United States presidents and their advisers
This is a compilation of actions by presidents of the United States, and their advisers, that affected other individuals and countries featured on this website.
Information is presented in a time-line. The inclusion of an administration does not necessarily imply that its actions led to avoidable human deaths and suffering.
1945-1953
President - Harry S. Truman (Democrat)Vice President - 1945-1949 none; 1949-1953 Alben Barkley Secretary of State - 1945 E. R. Stettinius, Jr; 1945-1947 James F. Byrnes; 1947-1949 George C. Marshall; 1949-1953 Dean Acheson Secretary of Defence - 1947-1949 James Forrestal; 1949-1950 Louis A. Johnson; 1950-1951 George C. Marshall; 1951-1953 Robert A. Lovett
1945 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies from a massive cerebral haemorrhage on 12 April. Vice President Harry S. Truman is sworn in as president the same day.
On 7 May the Second World War in Europe ends when Germany surrenders unconditionally. The focus of the war now shifts to the Pacific, where Japan continues to hold out against the advancing Allies, who in this theatre of operations are led by the United States.
In June the Japanese determine to fight to the finish. Their plan for a last-stand battle against a US-led invasion is called 'Ketsu Go' (Operation Decisive). Japanese troops are massed in the south of Kyushu Island, where the invasion forces are expected to land.
On 25 July President Truman authorises the use of atomic bombs against the Japanese.
The order to use the bomb states that the "Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. ...
"Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those listed above."
The first bomb is dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August. A second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August. The bombs kill about 120,000 people outright and fatally injure over 100,000 more. Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrenders unconditionally on 14 August 1945, ending the Second World War.
1950 - The US recognises South Vietnam and sends a group of military advisers to train the South Vietnamese in the use of US weapons. China responds by recognising communist North Vietnam and agreeing to provide it with limited assistance. Official recognition of North Vietnam by the Soviet Union soon follows.
1951 - In February the government of Iran votes to nationalise the country's oil industry, which has been controlled by the British since the start of the century. In April the Iranian Parliament names Mohammed Mossadegh as its prime minister.
1952 - The US successfully detonates a hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll (the Marshall Islands) on 1 November. Though smaller in size than the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hydrogen bomb is 2,500 times more powerful. The island on which the bomb is tested is completed destroyed.
1953-1961
President - Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican)Vice President - Richard Milhous Nixon Secretary of State - 1953-1959 John Foster Dulles; 1959-1961 Christian A. Herter Secretary of Defence - 1953-1957 Charles E. Wilson; 1957-1959 Neil H. McElroy; 1959-1961 Thomas S. Gates
1953 - The British Government and the new administration of incoming President Eisenhower become increasingly alarmed by the growth of nationalism in Iran and the behaviour of Prime Minister Mossadegh. Their concerns are further heightened when Mossadegh begins to work with the communist Tudeh Party. They fear that Iran will be drawn into the Soviet sphere, although Mossadegh advocates a policy of nonalignment in foreign affairs.
On 4 April the US director of central intelligence releases US$1 million which, according to a secret history of the coup written in 1954 by the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) chief coup strategist, Dr Donald N. Wilber, is to be used "in a way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh."
"The aim was to bring to power a government which would reach an equitable oil settlement, enabling Iran to become economically sound and financially solvent, and which would vigorously prosecute the dangerously strong Communist Party," the secret history says.
On 11 July President Eisenhower approves a joint British-US plan to oust Mossadegh.
The plan has four elements - first a campaign to undermine Mossadegh's popularity and raise the spectre of a communist takeover of the government; second, Mossadegh's dismissal; third, street riots; and lastly the emergence of a new prime minister who has been hand-picked by Britain and the US.
The coup begins on 15 August. By 19 August Mossadegh and his government have fallen.
It is the CIA's first successful attempt to overthrow a foreign government. Martial law is declared, and will remain in force until the end of 1957.
Under an agreement reached between the new Iranian government headed by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and a consortium of eight foreign oil companies, industry control of the oil companies is restored.
Iran under the shah will eventually become a one-party state with a grim human rights record.
1954 - On 8 May a conference begins in Geneva to attempt to peacefully resolve the future of Vietnam, where French and South Vietnamese forces have been battling the North Vietnamese communists for control of the country. A compromise agreement is signed on 29 July. Vietnam will be divided at the 17th parallel. All French and South Vietnamese forces are to move south of the demarcation line. All North Vietnamese forces are to move to its north. France will quit the country completely. National elections to reunify the country under a single government are to be held in July 1956.
The agreement is endorsed by North Vietnam, France, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. The US and South Vietnam withhold approval. The country has been effectively divided into a communist North and a noncommunist South. The French are gone. On 24 October President Eisenhower offers South Vietnam direct economic aid.
1955 - Direct US aid to South Vietnam begins in January. US military advisers begin to arrive the following month. The South Vietnamese Government launches a campaign against communist groups inside its territory. In August it announces that it will not participate in negotiations with the North over the national elections scheduled for the following year.
1958 - The Eisenhower administration provides the Batista government in Cuba with US$1 million in military aid to support it in the war with communist guerrillas led by Fidel Castro.
1959 - The Batista government falls on 1 January. The US Government recognises the Castro government on 7 January. However, relations between the US and Cuba sour when the Castro government implements land reform and US industrial, commercial and agricultural interests in Cuba are nationalised.
1960 - Cuba turns to the Soviet Union for aid and support. The US responds in March by terminating purchases of Cuban sugar and ceasing oil deliveries. Covert operations coordinated by the CIA include the formation of a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles to invade the island and overthrow Castro.
1961-1963
President - John F. Kennedy (Democrat)Vice President - Lyndon B. Johnson Secretary of State - Dean Rusk Secretary of Defence - Robert S. McNamara
1961 - President Kennedy decides to increase support for the embattled government of South Vietnam, providing $US65 million worth of military equipment and $US136 million in economic aid. By December 3,200 US military personnel are stationed in Vietnam. Within 12 months the number has increased to 11,200.
President Kennedy will later reverse his decision and resolve instead to disentangle the US from Vietnam. However, he is assassinated before his new program can be implemented. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, will further escalate the US involvement.
Meanwhile, the US officially breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba on 3 January and intensifies attempts to destabilise the Castro government. In the first two weeks of April there are several terrorist bomb attacks in Havana as well as bombing raids on Cuban airfields by unidentified aircraft.
On 17 April 1,300 Cuban exiles, supported by the CIA and operating from a base in Nicaragua, attempt to invade Cuba at a southern coastal area called the Bay of Pigs. After three days of fighting they are crushed by Castro's forces. In the aftermath about 20,000 Cubans are arrested and charged with counter-revolutionary activities.
1962 - The 'Cuban Missile Crisis' flares in October when the US Government discovers that the Soviet Union is setting up launch sites for long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. After a tense 13-day standoff between President Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev the missiles are removed on condition that the US withdraws its missiles stationed in Turkey and ceases its attempts to overthrow Castro.
1963 - US economic and social restrictions on Cuba are tightened. Travel to the island by US citizens is banned, as are all financial and commercial transactions.
1963-1969
President - Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat)Vice President - 1963-1965 none; 1965-1969 Hubert HumphreySecretary of State - Dean RuskSecretary of Defence - 1963-1968 Robert S. McNamara; 1968-1969 Clark M. Clifford
1964 - By July the number of US military personnel in Vietnam has reached 16,000. In August President Johnson approves air strikes against North Vietnamese naval bases in retaliation for an alleged attack on two US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the north coast of Vietnam. In October the Soviet Union promises increased military support for North Vietnam.
1965 - In February the US begins a series of air strikes known as 'Operation Rolling Thunder' against military targets in the North. The following month 3,500 US combat troops arrive in Vietnam. By the end of the year the US force numbers 180,000. The figure grows to 350,000 in the mid-1966. Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines also send combat troops.
1967 - US forces in Vietnam now number close to 500,000 and the US bombing raids have extended to within 16 km of the northern border with China. President Johnson offers to stop the bombing if North Vietnam agrees to peace talks. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh announces, "We will never agree to negotiate under the threat of bombing." Towards the end of the year the communists begin preparations for a general offensive in the countryside and cities of the South.
1968 - The 'Tet Offensive' begins on 31 January with simultaneous attacks by the communists on five major cities, 100 provincial and district capitals and many villages. South Vietnamese and US forces are shaken when suicide squads penetrate the heart of Saigon, attacking the presidential palace, radio station, the South Vietnam Army's joint general staff compound, Tan Son Nhut airfield and the US embassy.
While the offensive is contained in a matter of days, the balance has swung. Mounting disaffection with the US involvement in the war, particularly from the peace movement in the West, and a mounting death toll will eventually force the US into a humiliating withdrawal.
On 31 March President Johnson declares a halt to the bombing of most of North Vietnam and calls for peace talks. A request by the military for an additional 200,000 troops over the 525,000 already stationed in Vietnam is refused.
Peace talks begin in Paris on 10 May. A breakthrough appears imminent at the end October when President Johnson announces a complete halt to US bombing of the North, but hope for an end to the war is dashed when the South insists on more favourable conditions.
It is later revealed that the South had been influenced by US presidential candidate Richard Milhous Nixon, who had promised them a better deal if he won the upcoming election. It is also revealed that Nixon had been assisted by an insider to the peace talks, his future national security adviser and secretary of state, Henry Alfred Kissinger.
Meanwhile, in Cambodia, the US provides aid to the Khmer Rouge, a group of left-wing insurgents led by Pol Pot.
In Guatemala, apparent US support for heavy-handed tactics used by the Guatemalan army and police in a war against a communist insurgency comes under question.
In a report he presents to the US Department of State, the then deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Guatemala, Viron Vaky, expresses his concerns about the human rights situation in the country.
Vaky states, "The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated. ...
"In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we (the US) are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them. Therefore our image is being tarnished and the credibility of our claims to want a better and more just world are increasingly placed in doubt. ...
"This leads to an aspect I personally find the most disturbing of all - that we have not been honest with ourselves. We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it. We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalised away our qualms and uneasiness.
"This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are communists. After all hasn't man been a savage from the beginning of time so let us not be too queasy about terror. I have literally heard these arguments from our people."
1969-1974
President - Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican)Vice President - 1969-1973 Spiro Agnew; 1973 none; 1973-1974 Gerald Ford Secretary of State - 1969-1973 William P. Rogers; 1973-1974 Henry Alfred KissingerSecretary of Defence - 1969-1973 Melvin R. Laird; 1973 Elliot L. Richardson; 1973 James R. Schlesinger National Security Adviser - 1969-1973 - Henry Alfred Kissinger
1969 - Peace negotiations between North and South Vietnam, the US and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front - NLF) begin in Paris in January but are destined to draw on for years. In June the NLF forms the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which is immediately recognised by the North as the legitimate government of the South.
