Following is the account given by the office as quoted by the Mehr News Agency:
However, Sardasht was not the only city that became the target of the former Iraqi regime's bio-chemical warfare. The weapons were widely used by the toppled Baathist regime in both Iranian and Iraqi cities many times.
The anniversary of the beginning of the 1980-1988 Iraqi imposed war on Iran and the start of "the Sacred Defense Week" is a good opportunity to explore one of the most tragic and horrifying aspects of the eight-year Iraqi imposed war; the use of bio-chemical weapons by the then Iraqi regime against Iran and its own people.
It is common knowledge to everybody that the regime was not able to have access to such a vast scale of the bio-chemical weapons all alone by itself.
As a matter of fact, the support given by Europe, U.S. and the Arab countries to the former regime in Baghdad during its war on Iran is indicative of the reasons for the regime's access to the chemical and biological warfare.
The former Iraqi regime was not capable of producing the bio-chemical weapons on such a large scale in the beginning of the war in 1980. However, the Baathist regime procured a significant amount of the weapons from the former Soviet Union.
The former regime in Baghdad, also bought the special equipment required for its independent production of the weapons in Iraq from the European countries and the U.S.
One of the former Iraqi regime's most controversial purchases of the bio-chemical weapons was the deal agreement between the regime and the former West Germany.
The then Iraqi regime signed a contract for the purchase of various technical equipment for its purpose from Drereich Chemicals Company in West Germany in the beginning of 1982.
The former regime in Baghdad also obtained from the U.S. the chemicals needed for the production of the deadly nerve gas, widely used in its warfronts.
However, after the use of the nerve gas by Iraq in one of the major battles of the imposed war in 1984, the U.S. stopped selling any kind of chemicals to Iraq.
Since the beginning of the war, through taking a special policy, the Iraqis became one of the most generous customers of the European companies involved in the production and sales of chemicals.
It was during those days that a top official in the U.S. Defense Ministry Headquarters, the Pentagon commenting on the issue said that the U.S. officials were well aware of the fact that particularly, two companies in Western Germany were assisting Iraq in its production of the bio-chemical weapons. The U.S. official also noted that in addition to "Pestiziden", one of the companies probably produced mustard gas and nerve gas too.
The official in the U.S. Defense Ministry had added that "Karl Kolb", another Western Germany company located in Frankfurt suburbs also supplied Iraq with "Pestiziden" and other poisonous gases required for the production of the lethal bio-chemical warfare.
There is ample evidence on the fact that Britain was also another supplier of the bio-chemical warfare for Iraq.
The detection of a chemicals consignment in a ship registered in Iraq in Normandy Harbor in France during which four bottles of a powerful poisonous chemicals were burst opened accidentally and resulted in the French police warning people about it, was another scandal for the British government regarding their bio-chemical warfare support for the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The ship was carrying 35,000 tons of Dimethyl Menthyl Phosphonate from Liverpool in England to Kuwait and from there to its final destination in Iraq.
Moreover, the Phillips Petrochemicals, a subsidiary of a U.S. corporation in Belgium, delivered a total of 500 tons of TDG, the basic material for the production of the lethal mustard gas to the Iraqi Bureau of Pesticides and Herbal Poisons.
The consignment was ordered through "Koster Neuzen", a company in the Netherlands. It was discovered later on that the substance was used in the production of the bio-chemical warfare used against the Iranian forces during the war.
Also, it was found out in 1986, that in spite of the strict control of the Dutch Foreign Ministry, at least two Dutch companies had overlooked their government's regulations regarding the ban on the sale and export of chemicals to Iraq.
Furthermore, maybe it is hard to say that the Arab countries directly helped the former Iraqi regime in supplying it with the bio-chemical weapons widely used against the Iranian forces during the war but, their illogical animosity toward Iran and their vicinity to Iraq, resulted in times and again their being used as a transitory destination for supplying the regime with the weapons. They played a major role in encouraging Saddam in its war against Iran.
RA/IS
END
MNA
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