Singapore: Supplier of Chemical Weapons
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Twelve years after the Persian Gulf War began, some American veterans of that conflict are finding new ammunition in their fight to find out who supplied Iraq chemicals that might have made them sick.
More than 5,000 veterans are plaintiffs in a lawsuit that accuses companies of helping Iraqi President Saddam Hussein build his chemical warfare arsenal. The plaintiffs are among the tens of thousands who came down with "Gulf War Illness," a debilitating series of ailments that can include chronic fatigue, skin rashes, muscle joint pain, memory loss, and brain damage.
Now, plaintiffs' attorneys have acquired, for the first time, what they believe is strong evidence of which companies supplied Iraq the chemicals that might have been used to produce mustard gas, sarin nerve gas and VX.
The supplier list, shown to CNN, is included in Iraq's 1998 weapons declaration to the United Nations, parts of which were resubmitted to weapons inspectors last month. Sources tell CNN the list is an authentic document, but attorneys for the companies question its accuracy and say the lawsuit is without merit.
The Iraqi list names 56 suppliers of chemicals and equipment to process them. A majority are based in Europe.
"If they are hit in the pocketbook, if they know the dictator they provide this stuff to is eventually gonna turn them over to the public and they are gonna be held accountable for what they've done, they're less likely to sell these things to Saddam or somebody like [him] in the future," plaintiffs' attorney Gary Pitts said.
The lawsuit, originally filed by Pitts in a civil court in Brazoria County, Texas, in 1994, alleges that companies knew "products and/or manufacturing facilities supplied ... were to be used to produce chemical and biological weapons."
The suit seeks at least $1 billion in damages for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
Seven companies in the Iraqi weapons declaration have been named defendants. Pitts said the plaintiffs will sue more of the listed companies next.
Germany is home to the most major suppliers listed in Iraq's 1998 U.N. declaration. The Netherlands and Switzerland each are home to three companies on the list. France, Austria and the United States each are home to two. The declaration says Singapore was the largest exporter of chemical weapons precursors. Other countries home to alleged chemical exporters to Iraq include India, Egypt, Spain and Luxembourg, with one each.
The veterans' lawsuit has moved slowly for eight years. Neither the U.S. government nor the United Nations weapons inspection agency, formerly the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) and now the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, would share supplier information requested by Pitts.
"UNSCOM had a practice of not revealing names of companies of suppliers of equipment to Iraq because they often had the possibility of getting information from these companies, and the best way to get these companies to talk to them was not to publish their names to start with," Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, told CNN.
Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, contacted by Pitts, acquired the list for the veterans during a meeting last year with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
"I brought out a series of compact discs which contained the totality of the Iraqi declaration," Ritter told CNN. The "full, final and complete" weapons declaration has never been made public. Ritter gave the CDs to Pitts.
"I am assisting United States veterans, heroes," Ritter said. "People who put on our uniform, defended our country in time of war, who have been abandoned by their government."
About 209,000 Gulf War veterans have filed claims with the Veterans Administration, and 161,000 of them are receiving disability payments.
Neither American company listed -- Alcolac International, based in Baltimore, Maryland; and Al-Haddad Trading, based in Nashville, Tennessee -- are still in business.
No one from Al-Haddad could be reached.
Alcolac paid a fine in 1989 under U.S. law for one charge of exporting thiodiglycol, a chemical that could be used to make mustard gas, but that shipment was destined for another country.
"I am unaware of any direct sale from Alcolac to Iraq," says attorney Ron Welsh, who represents Rhodia, which owns the defunct Alcolac's assets.
Welsh said the veteran's lawsuit "has no meat."
One of the largest alleged suppliers to Iraq's chemical program, according to Iraq's list, was the German company Karl Kolb. A spokesman for the company said it has done business with Iraq for 35 years, but he denied any connection to its weapons programs.
The German firm Preussag, since acquired by the travel conglomerate TUI, supplied chemical precursors for sarin nerve gas, according to Iraq's declaration. The firm told CNN that claim is untrue.
Several German manufacturers listed -- Schott Glas, Klockner Ina, Ludwig Hammer, Heberger Bau -- denied connections to Iraq's weapons plants and said the lawsuit's accusations are false.
"Schott Glas is a manufacturer of glass and glass components, not of weapons," attorney Palmer Hutcheson said.