In March the US begins secret bombing raids on Vietnamese communist sanctuaries and supply routes inside Cambodia (dubbed the 'Menu Series'). Authorised by President Nixon and directed by Kissinger, the raids are illegal, as the US has not officially declared war on Cambodia. In 14 months, 110,000 tons of bombs are dropped. When news of the raids is leaked Kissinger orders surveillance and phone tapping of suspects to uncover the source.
US bombing raids into Cambodia will continue until 1973. All told 539,129 tons of ordnance will be dropped on the country, much of it in indiscriminate B-52 carpet-bombing raids. The tonnage is about three and a half times more than that (153,000 tons) dropped on Japan during the Second World War.
Up to 600,000 Cambodians die but the raids are militarily ineffective. The CIA reports that the bombing raids are serving to increase the popularity of the Khmer Rouge insurgents among the affected Cambodian population.
1970 - In April President Nixon authorises the invasion of Cambodia by a joint US-South Vietnamese force of 30,000 troops. Tasked with destroying Vietnamese communist bases inside Cambodia, the force pushes the Vietnamese further into Cambodia but is otherwise ineffective and is forced to withdraw in June by the US Congress.
Meanwhile, the US resumes air attacks on North Vietnam. The communists attempt to maintain the pressure and again shake the South Vietnamese Government and the US when they launch the 'Easter Offensive' on 30 March 1972. The US responds by escalating the air raids.
In September, following the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, President Nixon orders the CIA to do all it can to prevent Allende from being inaugurated.
Allende has a long-standing association with the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvenoi Bezopasnosti), the Soviet secret police force, and his election campaign has been heavily financed by the Soviets. Following Allende's victory, Soviet agents begin to move into Chile in force. Soviet paramilitary instructors use the country as a base for the training of insurgents from across Latin America.
Under the supervision of Kissinger, the CIA will develop the so-called 'Track II' plan to oust Allende, allocating US$10 million while formally insulating the US embassy in Chile from any involvement.
The agency attempts to bribe key Chilean legislators and funds a group of military officers plotting a coup, providing a further payment of US$35,000 following the assassination on 22 October of General Rene Schneider, the commander-in-chief of the army, who had refused to approve the coup plan.
One CIA document from October states, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. ... It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG (US Government) and American hand be well hidden."
Kissinger says, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."
1971 - The already strained relations between Chile and the US are further stretched by the Allende government's recognition of Cuba, China, North Korea and North Vietnam and by its cultivation of ties with the Soviet Union. The US responds by withdrawing financial assistance and blocking loans, although aid to the Chilean military is doubled.
Covertly, the CIA continues to work to destabilise the Allende government, providing up to US$7 million in funding to opposition groups in order to "create pressures, exploit weaknesses, magnify obstacles" and hasten Allende's downfall.
1972 - An agreement on the terms for peace is reached between North Vietnam and the US in October. However, when South Vietnam refuses to believe that the North is sincere, the peace negotiations falter. Acting on advice from Kissinger, President Nixon orders massive night-time bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong to demonstrate the resolve of the US and appease the doubters in the South.
During 11 days in December the 'Christmas Bombing' campaign sees 129 B52 bombers drop 40,000 tons of ordnance in what is said to be the largest raids of their type in history. The North Vietnamese return to the negotiating table and the bombing is stopped.
Meanwhile, during a visit to Iran, President Nixon agrees to allow the shah to purchase unlimited quantities of US military hardware. In return the shah allows the US to establish two listening posts in Iran to monitor Soviet ballistic missile launches and other military activity.
Nixon visits China in February. The détente between the US and China results in the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, being blocked from travelling to the US. The US also ceases to support Tibetan guerrillas resisting Chinese occupation.
1973 - On 27 January all parties to the Vietnam War sign the 'Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam', the so-called 'Paris Accords'. The agreement is essentially the same as the one sabotaged by Nixon and Kissinger in 1968. It provides for a cease-fire and the full withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam. By the end of March 1973 all the US combat troops have been withdrawn.
However, in an attempt to prop-up the US puppet government in Cambodia, halt the Khmer Rouge and destroy North Vietnamese bases, the Nixon administration secretly intensifies the bombing of Cambodia, without government authorisation, and despite having signed the peace agreement with the North Vietnamese.
Once they are convinced the US withdrawal will be permanent, the Vietnamese communists again start to move south, easily sweeping aside the now demoralised and ineffective South Vietnamese troops. The communists take Saigon on 30 April 1975, bringing the war finally to an end.
The toll of Vietnamese dead from war exceeds three million, including two million civilians, over 1.3 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops and about 224,000 South Vietnamese military personnel. The spread of the conflict into neighbouring Cambodia and Laos has resulted in the loss of another 950,000 lives and led to the rise of the genocidal dictator Pol Pot and the deaths of a further one to three million.
US deaths from the Vietnam War total 58,226 killed or missing in action. The death toll for the US allies includes 508 Australians and 38 New Zealanders.
Vietnam is officially reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on 2 July 1976.
The US refuses to recognise the new republic and severs diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Meanwhile in Chile, the CIA finances strikes by transport workers and shopkeepers, is implicated in the sabotage of public infrastructure and infiltrates the government. Almost one third of the staff at the US embassy in Santiago are now on the CIA payroll.
On 23 August Allende promotes General Augusto Pinochet to commander-in-chief of the army, mistakenly believing that Pinochet can be trusted to remain neutral.
On 11 September the military intervene in the mounting social crisis, staging a violent coup d'état under Pinochet's direction.
Pinochet introduces a repressive military dictatorship to Chile that will last until 1989 and result in the death or disappearance of 3,197 people between September 1973 and March 1990.
1974 - Nixon resigns as president on 9 August following his impeachment for the Watergate affair. He is replaced as president by his vice president, Gerald Ford.
1974-1977
President - Gerald Ford (Republican)Vice President - 1974 none; 1974-1977 Nelson Rockefeller Secretary of State - 1974-1977 Henry Alfred KissingerSecretary of Defence - 1974-1975 James R. Schlesinger; 1975-1977 Donald H. Rumsfeld National Security Adviser - 1974-1975 - Henry Alfred Kissinger
1975 - A US Senate investigation finds that the Nixon administration backed the 1973 coup in Chile.
Meanwhile, the CIA establishes contact with Manuel Contreras, the head of the Chilean secret police. Contreras is a key player in Operation Condor, an information gathering and sharing alliance between Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay designed to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in South America. In August Contreras travels to Washington and meets with CIA Deputy Director, General Vernon Walters. Contreras will also receive a one-off payment from the CIA.
A CIA internal inquiry into events in Chile later states, "During a period between 1974 and 1977, CIA maintained contact with Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who later became notorious for his involvement in human rights abuses. The US Government policy community approved CIA's contact with Contreras, given his position as chief of the primary intelligence organisation in Chile, as necessary to accomplish the CIA's mission, in spite of concerns that this relationship might lay the CIA open to charges of aiding internal political repression. ...
"By April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the junta, but an inter-agency committee directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras. The US Ambassador to Chile urged Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (General Vernon) Walters to receive Contreras in Washington in the interest of maintaining good relations with Pinochet. In August 1975, with inter-agency approval, this meeting took place.
"In May and June 1975, elements within the CIA recommended establishing a paid relationship with Contreras to obtain intelligence based on his unique position and access to Pinochet. This proposal was overruled, citing the US Government policy on clandestine relations with the head of an intelligence service notorious for human rights abuses. However, given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras."
On the other side of the world, President Ford and Kissinger meet with Indonesian President Suharto on 6 December.
One of the topics of discussion at the meeting is the situation in East Timor, where a civil war has broken out between the left-wing Marxist Revolutionary Front for East Timor's Independence (Fretilin) and an anticommunist coalition following the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial administration.
"I would like to speak to you, Mr President, about another problem, Timor. ... Fretilin is infected the same as is the Portuguese Army with communism ... We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action," Suharto says to his visitors.
Ford replies, "We will understand and will not press you on this issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have."
Kissinger says, "You appreciate that the use of US-made arms could create problems. ... It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self-defence or is a foreign operation. It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly. We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens, happens after we return."
The next day the Indonesian Army invades East Timor. It is estimated that 60,000 East Timorese or 10% of the population are killed in the first two months of the invasion. All told, up to 250,000 of East Timor's 1975 population of about 650,000 will die as a result of the occupation and the famine that follows.
Earlier in the year President Ford and Kissinger had also blessed the attempted invasion of another former Portuguese colony, giving the go-ahead to South Africa's unsuccessful bid to invade Angola in October.
1976 - On 24 March the Argentine military, led General Jorge Rafaél Videla, stage a coup d'état and seize power. A junta composed of the commanders of the army, navy and air force will rule Argentina until 10 December 1983. It will be the most repressive regime ever seen in Argentina and will be responsible for the deaths and disappearances of up to 30,000 political opponents during the so-called 'Dirty War'.
At a US State Department staff meeting held on 26 March, two days after the coup, Secretary of State Kissinger is told by William Rogers, his assistant secretary for Latin America, that "we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long. I think they're going to have to come down very hard not only on the terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties. ... The point is that we ought not at this moment to rush out and embrace this new regime."
"But we shouldn't do the opposite either," Kissinger replies. "Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement from us. ... Because I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States."
In April the US Congress approves a grant of US$50 million in military aid to the junta.
On 10 June Kissinger meets with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti in Santiago. According to a transcript of the meeting, Kissinger says, "Let me say, as a friend, that I have noticed that military governments are not always the most effective in dealing with these problems. ...
"So after a while, many people who don't understand the situation begin to oppose the military and the problem is compounded.
"The Chileans, for example, have not succeeded in getting across their initial problem and are increasingly isolated.
"You will have to make an international effort to have your problems understood. Otherwise, you, too, will come under increasing attack. If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures."
The junta interprets Kissinger's comments as a green light for their repressive tactics, and a US public relations company is hired to improve its image overseas.
Another meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in New York on 7 October further convinces the junta that they have Kissinger's blessing.
"Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context," Kissinger tells Guzzetti.
"The quicker you succeed the better. ... The human rights problem is a growing one. ... We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help."
