MESOP : MUSTARD MAGGIE ! – Thatcher’s Saddam dilemma: Maggie’s government feared banning Iraqi despot from making chemical weapons because it might reflect badly on the UK, secret files reveal

 Officials heard that Iraqis were making mustard gas at pesticide plant –  But Indian contractor that built factory used equipment from UK firm – It supplied pumps ‘under impression they were for making pesticides’ – Revealed in Foreign Office papers released by the National Archives. -By Daily Mail Reporter – 2 July 2015 – The Thatcher government feared stepping in to ban Saddam Hussein making chemical weapons because it might reflect badly on the UK. Officials received intelligence in 1983 that the Iraqis were making mustard gas at a pesticide plant north of Baghdad, according to Foreign Office papers released by the National Archives at Kew.

But they later learned that the Indian contractor which built the factory had acquired some of the equipment from a British company which was unaware of the Iraqis’ true intentions.

Concerns: The government of Margaret Thatcher (left) feared stepping in to ban Saddam Hussein (right) making chemical weapons because it might reflect badly on the UK. There was some discussion within the Foreign Office on trying to prevent Iraq acquiring a chemical weapons (CW) capability.

However officials noted that it could prove difficult as they were not banned under international treaties, even though their use was prohibited under the Geneva Protocols.

‘The Iraqis could therefore legitimately say, as do the United States, that they need CW as a deterrent,’ a Foreign Office paper noted.‘A move to ban CW sales to Iraq would therefore look very discriminatory unless we could show that Iraq had breached, or intended to breach the Geneva Protocol.’Made available: Foreign Office papers released by the National Archives at Kew (above) told how officials received intelligence in 1983 that the Iraqis were making mustard gas at a pesticide plant north of Baghdad.

Made available: Foreign Office papers released by the National Archives at Kew (above) told how officials received intelligence in 1983 that the Iraqis were making mustard gas at a pesticide plant north of Baghdad. But there was also, the paper acknowledged, another concern closer to home.

A British company, Weir Pumps, has apparently supplied pumps to the Samarra factory under the impression that they were for use in making pesticides

Foreign Office paper – Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3147901/Thatcher-s-Saddam-dilemma-Maggie-s-government-feared-banning-Iraqi-despot-making-chemical-weapons-reflect-badly-UK-secret-files-reveal.html#ixzz3evpTL5Q0