"The plaintiffs don't have a case. They have failed to show evidence that Klockner was involved in any way in helping Iraq produce chemical or biological weapons," attorney Brian Hurst said.
The Dutch company Melchemie denied that it supplied "strategic raw materials" to Iraq. It has acknowledged improperly shipping chemicals to an Iraqi agricultural producer once, in 1984. Melchemie paid a fine and says it bought back the containers. The firm said its Iraqi exports are now limited to tomato and cucumber seeds.
A Dutch-based subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum exported chemicals to Iraq but nothing illegal, according to Sam Stubbs, an attorney for Phillips. Stubbs said, "Any substance Phillips would have sold to Iraq would have been a useful and beneficial product, if used properly."
The Indian company Exomet Plastics, now part of EPC Industrie, said the only chemicals it shipped to Iraq were for pesticides. The firm told CNN that when it was advised of the chemicals' possible misuse, it stopped further shipments.
"There were no restrictions for exporting these chemicals at the time the exports were made," said EPC attorney S.R. Mate.
Despite their names being listed by Iraq, the French firm De Dietrich and the Portuguese-owned Tafisa denied ever doing business with Iraq.
Half of the firms listed by Iraq and now targeted by the lawsuit as "major suppliers" are either defunct or were unreachable.
"We have thousands of American veterans who continue to suffer," Ritter said. I don't give a damn about these companies. If they're innocent, they won't pay a price. If they have done something they need to be ashamed of, then let your shame be public."
CNN's Claudia Otto in Berlin, Germany; Chris Burns in Frankfurt, Germany; Andrei Braun and Karine Djili-Bienfait in Paris, France; Al Goodman in Madrid, Spain; Ram Ramgopal in New Delhi, India; Maria Ressa in Singapore; and Abighail Brigham, Shira Kavon and Elizabeth Hathway in New York contributed to this report.
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CHEMICALS AND IRAQ
The lawsuit alleges that 31 companies from 11 countries were major suppliers to Iraq:
Germany -- 14 companies
Netherlands -- 3 companies
Switzerland -- 3 companies
France -- 2 companies
Austria -- 2 companies
United States -- 2
Singapore, India, Egypt, Spain and Luxembourg each had one major supplier.
* Twenty-five other companies are named as minor suppliers
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/18/iraq.chemical.suit/ -
anyone can find anything else? tot it interestin for discussion here, but couldn't find anymore on the issue...
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UK sells chemical weapons to the world
Posted By: Crusade
Date: 22, December 02, at 1:49 p.m.
In Response To: How did Iraq get its weapons? (Ayinde)
Breaking international law, Britain exports lethal TCPs to Iran, Sudan, Libya and Israel
Exclusive by Neil Mackay
http://www.sundayherald.com/25366
BRITAIN is supplying chemical warfare technology to 26 countries including Libya, Syria, Israel and Iran -- which was labelled part of the 'axis of evil' by the United States.
A Sunday Herald investigation has revealed that the UK is allowing the export of the lethal chemicals, which are illegal under international law and controlled under the chemical weapons convention because they can be used in weapons of mass destruction.
The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which authorised the sales, has admitted that it does not know whether the exports will be used to create chemical weapons once they are exported, or not.
Among the countries to which Britain is exporting 'toxic chemical precursors' (TCPs) is Sudan. The US bombed a factory in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1998 with the full support of the Blair government for allegedly producing the deadly VX nerve agent.
The UK is also exporting chemical weapons technology to countries that are not signatories to the chemical weapons convention and therefore do not recognise the international ban on chemical warfare.
Sudan and Jordan, which the UK also exports to, have signed the convention but not ratified it, making the treaty virtually meaningless there. The other nations Britain exports TCPs to are: Cyprus, India, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda and Yemen.
TCPs are known as 'dual-use chemicals' as they can be used for harmless activities like farming or adapted or turned into chemical weapons. The DTI admitted the sales were on-going, but said the weapons were sold 'in the belief' that they would be used 'benignly' in agriculture or as detergents.
The DTI said it relied on assurances from foreign governments in the form of 'end user undertakings' that they would not use British TCPs to make chemical weapons. A spokesman agreed that this was in effect nothing more than a promise that could be broken.