Meanwhile, on 8 June, the day before he is due to address a meeting of the Organisation of American States, Kissinger tells Augusto Pinochet, "In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward communism. We wish your government well. ...
"My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government that was going communist. ...
"As you know, Congress is now debating further restraints on aid to Chile. We are opposed. ...
"It is a curious time in the US. ... It is unfortunate. We have been through Vietnam and Watergate. We have to wait until the (1976) elections. We welcomed the overthrow of the communist-inclined government here. We are not out to weaken your position. ...
"I want to see our relations and friendship improve. We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. Otherwise Chile would have followed Cuba. Then there would have been no human rights."
1977-1981
President - Jimmy Carter (Democrat)Vice President - Walter MondaleSecretary of State - 1977-1980 Cyrus R. Vance; 1980-1981 Edmund S. MuskieSecretary of Defence - Harold Brown
1977 - The inauguration of President Carter leads to a cooling of relations between Chile and the US. Relations between the two countries will continue to decline through the administrations Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
In Central America, the Carter administration suspends military aid to Guatemala following an upsurge in death squad activity against left-wing guerrillas and Mayan peasants during the country's bloody civil war. Pressure from the Carter administration also forces the dictatorial government in Nicaragua to lift a two-year long state of siege.
1978 - In February the Carter administration suspends all military assistance to the Nicaraguan Government.
1979 - In February the Shah of Iran is overthrown in an 'Islamic Revolution' led by Shia cleric Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini. In November the US Embassy in Tehran is seized by the Iranians and its US diplomatic staff taken as hostages.
Meanwhile in Cambodia, it is reported that the Khmer Rouge are receiving military backing from China and the US. It is also reported that a former deputy director of the CIA visits Pol Pot's operational base in November 1980.
The embargo preventing the Dalai Lama from visiting the US is lifted.
1980 - War breaks out between Iraq and Iran on 22 September when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein orders his air force to bomb air bases inside Iran. At the same time, Iraqi troops march into southwestern Iran.
1981-1989
President - Ronald Reagan (Republican)Vice President - George Bush Secretary of State - 1981-1982 Alexander M. Haig, Jr; 1982-1989 George P. ShultzSecretary of Defence - 1981-1987 Caspar W. Weinberger; 1987-1989 Frank C. Carlucci
1981 - The administration of President Reagan begins to resupply the Guatemalan Army, claiming it is the leftist groups who are perpetuating the violence of the civil war, aided and abetted by Cuba.
The US also claims that the left-wing government in Nicaragua, with assistance from Cuba and the Soviet Union, is providing arms to guerrillas in El Salvador. All US aid to the country is suspended and funding and training is provided to right-wing 'Contra' rebels operating from neighbouring Honduras.
In the Middle East, formerly frosty relations between the US and Iraq begin to thaw.
The US is still smarting from the seizure of its embassy in Tehran and the taking of American diplomats as hostages in November 1979 following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Attempts by Iran to export the revolution to other regions in the Middle East are also of concern. Iraq is seem as a bulwark against the spread of Iran's militant Shia extremism.
1982 - President Reagan is reported as saying that Guatemalan dictator General José Efraín Ríos Montt is "a man of great personal integrity" who is "getting a bum rap on human rights."
It is later estimated that during the period of Ríos Montt's rule (March 1982 to August 1983) about 70,000 Guatemalan civilians are killed or "disappeared". During the period 1981 to 1983 about 100,000 are killed or "disappeared" and between 500,000 and 1.5 million displaced, fleeing to other regions within the country or seeking safety abroad.
Meanwhile, the US extends credits to Iraq for the purchase of American agricultural products. According to a report published in 'Newsweek' magazine on 23 September 2002, the purchases extent to a wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials including chemical analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission and numerous shipments of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" that could be used to manufacture biological weapons, including anthrax.
Iraq's armoury also receives a boost when the country is removed from a US Government list of alleged sponsors of terrorism.
1983 - The US reinstates military training assistance to Guatemala in January, authorising the sale of US$6 million of military hardware.
US support for Iraq is enshrined in National Security Decision Directive 114 issued on 26 November. Though still classified, the directive is believed to state that the US would do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from loosing the war with Iran.
The directive is issued even though Secretary of State George P. Shultz has been told by a senior State Department official on 1 November that Iraq is using chemical weapons against the Iranians.
In December the US sends a special Middle East envoy to Iraq to hold talks with Saddam Hussein. The envoy, Donald H. Rumsfeld, the future US secretary of defence under the administration of George W. Bush, is the highest-ranking American official to visit Baghdad in more than 16 years.
At their meeting on 20 December Rumsfeld tells Saddam that the US is ready to resume full diplomatic relations.
1984 - Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad for meetings with the Iraqi foreign minister on 24 March, the same day that the UN releases a report finding that Iraq is using mustard gas and the nerve agent tabun against Iranian troops.
The US State Department also acknowledges Iraq's actions, releasing a statement on 5 March saying that "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons."
Nevertheless, full diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US are restored in November, allowing the US to provide Iraq with further aid to fight the war.
It is later reported that the US aid includes battle-planning assistance. According to a report published in 'The New York Times' on 18 August 2002, more that 60 officers of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) secretly supplied Iraq with detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments. Satellite photographs of the war front were also provided by the CIA.
One former member of the program is quoted as saying the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of (poisonous) gas. It was just another way of killing people - whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference."
Link to copy of The New York Times report.
It is also later revealed that prior to his second visit to Baghdad in March Rumsfeld had been directed by Secretary of State Shultz to reassure Iraq that the interests of the US remained "(1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq."
1985 - When the US Congress suspends funding to the Nicaraguan Contras in April the Reagan administration orders a total embargo on US trade with Nicaragua. The embargo has a devastating effect on the country's already tottering economy, providing indirect assistance to the Contra insurgency.
In September the US provides Iran with the first consignment of thousands of 'TOW' missiles in a secret arms for hostages deal later dubbed the 'Irangate'.
1986 - In June the US Congress votes to resume aid to the Contras. The US$100 million provided in military and nonmilitary assistance forces the Nicaraguan government to increase spending on defence, further damaging economic development. In November it is revealed that staff in the Reagan administration attempted to circumvent the 1985 congressional ban on aid to the Contras by illegally diverting funds from weapons sales to Iran, the so-called 'Iran-Contra Affair'.
1987 - When the US Congress again withdraws aid to the Contras following the Iran-Contra Affair the war in Nicaragua dwindles to a stalemate, opening the way for a negotiated peace settlement. A temporary cease-fire agreement is signed in March 1988.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Government begins to use chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians in the north of Iraq.
Despite being aware of the attacks the US does nothing to curtail its relations with the Iraqis, though the tone of the engagement does being to sour.
1988 - The Iran-Iraq war finally ends on 20 August when a cease-fire is formally declared.
1989-1993
President - George Bush (Republican)Vice President - Dan QuayleSecretary of State - 1989-1992 James A. Baker 3rd; 1992-1993 Lawrence S. EagleburgerSecretary of Defence - Richard Cheney
1990 - Iraqi troops invade Kuwait on 2 August.
1991 - On 16 January the US leads a coalition of 33 world nations on an UN-sanctioned mission to liberate Kuwait. The Gulf War, also known as 'Operation Desert Storm', lasts for six-weeks and sees the Iraqi's comprehensively defeated and driven out of Kuwait.
The permanent cease-fire agreement as set out in UN Security Council Resolution 687 of 3 April requires Iraq to destroy all of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability as well as missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometres and to allow verification by inspectors from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Trade sanctions and an oil embargo will remain in force until the inspectors certify that all weapons of mass destruction have been identified and destroyed.
1993-2001
President - Bill Clinton (Democrat)Vice President - Al Gore Secretary of State - 1993-1996 Warren M. Christopher; 1996-2001 Madeleine AlbrightSecretary of Defence 1993-1994 Les Aspin; 1994-1997 William J. Perry; 1997-2001 William S. Cohen
1993 - In March the US begins to support critics of Indonesia's rule in East Timor. The UN Human Rights Commission adopts a resolution expressing "deep concern" at human rights violations by Indonesia in East Timor. In May the administration of President Clinton places Indonesia on a human rights "watch" list. When Suharto meets Clinton in Tokyo in July concerns are raised about the East Timor human rights issue.
1994 - At the beginning of April the central African country of Rwanda descends into mayhem when the death of the nation's president in a plane crash unleashes a genocide.
In just 100 days over 500,000 Rwandan Tutsis will be killed by their Hutu countrymen. (The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda estimates "some 800,000 Rwandans were killed." Other sources estimate that between 800,000 and one million perish.) Thousands of Hutus opposed to the genocide are also killed.
Up to two million Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans will flee the country and up to one million will be internally displaced. By early August an estimated one-quarter of the pre-war population of Rwanda has either died or fled the country.
As the genocide unfolds world leaders, including the US, stubbornly refuse to intervene.
The Clinton administration is especially reluctant to become involved, at first advocating the withdrawal of a UN peacekeeping force already stationed in Rwanda and then delaying the deployment of reinforcements.
In an article in the September 2001 edition of 'The Atlantic Monthly', Samantha Power writes, "During the entire three months of the genocide Clinton never assembled his top policy advisers to discuss the killings. ... Rwanda was never thought to warrant its own top-level meeting. When the subject came up, it did so along with, and subordinate to, discussions of Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. Whereas these crises involved US personnel and stirred some public interest, Rwanda generated no sense of urgency and could safely be avoided by Clinton at no political cost."
Meanwhile, US Senate committee reports on its investigation into the possible impact on the health of Gulf War veterans of dual use chemical and biological substances exported from the US to Iraq. The report finds that from 1985 to 1989 pathogenic, toxigenic, and other biological research materials were shipped to Iraq by US firms and that the exports were approved and licensed by the US Department of Commerce, with shipments continuing up until November 1989.
"These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," the report says.
On 25 May 1994, during a statement to the Senate committee, Dr Gordon C. Oehler, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Non-Proliferation Centre, confirms that the agency "had been quite aware of Iraq's chemical weapons development program from its very early inception" and that this knowledge had been passed on to the president, the secretary of defence and the secretary of state.
Oehler says that "regarding the involvement of United States firms, we were watching Iraq's programs very carefully, and it was clear that the major players assisting Saddam were not American firms. They were principally Europeans. We saw little involvement of US firms in Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program."
Full copy of the Senate committee report.
1995 - On 11 July President Clinton announces the formal resumption of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the US.
1998 - On 25 March President Clinton apologises for not having acted to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
"The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy," President Clinton says. "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope."
