U.S. excised embarassing portions of Iraq weapons report
January/February 2003

While demanding full disclosure from the Iraqis, the U.S. government deleted portions of the huge weapons report prepared by Iraq for the UN, a Gernman newspaper reported in December.

The Berlin-based paper Die Tagezeitung obtained portions of Iraq's top secret weapons report that reveals at least 24 U.S. corporations as well as four agencies of the U.S. government illegally helped Iraq build its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs.

Some of the corporations include Hewlett Packard, DuPont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Tectronics, Bechtel, International Computer Systems, Unisys, Sperry and TI Coating.

The paper also reports the U.S. Department of Energy delivered essential non-fissile parts for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce and Defense also provided assistance.

According to the paper, only one country had more business ties to Iraq than the U.S., Germany. As many as 80 German companies are also listed in Iraq's report. And the paper reported that some German companies continued to do business with Iraq until last year.

The list of companies who worked with Iraq was supposed to be top secret. Iraq produced only two identical copies of its 12,000-page report for international review. One went to the International Atomic Energy Agency and one went to the United Nations. The Bush Administration quickly took control of the UN version, and made unedited copies for the other permanent members of the Security Council, Britain, France, Russia and China, according to a report on the radio show Democracy Now, December 18.

The U.S. then made edited copies, which deleted all reference to nuclear weapons production and all mentions of international corporations. This was the report that the world was supposed to see.

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