States incorporated entities and United States citizens and residents from engaging in commercial, financial, or trade transactions with some foreign countries, including Iran, unless authorized by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Treasury Department or exempted by statute.
We received and responded to an inquiry in mid-2001 from OFAC with respect to the operations in Iran by a Halliburton subsidiary that is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. The OFAC inquiry requested information with respect to compliance with the Iranian Transaction Regulations. Our 2001 written response to OFAC stated that we believed that we were in full compliance with applicable sanction regulations. In January 2004, we received a follow-up letter from OFAC requesting additional information. We responded fully to this request on March 19, 2004. We understand this matter has now been referred by OFAC to the Department of Justice. In July 2004, we received from an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas a grand jury subpoena requesting the production of documents. We intend to cooperate with the government’s investigation. As of June 30, 2004, we had not accrued any amounts related to this investigation.
Separate from the OFAC inquiry, we completed a study in 2003 of our activities in Iran during 2002 and 2003 and concluded that these activities were in full compliance with applicable sanction regulations. These sanction regulations require isolation of entities that conduct activities in Iran from contact with United States citizens or managers of United States companies.
We have been asked to and could be required to respond to other questions and inquiries about operations in countries with trade restrictions and economic embargoes.
http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/savak.htm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952735-1,00.html
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