Documents obtained by the National Security Archive under freedom of information legislation later reveal that US intelligence services had informed the Clinton administration of the scale and speed of the genocide within three weeks of its commencement. The documents show that administration refused to publicly name the slaughter as genocide because to do so would have required it to intervene.
1999 - On 10 March, during a visit to Central America, President Clinton publicly apologises for the US's past support of dictatorial regimes in Guatemala.
"For the United States, it is important that I state dearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake," he says.
In May the Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) hands down a report into the human rights abuses committed during the civil war in Guatemala.
Titled 'Memory of Silence', the report includes among its conclusions the following statements:
"The CEH recognises that the movement of Guatemala towards polarisation, militarisation and civil war was not just the result of national history. The cold war also played an important role. Whilst anti-communism, promoted by the United States within the framework of its foreign policy, received firm support from right-wing political parties and from various other powerful actors in Guatemala, the United States demonstrated that it was willing to provide support for strong military regimes in its strategic backyard. In the case of Guatemala, military assistance was directed towards reinforcing the national intelligence apparatus and for training the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques, key factors which had significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation.
"Anti-communism and the National Security Doctrine (DSN) formed part of the anti-Soviet strategy of the United States in Latin America. In Guatemala, these were first expressed as anti-reformist, then anti-democratic policies, culminating in criminal counterinsurgency. The National Security Doctrine fell on fertile ground in Guatemala where anti-communist thinking had already taken root and from the 1930s, had merged with the defence of religion, tradition and conservative values, all of which were allegedly threatened by the world-wide expansion of atheistic communism. Until the 1950s, these views were strongly supported by the Catholic Church, which qualified as communist any position that contradicted its philosophy, thus contributing even further to division and confusion in Guatemalan society."
2000 - President Clinton visits Vietnam. He is the first US president to visit the country since the end of the Vietnam War.
On 17 March Secretary of Madeline Albright publicly admits to the role of the US in the 1953 coup in Iran.
"The United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh," Albright says. "The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a set back for Iran's political development and it is easy to see why so many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."
Postscript
2001-2009
President - George W. Bush (Republican)Vice President - Dick Cheney Secretary of State - 2001-2005 General Colin L. Powell; 2005-2009 Condoleezza RiceSecretary of Defence - 2001-2006 Donald H. Rumsfeld; 2006-2009 Robert M. Gates
2001 - On 10 September the family of General Rene Schneider, the former commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army who was assassinated in 1970 after refusing to endorse a military coup against the Allende government, announce that it intends to sue the US Government and Henry Kissinger, who was the US national security adviser at the time of Schneider's death, for allegedly plotting the assassination. Kissinger denies any involvement.
On 11 September Islamic terrorists attack the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US.
In retaliation the US invades Afghanistan on 7 October in a multinational operation against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban Government.
On 21 November President George W. Bush tells Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld that he wants to develop a plan for war with Iraq. Bush later nominates Iraq as one of the members of an "axis of evil" that also includes Iran and North Korea.
2002 - In June Chilean Judge Guzmán announces that extradition proceedings may be launched against Henry Kissinger in an attempt to force him to travel to Chile and appear before a judicial investigation into CIA involvement in the 1973 coup. The investigation is seeking to determine whether US officials passed the names of suspected left-wing Americans to Chilean military authorities - the existence of such a list having been verified by declassified documents.
Kissinger is wanted for questioning about circumstances surrounding the death of Charles Horman, a US journalist who was abducted and murdered shortly after the coup.
On 12 September President Bush takes his case against Iraq to the UN Security Council, calling for a tough new resolution demanding that Iraq disclose and remove all weapons of mass destruction, end support for terrorism and cease the persecution of its population.
On 8 November the Security Council adopts a new weapons inspection resolution for Iraq (Resolution 1441). An advanced inspection team of about 30, including UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Dr Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, arrives in Baghdad on 18 November. Formal inspections begin on 27 November. In December Saddam directs his senior officials to cooperate completely with the inspectors.
2003 - On 9 January Blix and ElBaradei deliver interim assessments of their progress to the UN Security Council, saying the inspections teams have found no "smoking guns" during "ever wider sweeps" of Iraq.
In the US, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell says that "the lack of a smoking gun does not mean that there's not one there."
President Bush warns that "time is running out."
"It appears to be a rerun of a bad movie," President Bush says. "He (Saddam) is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He's playing hide and seek with inspectors. One thing for sure is, he's not disarming."
Blix and ElBaradei provide further reports to the Security Council on 27 January, 14 February and 7 March, finding that while Iraq is improving its cooperation with the weapons inspectors a number of questions about its weapons programs remain unanswered. More time was needed to prove that Iraq was serious about disarming, the inspectors argue.
At the same time, the US and Britain press the UN to take decisive action, introducing a new draft resolution to the Security Council on 24 February stating that Iraq has failed to take advantage of its "final opportunity" to disarm peacefully and therefore must face the "serious consequences" threatened in Resolution 1441.
In the Persian Gulf region the forces of the "coalition of the willing" mount in preparation for an attack on Iraq. The US contingent includes about 250,000 troops, 1,200 tanks, more than 1,000 aircraft, five aircraft-carrier battle groups and the 5th fleet. They are joined by about 45,000 British troops and 2,000 Australian special forces.
In principal support for the offensive is also given by Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
On 16 March President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair issue the UN with an ultimatum, giving it 24 hours to support their draft resolution before they embark on unilateral action.
The next day, when it becomes apparent that the gambit has failed and that any attempt to get the UN to sanction armed intervention will be vetoed by France, the draft is withdrawn and the weapons inspectors are advised to leave Iraq.
On 18 March Bush announces that the only way war can be avoided is if Saddam and his sons leave Iraq within 48 hours. "Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing," Bush declares.
The offensive, called 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', beings on 20 March with an attempt to "decapitate" the regime through a targeted aerial bombing raid on a bunker in the south of Baghdad thought to be occupied by Saddam and other senior members of the government. However, Saddam survives the blast.
US and British ground troops enter Iraq from Kuwait and rapidly advance north to Baghdad, reaching the city's outskirts by 2 April. They encounter little opposition from Saddam's crumbling and disconsolate forces. Baghdad falls on 9 April.
On 1 May President Bush declares that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. However, violence continues and builds under the US occupation and the final death toll for the invasion is still to be tallied.
As at 9 March 2009, the Iraq Body Count website estimates the number of civilian deaths sustained during the invasion and occupation to be between 91,060 and 99,433.
On 28 October 2004 an independent survey published in 'The Lancet' medical journal concludes that there were at least 100,000 excess deaths in Iraq in the 18 months following the invasion.
A follow-up survey published in 'The Lancet' in October 2006 estimates that there have been 654,965 excess deaths in Iraq as a consequence of the invasion, with 601,027 of these attributable to violence.
"Although such death rates might be common in times of war, the combination of a long duration and tens of millions of people affected has made this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century, and should be of grave concern to everyone," the survey concludes.
On 31 October 2005 'The Independent' newspaper reports that the US military has "admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq."
According to 'The Independent', a quarterly audit presented by the military to the US Congress during October 2005 included an estimate that "nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents, with an estimated 26 casualties a day between January and March of last year (2004), rising to 64 a day in the run up to the (2005) referendum on the new constitution."
On 12 December 2005, President Bush admits that 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the invasion.
"How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," Bush tells a meeting of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
On 9 November 2006, Iraq's health minister says that based on Health Ministry and Baghdad morgue statistics an estimated 150,000 civilians had been killed since the invasion.
In January 2008, a World Health Organisation study finds that between 104,000 and 223,000 violent deaths occurred in Iraq between March 2003 and June 2006.
Later in January 2008 a survey by the London-based research company Opinion Research Business and the Iraq-based Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies concludes that the death toll in Iraq between March 2003 and August 2007 "is likely to have been in the order of 1,033,000."
At 9 March 2009, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website reports that 4,256 US troops have died since the beginning of operations. The death toll for British soldiers stands at 179, and the toll for soldiers from other coalition countries at 139. The number of US military deaths in Iraq is the most sustained by the US Army in a single conflict since the war in Vietnam.
The number of Iraqi troops and paramilitaries killed during the conflict is unknown. Reuters news agency estimates that about 5,000 died in and around Baghdad alone. 'The Guardian' newspaper estimates that between 13,500 and 45,000 may have been killed across Iraq.
Meanwhile, the occupying forces fail to uncover any evidence to suggest that Iraq was engaged in programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix later says that Iraq probably destroyed almost all of its weapons of mass destruction in 1991, following the first Gulf War.
2004 - On 8 January the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace releases its report WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, concluding that while Saddam's "weapons programs represented a long-term threat that could not be ignored", they did not "pose an immediate threat to the US, to the region, or to global security." There was also no solid evidence of a cooperative relationship between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda.
According to the report, war was not the best - or only - option. The UN weapons inspections were working far better than realised.
The intelligence community failed in its assessment of Iraq's weapons capabilities the report says, and "administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat."
On 24 January the outgoing chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr David Kay, declares that he is "personally convinced that there were no large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. Kay recommends that an independent inquiry be held into how the intelligence system failed to correctly assess the situation.
At the start of February Secretary of State Colin Powell also concedes that Iraq may not have possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
A report released by the US Senate Intelligence Committee on 9 July finds that claims made by President Bush and his administration prior to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam's regime possessed or was developing weapons of mass destruction were based on flawed and faulty intelligence. The 500-page report also finds that claims about Saddam's ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network were similarly tenuous.
On 16 September, as Iraq becomes increasingly unstable with rising levels of attacks by insurgents, UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan tells the BBC World Service that the occupation of the country by the coalition of the willing was illegal.
"I have stated clearly that it was not in conformity with the Security Council - with the UN Charter," Annan says, adding, "From our point of view and from the Charter point of view it was illegal."
On 6 October the CIA's Iraq Survey Group finally confirms that there were no weapons on mass destruction in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion.
The Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq's WMD finds that Iraq ended its nuclear program in 1991, after the first Gulf War. Biological weapons stocks were destroyed in 1991 and 1992, and the biological weapons program was abandoned in 1995. Chemical weapons stockpiles were destroyed in 1991.
According to the 1,000-page report, Saddam's prime motivation for developing weapons of mass destruction was to arm Iraq for any future conflict with Iran. The report concludes that Saddam intended to restart the weapons programs when possible, with a focus on tactical chemical warfare, long-range missiles, and nuclear weapons.