'We aim to minimise risk,' the spokesman said, 'but obviously it is very difficult to say what happens to these things once they get to their final destinations. It is impossible to clamp down 100%. It is impossible to know what happens to them in the stages that come after they leave Britain.
Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who sits on international development, human rights and arms export committees, is to raise the Sunday Herald investigation with the Prime Minister in the Commons.
She wants the Arms Export Bill, which is currently going through parliament, to be amended to give MPs the right to scrutinise and approve all weapons exports before they leave the UK. The government has so far refused to give MPs these powers.
She said claims by the DTI that it monitored chemical sales were 'a myth' and 'did not stand up to scrutiny'. Clwyd added: 'We have no idea what happens with these chemicals when they get to their final destination. If we are going to sell these things we have to be 100% sure what happens to them when they are sold. If we can't be sure, we shouldn't sell them.'
Clwyd accused the government of having a 'skewed morality', adding that the suspicion now hung over the Blair government that it was 'aiding and abetting dodgy regimes in the development of weapons of mass destruction'.
Professor Julian Perry Robinson, a chemist at the Science and Technology Research Unit at Sussex University, said TCPs were the main constituent of chemical weapons. Robinson, who worked on the drafting of the chemical weapons con vention and is a member of its UK National Authority Advisory Committee said reve lations about trade in TCPs were of great public concern. He explained how one TCP, dimethyl methylphosphonate, could easily be turned into lethal sarin nerve gas -- the same agent used by the Aum Shinrikyo cult to kill 12 people on the Tokyo subway system in 1995.
Robinson said it was easy for countries buying chemicals from the UK to lie about their end use, and backed calls for parliamentary scrutiny of export licences, saying: 'It is impossible to say whether the current safeguards work.'
Richard Bingley, of the group Campaign Against the Arms Trade, warned that Britain was selling chemical weapons technology to regimes that could one day turn the capabilities Britain is giving to them back against it and its allies.
l The revelations of Britain's trade in chemical warfare follow an anti-arms trade demo nstration outside 10 Downing Street yesterday. Prot esters were calling for a ban on weapons sales from the UK to India and Pakistan as the two nations teeter on the brink of war.
http://www.uscrusade.com/forum/config.pl/noframes/read/931
note that Singapore is one of the countries UK exports to, acording to this article anyway. . . -
similar to the first article:
Saturday, January 25, 2003
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2 of 5 Gulf War vets on disability
209,000 make VA claims,
161,000 getting payments
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Posted: January 25, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern
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© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
As the U.S. contemplates another war on Iraq in the coming weeks, most Americans expect relatively few casualties among the U.S. troops – just like the first Gulf War.
The Gulf War was remarkable, as U.S. conflicts go, for the strikingly low number of U.S. dead and wounded – 148 killed and 467 wounded.
But the truth is nearly two of every five of the approximately 540,000 Gulf War vets are on disability as a result of illnesses they believe they sustained during that conflict.
About 161,000 Gulf War veterans are receiving disability payments from the U.S. government. About 209,000 have filed VA claims.
A report made public earlier this month details which chemical weapons Iraq declared and the companies they claim supplied them. The disclosure is providing ammo for vets who say they have Gulf War Syndrome – a mysterious illness many believe is connected to the use of chemical weapons by Iraq.
More than 5,000 veterans are plaintiffs in a lawsuit that accuses companies of helping Iraqi President Saddam Hussein build his chemical warfare arsenal. The plaintiffs are among the tens of thousands who came down with Gulf War Syndrome, a debilitating series of ailments that can include chronic fatigue, skin rashes, muscle joint pain, memory loss and brain damage.
Now, plaintiffs' attorneys have acquired, for the first time, what they believe is strong evidence of which companies supplied Iraq the chemicals that might have been used to produce mustard gas, sarin nerve gas and VX.
The supplier list is included in Iraq's 1998 weapons declaration to the United Nations, parts of which were resubmitted to weapons inspectors last month. The Iraqi list names 56 suppliers of chemicals and equipment to process them. A majority are based in Europe.
The lawsuit, originally filed by plaintiff attorney Gary Pitts in a civil court in Brazoria County, Texas, in 1994, alleges that companies knew "products and/or manufacturing facilities supplied ... were to be used to produce chemical and biological weapons."
