Secrets and lies over our US support

In the derision which is being heaped on those who protest against the use of Shannon Airport for the US military build-up in the Persian Gulf, the most effective accusation is that they are conspiracy theorists. Who but a wide-eyed crank with a head full of paranoid exaggerations and simplistic presumptions could imagine that the Government could be secretly supporting US policy on Iraq?

It is not, however, a feverish delusion that the Government of our Republic could pursue a clandestine strategy on Iraq. It is a matter of recent historical fact. Precisely such a policy was followed in the late 1980s by a government in which Bertie Ahern served at the Cabinet table. The ironic twist is that at that time, the aim of the policy was to help the US shore up Saddam Hussein.

In 1987, when Charles Haughey's minority Fianna Fáil administration took office, Iraq was embroiled in an appalling war with Iran. In July 1987, the UN Security Council passed resolution 598 instructing member-states to support a peaceful resolution and to "refrain from any act which may lead to further escalation and widening of the conflict". Ireland was thus bound, not just by common humanity but by international law, not to support either Iran or Iraq.

Just at this time, however, the US administration, largely through then vice-president George Bush, had decided on a covert policy of propping up Iraq. Almost immediately the Irish government followed suit. This change of policy was never announced. It was, indeed, carefully concealed, at first by omission and then by deliberately misleading the Dáil. It was, nevertheless, followed at great risk to the public finances, up to 1990 when Saddam invaded Kuwait and US policy changed again.

This is not a conspiracy theory, but an acknowledged fact. The Taoiseach at the time, Charles Haughey, subsequently explained to the beef tribunal that his "concern was to be as helpful as possible to Iraq".

Haughey, who visited Iraq in the late 1970s as Minister for Health, was an admirer of Saddam Hussein. He wrote a fawning letter to the Butcher of Baghdad in 1989, professing himself "very pleased that the friendly and sympathetic relations between our two countries continue to develop and to take on more substance in areas such as co-operation in the field of healthcare and that some Irish economic interests have been able to contribute to what Iraq has achieved in the economic and social fields under your leadership and guidance".

We may never know the full extent of Irish government support for Saddam, not least because all the files in the Irish embassy in Baghdad were shredded or burned before its staff left in 1991.

An Aer Lingus subsidiary, however, ran the Ibn al Bitar hospital in Baghdad, which serviced the political and military elite, including Saddam's own family. Much more significantly, the government provided much of the beef that kept the Iraqi army fed during the war. The beef was shipped by Larry Goodman's companies but payment was guaranteed by the Irish taxpayer.

The Iraqis almost certainly used these Irish government credits to fund the purchase of military equipment as well.

In the light of current concerns about Iraq's potential use of weapons of mass destruction, it is well to remember that throughout this period, Iraq was actually using chemical weapons, probably including nerve gas, against Kurdish civilians. Immediately after the most notorious of these attacks, at Halabja in March 1988, when 4,000 Kurds were killed by chemical weapons, the Cabinet of which Bertie Ahern was a member decided on a massive increase in the amount of export credits for Iraq.

The Dáil was never informed of this policy. Even in 1989, when it became clear that something fishy was going on in relation to vast amounts of Irish export credits being given to Iraq, queries from TDs were snagged in a thicket of obfuscations, evasions and downright lies. In fact, it cost the taxpayer a small fortune in legal fees at the beef tribunal to get even a limited glimpse at what had gone on.

We can now see, of course, that this was a stupid and shameful policy. It was morally and politically wrong for the US to support Saddam and for Ireland to follow the American lead. It was unacceptable for an Irish government to adopt a secret foreign policy.

Back then, knee-jerk, pro-Americanism and contempt for democratic safeguards created what was subsequently acknowledged to be one of the biggest public policy disasters in the history of the State. Today, falling in line with a different US policy on Iraq without real democratic scrutiny could be just as foolish.

America's best friends in the late 1980s were those who tried to suggest that shoring up a vicious regime like Saddam's was simply storing up trouble. Ireland's best friends at the same time were those who tried to ask questions about a secret policy that turned out to be an outrageous scandal.

The lessons ought to be obvious. The US often makes bad foreign policy decisions, which is why its real friends are often those who retain their capacity for independent judgment. Secret policies are usually stupid ones. An open account of the Government's true policy on Iraq is essential both to our self-interest and our self-respect.