2005 - On 13 January the Bush administration officially acknowledges that the search by the Iraq Survey Group for weapons of mass destruction has been abandoned. In the 21 months since the invasion of Iraq no weapons of mass destruction have been found nor any evidence uncovered that weapons were moved to another country.
2006 - The US Senate Intelligence Committee pours further cold water on claims that Saddam Hussein had established links with the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
A report released by the committee on 8 September finds that Saddam was "distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda for material or operational support."
It is also reported in September that a combined National Intelligence Estimate by 16 US intelligence services has concluded that the invasion of Iraq has led to an increase in global terrorism.
At the start of October the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that there are now up to 1.6 million Iraqi refugees living outside their country and more than 1.5 million people displaced within Iraq itself.
More information
General
Henry Kissinger page at Third World Traveler
The Case Against Henry Kissinger, Part One, The Making of a War Criminal, Christopher Hitchens, Harpers Magazine, March 2001
The Case Against Henry Kissinger, Part Two, Crimes Against Humanity, Christopher Hitchens, Harpers Magazine, March 2001
Ronald Reagan page at Third World Traveler
Argentina
Jorge Rafaél Videla killer file
'Nunca Más' (Never Again) - Report of Conadep (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) - 1984
Cambodia
Pol Pot killer file
Cambodia - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Chile
Augusto Pinochet killer file
Chile - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Guardian Unlimited | Special Report: Augusto Pinochet
Cuba
Che Guevara hero file
The Timetable History of Cuba
East Timor
Xanana Gusmao hero file
Suharto killer file
Guatemala
Rigoberta Menchú Tum hero file
Efraín Ríos Montt killer file
Commission for Historical Clarification Report - 'Memory of Silence' (English) - Spanish copy of the report
Indonesia
Suharto killer file
Iraq
Saddam Hussein killer file
Iran - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq's WMD
Guardian Unlimited Special Report: Iraq
Iraq Body Count
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Iran
Mohammed Mossadegh hero file
Iran - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
New York Times Special Report: The CIA in Iran
Japan
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka and Matsui Iwane killer file
Japan - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Atomic Bomb: Documents on the Decision to Use the Atomic Bombs on the Cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Nicaragua
Anastasio Somoza Debayle killer file
Nicaragua - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series
Rwanda
Théoneste Bagosora killer file
Bystanders to Genocide - September 2001 Atlantic Monthly
Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh hero file
Vietnam - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
other killer files
Idi Amin
Ion Antonescu
Yasuhiko Asaka
Rifaat Assad
Théoneste Bagosora
Bhopal Industrial Incident
Nicolae Ceausescu
The Duvaliers
Francisco Franco
Joseph Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Elie Hobeika
Enver Hoxha
Saddam Hussein
Shiro Ishii
Radovan Karadzic
Kim Il Sung
King Léopold II
Mao Tse-Tung
Ferdinand Marcos
Josef Mengele
Slobodan Milosevic
Ratko Mladic
Efraín Ríos Montt
Benito Mussolini
Ante Pavelic
Augusto Pinochet
Pol Pot
Anastasio Somoza
Joseph Stalin
Suharto
The Three Pashas
Rafael Trujillo
United States Presidents
Jorge Rafaél Videla
Ne Win
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan
This is a compilation of actions by presidents of the United States, and their advisers, that affected other individuals and countries featured on this website.
Information is presented in a time-line. The inclusion of an administration does not necessarily imply that its actions led to avoidable human deaths and suffering.
1945-1953
President - Harry S. Truman (Democrat)Vice President - 1945-1949 none; 1949-1953 Alben Barkley Secretary of State - 1945 E. R. Stettinius, Jr; 1945-1947 James F. Byrnes; 1947-1949 George C. Marshall; 1949-1953 Dean Acheson Secretary of Defence - 1947-1949 James Forrestal; 1949-1950 Louis A. Johnson; 1950-1951 George C. Marshall; 1951-1953 Robert A. Lovett
1945 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies from a massive cerebral haemorrhage on 12 April. Vice President Harry S. Truman is sworn in as president the same day.
On 7 May the Second World War in Europe ends when Germany surrenders unconditionally. The focus of the war now shifts to the Pacific, where Japan continues to hold out against the advancing Allies, who in this theatre of operations are led by the United States.
In June the Japanese determine to fight to the finish. Their plan for a last-stand battle against a US-led invasion is called 'Ketsu Go' (Operation Decisive). Japanese troops are massed in the south of Kyushu Island, where the invasion forces are expected to land.
On 25 July President Truman authorises the use of atomic bombs against the Japanese.
The order to use the bomb states that the "Air Force will deliver its first special bomb as soon as weather will permit visual bombing after about 3 August 1945 on one of the targets: Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki. ...
"Additional bombs will be delivered on the above targets as soon as made ready by the project staff. Further instructions will be issued concerning targets other than those listed above."
The first bomb is dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August. A second bomb is dropped on Nagasaki on 9 August. The bombs kill about 120,000 people outright and fatally injure over 100,000 more. Japanese Emperor Hirohito surrenders unconditionally on 14 August 1945, ending the Second World War.
1950 - The US recognises South Vietnam and sends a group of military advisers to train the South Vietnamese in the use of US weapons. China responds by recognising communist North Vietnam and agreeing to provide it with limited assistance. Official recognition of North Vietnam by the Soviet Union soon follows.
1951 - In February the government of Iran votes to nationalise the country's oil industry, which has been controlled by the British since the start of the century. In April the Iranian Parliament names Mohammed Mossadegh as its prime minister.
1952 - The US successfully detonates a hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll (the Marshall Islands) on 1 November. Though smaller in size than the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hydrogen bomb is 2,500 times more powerful. The island on which the bomb is tested is completed destroyed.
1953-1961
President - Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican)Vice President - Richard Milhous Nixon Secretary of State - 1953-1959 John Foster Dulles; 1959-1961 Christian A. Herter Secretary of Defence - 1953-1957 Charles E. Wilson; 1957-1959 Neil H. McElroy; 1959-1961 Thomas S. Gates
1953 - The British Government and the new administration of incoming President Eisenhower become increasingly alarmed by the growth of nationalism in Iran and the behaviour of Prime Minister Mossadegh. Their concerns are further heightened when Mossadegh begins to work with the communist Tudeh Party. They fear that Iran will be drawn into the Soviet sphere, although Mossadegh advocates a policy of nonalignment in foreign affairs.
On 4 April the US director of central intelligence releases US$1 million which, according to a secret history of the coup written in 1954 by the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) chief coup strategist, Dr Donald N. Wilber, is to be used "in a way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh."
"The aim was to bring to power a government which would reach an equitable oil settlement, enabling Iran to become economically sound and financially solvent, and which would vigorously prosecute the dangerously strong Communist Party," the secret history says.
On 11 July President Eisenhower approves a joint British-US plan to oust Mossadegh.
The plan has four elements - first a campaign to undermine Mossadegh's popularity and raise the spectre of a communist takeover of the government; second, Mossadegh's dismissal; third, street riots; and lastly the emergence of a new prime minister who has been hand-picked by Britain and the US.
The coup begins on 15 August. By 19 August Mossadegh and his government have fallen.
It is the CIA's first successful attempt to overthrow a foreign government. Martial law is declared, and will remain in force until the end of 1957.
Under an agreement reached between the new Iranian government headed by the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and a consortium of eight foreign oil companies, industry control of the oil companies is restored.
Iran under the shah will eventually become a one-party state with a grim human rights record.
1954 - On 8 May a conference begins in Geneva to attempt to peacefully resolve the future of Vietnam, where French and South Vietnamese forces have been battling the North Vietnamese communists for control of the country. A compromise agreement is signed on 29 July. Vietnam will be divided at the 17th parallel. All French and South Vietnamese forces are to move south of the demarcation line. All North Vietnamese forces are to move to its north. France will quit the country completely. National elections to reunify the country under a single government are to be held in July 1956.
The agreement is endorsed by North Vietnam, France, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. The US and South Vietnam withhold approval. The country has been effectively divided into a communist North and a noncommunist South. The French are gone. On 24 October President Eisenhower offers South Vietnam direct economic aid.
1955 - Direct US aid to South Vietnam begins in January. US military advisers begin to arrive the following month. The South Vietnamese Government launches a campaign against communist groups inside its territory. In August it announces that it will not participate in negotiations with the North over the national elections scheduled for the following year.
1958 - The Eisenhower administration provides the Batista government in Cuba with US$1 million in military aid to support it in the war with communist guerrillas led by Fidel Castro.
1959 - The Batista government falls on 1 January. The US Government recognises the Castro government on 7 January. However, relations between the US and Cuba sour when the Castro government implements land reform and US industrial, commercial and agricultural interests in Cuba are nationalised.
1960 - Cuba turns to the Soviet Union for aid and support. The US responds in March by terminating purchases of Cuban sugar and ceasing oil deliveries. Covert operations coordinated by the CIA include the formation of a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles to invade the island and overthrow Castro.
1961-1963
President - John F. Kennedy (Democrat)Vice President - Lyndon B. Johnson Secretary of State - Dean Rusk Secretary of Defence - Robert S. McNamara
1961 - President Kennedy decides to increase support for the embattled government of South Vietnam, providing $US65 million worth of military equipment and $US136 million in economic aid. By December 3,200 US military personnel are stationed in Vietnam. Within 12 months the number has increased to 11,200.
President Kennedy will later reverse his decision and resolve instead to disentangle the US from Vietnam. However, he is assassinated before his new program can be implemented. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, will further escalate the US involvement.
Meanwhile, the US officially breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba on 3 January and intensifies attempts to destabilise the Castro government. In the first two weeks of April there are several terrorist bomb attacks in Havana as well as bombing raids on Cuban airfields by unidentified aircraft.
On 17 April 1,300 Cuban exiles, supported by the CIA and operating from a base in Nicaragua, attempt to invade Cuba at a southern coastal area called the Bay of Pigs. After three days of fighting they are crushed by Castro's forces. In the aftermath about 20,000 Cubans are arrested and charged with counter-revolutionary activities.
1962 - The 'Cuban Missile Crisis' flares in October when the US Government discovers that the Soviet Union is setting up launch sites for long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. After a tense 13-day standoff between President Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev the missiles are removed on condition that the US withdraws its missiles stationed in Turkey and ceases its attempts to overthrow Castro.
1963 - US economic and social restrictions on Cuba are tightened. Travel to the island by US citizens is banned, as are all financial and commercial transactions.
