Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > "Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
> > >
> > > Samantha wrote:
> > >
> > > > But if, and it is a big IF, he is desperate enough to use these
> > > > supposed weapons now, then what part did we ourselves play in
> > > > making him that desperate? We created this guy and largely
> > > > supplied him.
> > >
> > > Hmmm.... As I recall during the Gulf war most of the weapons
> > > the Iraqis had were Soviet.
> >
> > The only western artillery shells used by Iraq were actually *Canadian*
> > in origin. They were remachined US surplus shells (empty) that were
> > modified by Canadian artillery expert Dr. Gerald Bull in Canada and
> > exported to Angola and Iraq for use in South African artillery sold to
> > UNITAS and Hussein (respectively). The Iraqi versions were armed by the
> > Iraqis themselves with home grown warheads. These shells were exported
> > by Canada because the US had, and has, laws against exporting such
> > munitions and equipment to such nations. The Canadians acted as the
> > middlemen, ostensibly in the case of Angola on the behest of the CIA. As
> > the saying goes "Blame Canada."
>
> Thanks for the info. How about "Blame CIA"?
The CIA's little adventure could not have worked if the Canadian
government was not willing to be an accomplice. Eventually, the US
congress did get smart to what the CIA was up to, outlawed the loophole
(an entirely legal loophole, mind you), and they convicted Dr. Bull for
which he spent a year or so in a minimum security federal country club.
The Canadians got irate that their pet artillery expert got busted.
Furthermore, after the CIA got out of the Hussein-aiding business, and
after Bull got out of prison, he had lost all of his legitimate design
customers (the US Army, AVRO Canada, etc) he went to work for the South
Africans to supe up their mobile artillery (the 175mm howitzer, as I
recall, someone correct me if I'm wrong) on a supercharged chassis that
became known as the "Kalahari Ferrari". After that, he went to work
directly for Hussein in Iraq, improving his artillery, redesigning his
SCUD missiles for greater range, accuracy, and payload, as well as
designing and building the two 'Supergun's, the "Baby Babylon" and the
"Babylon Gun", which were 36" bore cannons, 100 and 1000 feet long,
respectively. The purpose of the gun was to give Hussein the ability to
launch small payloads into orbit (which the 1000 ft long gun would have
done) which could reenter on any location within the 40th north and
south latitudes.
After Bull built and tested the Baby Babylon gun, which had a range of
120 miles, he was assasinated by a Mossad team a few months before the
invasion of Kuwait, and after being warned by the CIA to cease and
desist his work for Saddam.
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