The suit seeks at least $1 billion in damages for medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering.
Germany is home to the top suppliers listed in Iraq's 1998 U.N. declaration. The Netherlands and Switzerland each are home to three companies on the list. France, Austria and the United States each are home to two. The declaration says Singapore was the largest exporter of chemical weapons precursors.
Neither American company listed – Alcolac International, based in Baltimore, and Al-Haddad Trading, based in Nashville, are still in business. Alcolac paid a fine in 1989 under U.S. law for one charge of exporting thiodiglycol, a chemical that could be used to make mustard gas, but that shipment was destined for another country.
If indeed that many U.S. soldiers were really sickened as a result of exposure to chemical weapons in Iraq, U.S. casualties were nearly as high as those claimed by Iraq.
Baghdad put its losses at 75,000 to 100,000 soldiers killed in action and 35,000 to 45,000 civilians killed by allied bombing. U.S. officials estimated 100,000 Iraqi soldiers killed and 300,000 wounded, and 2,500 to 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed by bombing.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30664 -
largest supplier of precursor... that simply means we sell e ingredients but some ingredients are likely to be just plain chemicals that can also be used for industrial use. just that they abuse it to make chemical weapons
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not surprising..i once read TIMES few years ago claiming tat SIngapore is the largest weapon exporter in Asia...
LandMine of different kind is found in various part of conflict in the world.. -
Singapore the largest arms exporter in Asia ?
Did we supercede the People's Republic of China, or North Korea, or for that matter the West Asian countries that support "Freedom Fighters" in the Middle East and Africa ?
Perhaps Singapore's dubious position of being the largest arms exporter in Asia is based only on recorded and declared transaction to the UN body. -
Singapore is not the biggest exporter of weapons in Asia, but probably SE Asia. Its hardly surprising given the arms industry is most developed here.
As for the chem. weapons charges, its hardly surprising that Singapore is on that list. Our status as a key export hub would mean that at some time or other, goods that are used for illegal or insidious purposes would find their way here for transshipment in some way or another. But as someone has said, the chemicals that were shipped from Singapore were probably "dual-use" materials which had a legal civilian use, although it could have been used in chemical weapons development. Lots of chemicals and other engineering equipment comes under this "dual use" category -
The declaration says Singapore was the largest exporter of chemical weapons precursors.
If the above is true
, then Singapore is also the largest importer of "" chemical weapons precursors ""
Problem is the Singapore port is the world's Busiest Port
handle almost 1000 million gross tons last year and most of the goods are for transshipment .
With transhipment of good & products becomimg " exporting " , Singapore will / can be blame as the source of anything as long it stop over for the night .
BTW , some of fertilizers for your potted plants that is on sale at some local 7- 11 are deem " explosive materials " that can be make into a home -make bomb .
Easy to make or not
>>> Cannot Comment -
not enough nitrates lah... not feasible...Originally posted by thomasct:If the above is true , then Singapore is also the largest importer of "" chemical weapons precursors ""
Problem is the Singapore port is the world's Busiest Port handle almost 1000 million gross tons last year and most of the goods are for transshipment .
With transhipment of good & products becomimg " exporting " , Singapore will / can be blame as the source of anything as long it stop over for the night .
BTW , some of fertilizers for your potted plants that is on sale at some local 7- 11 are deem " explosive materials " that can be make into a home -make bomb .
Easy to make or not >>> Cannot Comment -
Agree - if by itself and in its original formOriginally posted by CX:not enough nitrates lah... not feasible...
Sticking a fuse / detonator into fertilizer and expect to it exploded happens only in the movies.
But fertilizers can be / have been made into bombs. -
what next? can we sue gun manufacturers?
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not all fertilizers can be... only those high in nitrates... and the import of those are restricted. think about it: do we have a thriving agricultural sector?Originally posted by thomasct:Agree - if by itself and in its original form
Sticking a fuse / detonator into fertilizer and expect to it exploded happens only in the movies.
But fertilizers can be / have been made into bombs.
if not, why on earth would anybody need to import 3 tons of nitrate fertilizers? re-export? maybe... to use here? where? on your balcony garden? on the potted plants in my corridor?
thats probably why those JI's got caught... the import of such a large amt of nitrate fertilizer is sure to raise eyebrows...