1963-1969
President - Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat)Vice President - 1963-1965 none; 1965-1969 Hubert HumphreySecretary of State - Dean RuskSecretary of Defence - 1963-1968 Robert S. McNamara; 1968-1969 Clark M. Clifford
1964 - By July the number of US military personnel in Vietnam has reached 16,000. In August President Johnson approves air strikes against North Vietnamese naval bases in retaliation for an alleged attack on two US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the north coast of Vietnam. In October the Soviet Union promises increased military support for North Vietnam.
1965 - In February the US begins a series of air strikes known as 'Operation Rolling Thunder' against military targets in the North. The following month 3,500 US combat troops arrive in Vietnam. By the end of the year the US force numbers 180,000. The figure grows to 350,000 in the mid-1966. Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea and the Philippines also send combat troops.
1967 - US forces in Vietnam now number close to 500,000 and the US bombing raids have extended to within 16 km of the northern border with China. President Johnson offers to stop the bombing if North Vietnam agrees to peace talks. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh announces, "We will never agree to negotiate under the threat of bombing." Towards the end of the year the communists begin preparations for a general offensive in the countryside and cities of the South.
1968 - The 'Tet Offensive' begins on 31 January with simultaneous attacks by the communists on five major cities, 100 provincial and district capitals and many villages. South Vietnamese and US forces are shaken when suicide squads penetrate the heart of Saigon, attacking the presidential palace, radio station, the South Vietnam Army's joint general staff compound, Tan Son Nhut airfield and the US embassy.
While the offensive is contained in a matter of days, the balance has swung. Mounting disaffection with the US involvement in the war, particularly from the peace movement in the West, and a mounting death toll will eventually force the US into a humiliating withdrawal.
On 31 March President Johnson declares a halt to the bombing of most of North Vietnam and calls for peace talks. A request by the military for an additional 200,000 troops over the 525,000 already stationed in Vietnam is refused.
Peace talks begin in Paris on 10 May. A breakthrough appears imminent at the end October when President Johnson announces a complete halt to US bombing of the North, but hope for an end to the war is dashed when the South insists on more favourable conditions.
It is later revealed that the South had been influenced by US presidential candidate Richard Milhous Nixon, who had promised them a better deal if he won the upcoming election. It is also revealed that Nixon had been assisted by an insider to the peace talks, his future national security adviser and secretary of state, Henry Alfred Kissinger.
Meanwhile, in Cambodia, the US provides aid to the Khmer Rouge, a group of left-wing insurgents led by Pol Pot.
In Guatemala, apparent US support for heavy-handed tactics used by the Guatemalan army and police in a war against a communist insurgency comes under question.
In a report he presents to the US Department of State, the then deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Guatemala, Viron Vaky, expresses his concerns about the human rights situation in the country.
Vaky states, "The official squads are guilty of atrocities. Interrogations are brutal, torture is used and bodies are mutilated. ...
"In the minds of many in Latin America, and, tragically, especially in the sensitive, articulate youth, we (the US) are believed to have condoned these tactics, if not actually encouraged them. Therefore our image is being tarnished and the credibility of our claims to want a better and more just world are increasingly placed in doubt. ...
"This leads to an aspect I personally find the most disturbing of all - that we have not been honest with ourselves. We have condoned counter-terror; we may even in effect have encouraged or blessed it. We have been so obsessed with the fear of insurgency that we have rationalised away our qualms and uneasiness.
"This is not only because we have concluded we cannot do anything about it, for we never really tried. Rather we suspected that maybe it is a good tactic, and that as long as communists are being killed it is alright. Murder, torture and mutilation are alright if our side is doing it and the victims are communists. After all hasn't man been a savage from the beginning of time so let us not be too queasy about terror. I have literally heard these arguments from our people."
1969-1974
President - Richard Milhous Nixon (Republican)Vice President - 1969-1973 Spiro Agnew; 1973 none; 1973-1974 Gerald Ford Secretary of State - 1969-1973 William P. Rogers; 1973-1974 Henry Alfred KissingerSecretary of Defence - 1969-1973 Melvin R. Laird; 1973 Elliot L. Richardson; 1973 James R. Schlesinger National Security Adviser - 1969-1973 - Henry Alfred Kissinger
1969 - Peace negotiations between North and South Vietnam, the US and the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (National Liberation Front - NLF) begin in Paris in January but are destined to draw on for years. In June the NLF forms the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG), which is immediately recognised by the North as the legitimate government of the South.
In March the US begins secret bombing raids on Vietnamese communist sanctuaries and supply routes inside Cambodia (dubbed the 'Menu Series'). Authorised by President Nixon and directed by Kissinger, the raids are illegal, as the US has not officially declared war on Cambodia. In 14 months, 110,000 tons of bombs are dropped. When news of the raids is leaked Kissinger orders surveillance and phone tapping of suspects to uncover the source.
US bombing raids into Cambodia will continue until 1973. All told 539,129 tons of ordnance will be dropped on the country, much of it in indiscriminate B-52 carpet-bombing raids. The tonnage is about three and a half times more than that (153,000 tons) dropped on Japan during the Second World War.
Up to 600,000 Cambodians die but the raids are militarily ineffective. The CIA reports that the bombing raids are serving to increase the popularity of the Khmer Rouge insurgents among the affected Cambodian population.
1970 - In April President Nixon authorises the invasion of Cambodia by a joint US-South Vietnamese force of 30,000 troops. Tasked with destroying Vietnamese communist bases inside Cambodia, the force pushes the Vietnamese further into Cambodia but is otherwise ineffective and is forced to withdraw in June by the US Congress.
Meanwhile, the US resumes air attacks on North Vietnam. The communists attempt to maintain the pressure and again shake the South Vietnamese Government and the US when they launch the 'Easter Offensive' on 30 March 1972. The US responds by escalating the air raids.
In September, following the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile, President Nixon orders the CIA to do all it can to prevent Allende from being inaugurated.
Allende has a long-standing association with the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvenoi Bezopasnosti), the Soviet secret police force, and his election campaign has been heavily financed by the Soviets. Following Allende's victory, Soviet agents begin to move into Chile in force. Soviet paramilitary instructors use the country as a base for the training of insurgents from across Latin America.
Under the supervision of Kissinger, the CIA will develop the so-called 'Track II' plan to oust Allende, allocating US$10 million while formally insulating the US embassy in Chile from any involvement.
The agency attempts to bribe key Chilean legislators and funds a group of military officers plotting a coup, providing a further payment of US$35,000 following the assassination on 22 October of General Rene Schneider, the commander-in-chief of the army, who had refused to approve the coup plan.
One CIA document from October states, "It is firm and continuing policy that Allende be overthrown by a coup. ... It is imperative that these actions be implemented clandestinely and securely so that the USG (US Government) and American hand be well hidden."
Kissinger says, "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."
1971 - The already strained relations between Chile and the US are further stretched by the Allende government's recognition of Cuba, China, North Korea and North Vietnam and by its cultivation of ties with the Soviet Union. The US responds by withdrawing financial assistance and blocking loans, although aid to the Chilean military is doubled.
Covertly, the CIA continues to work to destabilise the Allende government, providing up to US$7 million in funding to opposition groups in order to "create pressures, exploit weaknesses, magnify obstacles" and hasten Allende's downfall.
1972 - An agreement on the terms for peace is reached between North Vietnam and the US in October. However, when South Vietnam refuses to believe that the North is sincere, the peace negotiations falter. Acting on advice from Kissinger, President Nixon orders massive night-time bombing raids on Hanoi and Haiphong to demonstrate the resolve of the US and appease the doubters in the South.
During 11 days in December the 'Christmas Bombing' campaign sees 129 B52 bombers drop 40,000 tons of ordnance in what is said to be the largest raids of their type in history. The North Vietnamese return to the negotiating table and the bombing is stopped.
Meanwhile, during a visit to Iran, President Nixon agrees to allow the shah to purchase unlimited quantities of US military hardware. In return the shah allows the US to establish two listening posts in Iran to monitor Soviet ballistic missile launches and other military activity.
Nixon visits China in February. The détente between the US and China results in the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, being blocked from travelling to the US. The US also ceases to support Tibetan guerrillas resisting Chinese occupation.
1973 - On 27 January all parties to the Vietnam War sign the 'Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam', the so-called 'Paris Accords'. The agreement is essentially the same as the one sabotaged by Nixon and Kissinger in 1968. It provides for a cease-fire and the full withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam. By the end of March 1973 all the US combat troops have been withdrawn.
However, in an attempt to prop-up the US puppet government in Cambodia, halt the Khmer Rouge and destroy North Vietnamese bases, the Nixon administration secretly intensifies the bombing of Cambodia, without government authorisation, and despite having signed the peace agreement with the North Vietnamese.
Once they are convinced the US withdrawal will be permanent, the Vietnamese communists again start to move south, easily sweeping aside the now demoralised and ineffective South Vietnamese troops. The communists take Saigon on 30 April 1975, bringing the war finally to an end.
The toll of Vietnamese dead from war exceeds three million, including two million civilians, over 1.3 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops and about 224,000 South Vietnamese military personnel. The spread of the conflict into neighbouring Cambodia and Laos has resulted in the loss of another 950,000 lives and led to the rise of the genocidal dictator Pol Pot and the deaths of a further one to three million.
US deaths from the Vietnam War total 58,226 killed or missing in action. The death toll for the US allies includes 508 Australians and 38 New Zealanders.
Vietnam is officially reunified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on 2 July 1976.
The US refuses to recognise the new republic and severs diplomatic relations with Vietnam.
Meanwhile in Chile, the CIA finances strikes by transport workers and shopkeepers, is implicated in the sabotage of public infrastructure and infiltrates the government. Almost one third of the staff at the US embassy in Santiago are now on the CIA payroll.
On 23 August Allende promotes General Augusto Pinochet to commander-in-chief of the army, mistakenly believing that Pinochet can be trusted to remain neutral.
On 11 September the military intervene in the mounting social crisis, staging a violent coup d'état under Pinochet's direction.
Pinochet introduces a repressive military dictatorship to Chile that will last until 1989 and result in the death or disappearance of 3,197 people between September 1973 and March 1990.
1974 - Nixon resigns as president on 9 August following his impeachment for the Watergate affair. He is replaced as president by his vice president, Gerald Ford.
1974-1977
President - Gerald Ford (Republican)Vice President - 1974 none; 1974-1977 Nelson Rockefeller Secretary of State - 1974-1977 Henry Alfred KissingerSecretary of Defence - 1974-1975 James R. Schlesinger; 1975-1977 Donald H. Rumsfeld National Security Adviser - 1974-1975 - Henry Alfred Kissinger
1975 - A US Senate investigation finds that the Nixon administration backed the 1973 coup in Chile.
Meanwhile, the CIA establishes contact with Manuel Contreras, the head of the Chilean secret police. Contreras is a key player in Operation Condor, an information gathering and sharing alliance between Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay designed to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in South America. In August Contreras travels to Washington and meets with CIA Deputy Director, General Vernon Walters. Contreras will also receive a one-off payment from the CIA.
A CIA internal inquiry into events in Chile later states, "During a period between 1974 and 1977, CIA maintained contact with Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, who later became notorious for his involvement in human rights abuses. The US Government policy community approved CIA's contact with Contreras, given his position as chief of the primary intelligence organisation in Chile, as necessary to accomplish the CIA's mission, in spite of concerns that this relationship might lay the CIA open to charges of aiding internal political repression. ...
"By April 1975, intelligence reporting showed that Contreras was the principal obstacle to a reasonable human rights policy within the junta, but an inter-agency committee directed the CIA to continue its relationship with Contreras. The US Ambassador to Chile urged Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (General Vernon) Walters to receive Contreras in Washington in the interest of maintaining good relations with Pinochet. In August 1975, with inter-agency approval, this meeting took place.
"In May and June 1975, elements within the CIA recommended establishing a paid relationship with Contreras to obtain intelligence based on his unique position and access to Pinochet. This proposal was overruled, citing the US Government policy on clandestine relations with the head of an intelligence service notorious for human rights abuses. However, given miscommunications in the timing of this exchange, a one-time payment was given to Contreras."
On the other side of the world, President Ford and Kissinger meet with Indonesian President Suharto on 6 December.
One of the topics of discussion at the meeting is the situation in East Timor, where a civil war has broken out between the left-wing Marxist Revolutionary Front for East Timor's Independence (Fretilin) and an anticommunist coalition following the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonial administration.
"I would like to speak to you, Mr President, about another problem, Timor. ... Fretilin is infected the same as is the Portuguese Army with communism ... We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action," Suharto says to his visitors.
Ford replies, "We will understand and will not press you on this issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have."
Kissinger says, "You appreciate that the use of US-made arms could create problems. ... It depends on how we construe it; whether it is in self-defence or is a foreign operation. It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly. We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens, happens after we return."
The next day the Indonesian Army invades East Timor. It is estimated that 60,000 East Timorese or 10% of the population are killed in the first two months of the invasion. All told, up to 250,000 of East Timor's 1975 population of about 650,000 will die as a result of the occupation and the famine that follows.
Earlier in the year President Ford and Kissinger had also blessed the attempted invasion of another former Portuguese colony, giving the go-ahead to South Africa's unsuccessful bid to invade Angola in October.
1976 - On 24 March the Argentine military, led General Jorge Rafaél Videla, stage a coup d'état and seize power. A junta composed of the commanders of the army, navy and air force will rule Argentina until 10 December 1983. It will be the most repressive regime ever seen in Argentina and will be responsible for the deaths and disappearances of up to 30,000 political opponents during the so-called 'Dirty War'.
At a US State Department staff meeting held on 26 March, two days after the coup, Secretary of State Kissinger is told by William Rogers, his assistant secretary for Latin America, that "we've got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long. I think they're going to have to come down very hard not only on the terrorists but on the dissidents of trade unions and their parties. ... The point is that we ought not at this moment to rush out and embrace this new regime."
"But we shouldn't do the opposite either," Kissinger replies. "Whatever chance they have, they will need a little encouragement from us. ... Because I do want to encourage them. I don't want to give the sense that they're harassed by the United States."
In April the US Congress approves a grant of US$50 million in military aid to the junta.
On 10 June Kissinger meets with Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral César Augusto Guzzetti in Santiago. According to a transcript of the meeting, Kissinger says, "Let me say, as a friend, that I have noticed that military governments are not always the most effective in dealing with these problems. ...
"So after a while, many people who don't understand the situation begin to oppose the military and the problem is compounded.
"The Chileans, for example, have not succeeded in getting across their initial problem and are increasingly isolated.
"You will have to make an international effort to have your problems understood. Otherwise, you, too, will come under increasing attack. If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures."
The junta interprets Kissinger's comments as a green light for their repressive tactics, and a US public relations company is hired to improve its image overseas.
Another meeting between Kissinger and Guzzetti in New York on 7 October further convinces the junta that they have Kissinger's blessing.
"Look, our basic attitude is that we would like you to succeed. I have an old-fashioned view that friends ought to be supported. What is not understood in the United States is that you have a civil war. We read about human rights problems but not the context," Kissinger tells Guzzetti.
"The quicker you succeed the better. ... The human rights problem is a growing one. ... We want a stable situation. We won't cause you unnecessary difficulties. If you can finish before Congress gets back, the better. Whatever freedoms you could restore would help."
Meanwhile, on 8 June, the day before he is due to address a meeting of the Organisation of American States, Kissinger tells Augusto Pinochet, "In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward communism. We wish your government well. ...
"My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government that was going communist. ...
"As you know, Congress is now debating further restraints on aid to Chile. We are opposed. ...
"It is a curious time in the US. ... It is unfortunate. We have been through Vietnam and Watergate. We have to wait until the (1976) elections. We welcomed the overthrow of the communist-inclined government here. We are not out to weaken your position. ...
"I want to see our relations and friendship improve. We want to help, not undermine you. You did a great service to the West in overthrowing Allende. Otherwise Chile would have followed Cuba. Then there would have been no human rights."
1977-1981
President - Jimmy Carter (Democrat)Vice President - Walter MondaleSecretary of State - 1977-1980 Cyrus R. Vance; 1980-1981 Edmund S. MuskieSecretary of Defence - Harold Brown
1977 - The inauguration of President Carter leads to a cooling of relations between Chile and the US. Relations between the two countries will continue to decline through the administrations Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
In Central America, the Carter administration suspends military aid to Guatemala following an upsurge in death squad activity against left-wing guerrillas and Mayan peasants during the country's bloody civil war. Pressure from the Carter administration also forces the dictatorial government in Nicaragua to lift a two-year long state of siege.
1978 - In February the Carter administration suspends all military assistance to the Nicaraguan Government.
1979 - In February the Shah of Iran is overthrown in an 'Islamic Revolution' led by Shia cleric Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini. In November the US Embassy in Tehran is seized by the Iranians and its US diplomatic staff taken as hostages.
Meanwhile in Cambodia, it is reported that the Khmer Rouge are receiving military backing from China and the US. It is also reported that a former deputy director of the CIA visits Pol Pot's operational base in November 1980.
The embargo preventing the Dalai Lama from visiting the US is lifted.
1980 - War breaks out between Iraq and Iran on 22 September when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein orders his air force to bomb air bases inside Iran. At the same time, Iraqi troops march into southwestern Iran.
1981-1989
President - Ronald Reagan (Republican)Vice President - George Bush Secretary of State - 1981-1982 Alexander M. Haig, Jr; 1982-1989 George P. ShultzSecretary of Defence - 1981-1987 Caspar W. Weinberger; 1987-1989 Frank C. Carlucci
1981 - The administration of President Reagan begins to resupply the Guatemalan Army, claiming it is the leftist groups who are perpetuating the violence of the civil war, aided and abetted by Cuba.
The US also claims that the left-wing government in Nicaragua, with assistance from Cuba and the Soviet Union, is providing arms to guerrillas in El Salvador. All US aid to the country is suspended and funding and training is provided to right-wing 'Contra' rebels operating from neighbouring Honduras.
In the Middle East, formerly frosty relations between the US and Iraq begin to thaw.
The US is still smarting from the seizure of its embassy in Tehran and the taking of American diplomats as hostages in November 1979 following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Attempts by Iran to export the revolution to other regions in the Middle East are also of concern. Iraq is seem as a bulwark against the spread of Iran's militant Shia extremism.
1982 - President Reagan is reported as saying that Guatemalan dictator General José Efraín Ríos Montt is "a man of great personal integrity" who is "getting a bum rap on human rights."
It is later estimated that during the period of Ríos Montt's rule (March 1982 to August 1983) about 70,000 Guatemalan civilians are killed or "disappeared". During the period 1981 to 1983 about 100,000 are killed or "disappeared" and between 500,000 and 1.5 million displaced, fleeing to other regions within the country or seeking safety abroad.
Meanwhile, the US extends credits to Iraq for the purchase of American agricultural products. According to a report published in 'Newsweek' magazine on 23 September 2002, the purchases extent to a wide variety of "dual use" equipment and materials including chemical analysis equipment for the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission and numerous shipments of "bacteria/fungi/protozoa" that could be used to manufacture biological weapons, including anthrax.
Iraq's armoury also receives a boost when the country is removed from a US Government list of alleged sponsors of terrorism.
1983 - The US reinstates military training assistance to Guatemala in January, authorising the sale of US$6 million of military hardware.
US support for Iraq is enshrined in National Security Decision Directive 114 issued on 26 November. Though still classified, the directive is believed to state that the US would do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from loosing the war with Iran.
The directive is issued even though Secretary of State George P. Shultz has been told by a senior State Department official on 1 November that Iraq is using chemical weapons against the Iranians.
In December the US sends a special Middle East envoy to Iraq to hold talks with Saddam Hussein. The envoy, Donald H. Rumsfeld, the future US secretary of defence under the administration of George W. Bush, is the highest-ranking American official to visit Baghdad in more than 16 years.
At their meeting on 20 December Rumsfeld tells Saddam that the US is ready to resume full diplomatic relations.
1984 - Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad for meetings with the Iraqi foreign minister on 24 March, the same day that the UN releases a report finding that Iraq is using mustard gas and the nerve agent tabun against Iranian troops.
The US State Department also acknowledges Iraq's actions, releasing a statement on 5 March saying that "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons."
Nevertheless, full diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US are restored in November, allowing the US to provide Iraq with further aid to fight the war.
It is later reported that the US aid includes battle-planning assistance. According to a report published in 'The New York Times' on 18 August 2002, more that 60 officers of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) secretly supplied Iraq with detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments. Satellite photographs of the war front were also provided by the CIA.
One former member of the program is quoted as saying the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of (poisonous) gas. It was just another way of killing people - whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference."
Link to copy of The New York Times report.
It is also later revealed that prior to his second visit to Baghdad in March Rumsfeld had been directed by Secretary of State Shultz to reassure Iraq that the interests of the US remained "(1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq."
1985 - When the US Congress suspends funding to the Nicaraguan Contras in April the Reagan administration orders a total embargo on US trade with Nicaragua. The embargo has a devastating effect on the country's already tottering economy, providing indirect assistance to the Contra insurgency.
In September the US provides Iran with the first consignment of thousands of 'TOW' missiles in a secret arms for hostages deal later dubbed the 'Irangate'.
1986 - In June the US Congress votes to resume aid to the Contras. The US$100 million provided in military and nonmilitary assistance forces the Nicaraguan government to increase spending on defence, further damaging economic development. In November it is revealed that staff in the Reagan administration attempted to circumvent the 1985 congressional ban on aid to the Contras by illegally diverting funds from weapons sales to Iran, the so-called 'Iran-Contra Affair'.
1987 - When the US Congress again withdraws aid to the Contras following the Iran-Contra Affair the war in Nicaragua dwindles to a stalemate, opening the way for a negotiated peace settlement. A temporary cease-fire agreement is signed in March 1988.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi Government begins to use chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians in the north of Iraq.
Despite being aware of the attacks the US does nothing to curtail its relations with the Iraqis, though the tone of the engagement does being to sour.
1988 - The Iran-Iraq war finally ends on 20 August when a cease-fire is formally declared.
1989-1993
President - George Bush (Republican)Vice President - Dan QuayleSecretary of State - 1989-1992 James A. Baker 3rd; 1992-1993 Lawrence S. EagleburgerSecretary of Defence - Richard Cheney
1990 - Iraqi troops invade Kuwait on 2 August.
1991 - On 16 January the US leads a coalition of 33 world nations on an UN-sanctioned mission to liberate Kuwait. The Gulf War, also known as 'Operation Desert Storm', lasts for six-weeks and sees the Iraqi's comprehensively defeated and driven out of Kuwait.
The permanent cease-fire agreement as set out in UN Security Council Resolution 687 of 3 April requires Iraq to destroy all of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capability as well as missiles with a range of more than 150 kilometres and to allow verification by inspectors from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Trade sanctions and an oil embargo will remain in force until the inspectors certify that all weapons of mass destruction have been identified and destroyed.
1993-2001
President - Bill Clinton (Democrat)Vice President - Al Gore Secretary of State - 1993-1996 Warren M. Christopher; 1996-2001 Madeleine AlbrightSecretary of Defence 1993-1994 Les Aspin; 1994-1997 William J. Perry; 1997-2001 William S. Cohen
1993 - In March the US begins to support critics of Indonesia's rule in East Timor. The UN Human Rights Commission adopts a resolution expressing "deep concern" at human rights violations by Indonesia in East Timor. In May the administration of President Clinton places Indonesia on a human rights "watch" list. When Suharto meets Clinton in Tokyo in July concerns are raised about the East Timor human rights issue.
1994 - At the beginning of April the central African country of Rwanda descends into mayhem when the death of the nation's president in a plane crash unleashes a genocide.
In just 100 days over 500,000 Rwandan Tutsis will be killed by their Hutu countrymen. (The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda estimates "some 800,000 Rwandans were killed." Other sources estimate that between 800,000 and one million perish.) Thousands of Hutus opposed to the genocide are also killed.
Up to two million Hutu and Tutsi Rwandans will flee the country and up to one million will be internally displaced. By early August an estimated one-quarter of the pre-war population of Rwanda has either died or fled the country.
As the genocide unfolds world leaders, including the US, stubbornly refuse to intervene.
The Clinton administration is especially reluctant to become involved, at first advocating the withdrawal of a UN peacekeeping force already stationed in Rwanda and then delaying the deployment of reinforcements.
In an article in the September 2001 edition of 'The Atlantic Monthly', Samantha Power writes, "During the entire three months of the genocide Clinton never assembled his top policy advisers to discuss the killings. ... Rwanda was never thought to warrant its own top-level meeting. When the subject came up, it did so along with, and subordinate to, discussions of Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. Whereas these crises involved US personnel and stirred some public interest, Rwanda generated no sense of urgency and could safely be avoided by Clinton at no political cost."
Meanwhile, US Senate committee reports on its investigation into the possible impact on the health of Gulf War veterans of dual use chemical and biological substances exported from the US to Iraq. The report finds that from 1985 to 1989 pathogenic, toxigenic, and other biological research materials were shipped to Iraq by US firms and that the exports were approved and licensed by the US Department of Commerce, with shipments continuing up until November 1989.
"These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction," the report says.
On 25 May 1994, during a statement to the Senate committee, Dr Gordon C. Oehler, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Non-Proliferation Centre, confirms that the agency "had been quite aware of Iraq's chemical weapons development program from its very early inception" and that this knowledge had been passed on to the president, the secretary of defence and the secretary of state.
Oehler says that "regarding the involvement of United States firms, we were watching Iraq's programs very carefully, and it was clear that the major players assisting Saddam were not American firms. They were principally Europeans. We saw little involvement of US firms in Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program."
Full copy of the Senate committee report.
1995 - On 11 July President Clinton announces the formal resumption of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the US.
1998 - On 25 March President Clinton apologises for not having acted to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
"The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy," President Clinton says. "We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope."
Documents obtained by the National Security Archive under freedom of information legislation later reveal that US intelligence services had informed the Clinton administration of the scale and speed of the genocide within three weeks of its commencement. The documents show that administration refused to publicly name the slaughter as genocide because to do so would have required it to intervene.
1999 - On 10 March, during a visit to Central America, President Clinton publicly apologises for the US's past support of dictatorial regimes in Guatemala.
"For the United States, it is important that I state dearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake," he says.
In May the Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification (CEH) hands down a report into the human rights abuses committed during the civil war in Guatemala.
Titled 'Memory of Silence', the report includes among its conclusions the following statements:
"The CEH recognises that the movement of Guatemala towards polarisation, militarisation and civil war was not just the result of national history. The cold war also played an important role. Whilst anti-communism, promoted by the United States within the framework of its foreign policy, received firm support from right-wing political parties and from various other powerful actors in Guatemala, the United States demonstrated that it was willing to provide support for strong military regimes in its strategic backyard. In the case of Guatemala, military assistance was directed towards reinforcing the national intelligence apparatus and for training the officer corps in counterinsurgency techniques, key factors which had significant bearing on human rights violations during the armed confrontation.
"Anti-communism and the National Security Doctrine (DSN) formed part of the anti-Soviet strategy of the United States in Latin America. In Guatemala, these were first expressed as anti-reformist, then anti-democratic policies, culminating in criminal counterinsurgency. The National Security Doctrine fell on fertile ground in Guatemala where anti-communist thinking had already taken root and from the 1930s, had merged with the defence of religion, tradition and conservative values, all of which were allegedly threatened by the world-wide expansion of atheistic communism. Until the 1950s, these views were strongly supported by the Catholic Church, which qualified as communist any position that contradicted its philosophy, thus contributing even further to division and confusion in Guatemalan society."
2000 - President Clinton visits Vietnam. He is the first US president to visit the country since the end of the Vietnam War.
On 17 March Secretary of Madeline Albright publicly admits to the role of the US in the 1953 coup in Iran.
"The United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh," Albright says. "The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a set back for Iran's political development and it is easy to see why so many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."
Postscript
2001-2009
President - George W. Bush (Republican)Vice President - Dick Cheney Secretary of State - 2001-2005 General Colin L. Powell; 2005-2009 Condoleezza RiceSecretary of Defence - 2001-2006 Donald H. Rumsfeld; 2006-2009 Robert M. Gates
2001 - On 10 September the family of General Rene Schneider, the former commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army who was assassinated in 1970 after refusing to endorse a military coup against the Allende government, announce that it intends to sue the US Government and Henry Kissinger, who was the US national security adviser at the time of Schneider's death, for allegedly plotting the assassination. Kissinger denies any involvement.
On 11 September Islamic terrorists attack the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the US.
In retaliation the US invades Afghanistan on 7 October in a multinational operation against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban Government.
On 21 November President George W. Bush tells Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld that he wants to develop a plan for war with Iraq. Bush later nominates Iraq as one of the members of an "axis of evil" that also includes Iran and North Korea.
2002 - In June Chilean Judge Guzmán announces that extradition proceedings may be launched against Henry Kissinger in an attempt to force him to travel to Chile and appear before a judicial investigation into CIA involvement in the 1973 coup. The investigation is seeking to determine whether US officials passed the names of suspected left-wing Americans to Chilean military authorities - the existence of such a list having been verified by declassified documents.
Kissinger is wanted for questioning about circumstances surrounding the death of Charles Horman, a US journalist who was abducted and murdered shortly after the coup.
On 12 September President Bush takes his case against Iraq to the UN Security Council, calling for a tough new resolution demanding that Iraq disclose and remove all weapons of mass destruction, end support for terrorism and cease the persecution of its population.
On 8 November the Security Council adopts a new weapons inspection resolution for Iraq (Resolution 1441). An advanced inspection team of about 30, including UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Dr Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, arrives in Baghdad on 18 November. Formal inspections begin on 27 November. In December Saddam directs his senior officials to cooperate completely with the inspectors.
2003 - On 9 January Blix and ElBaradei deliver interim assessments of their progress to the UN Security Council, saying the inspections teams have found no "smoking guns" during "ever wider sweeps" of Iraq.
In the US, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell says that "the lack of a smoking gun does not mean that there's not one there."
President Bush warns that "time is running out."
"It appears to be a rerun of a bad movie," President Bush says. "He (Saddam) is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He's playing hide and seek with inspectors. One thing for sure is, he's not disarming."
Blix and ElBaradei provide further reports to the Security Council on 27 January, 14 February and 7 March, finding that while Iraq is improving its cooperation with the weapons inspectors a number of questions about its weapons programs remain unanswered. More time was needed to prove that Iraq was serious about disarming, the inspectors argue.
At the same time, the US and Britain press the UN to take decisive action, introducing a new draft resolution to the Security Council on 24 February stating that Iraq has failed to take advantage of its "final opportunity" to disarm peacefully and therefore must face the "serious consequences" threatened in Resolution 1441.
In the Persian Gulf region the forces of the "coalition of the willing" mount in preparation for an attack on Iraq. The US contingent includes about 250,000 troops, 1,200 tanks, more than 1,000 aircraft, five aircraft-carrier battle groups and the 5th fleet. They are joined by about 45,000 British troops and 2,000 Australian special forces.
In principal support for the offensive is also given by Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
On 16 March President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair issue the UN with an ultimatum, giving it 24 hours to support their draft resolution before they embark on unilateral action.
The next day, when it becomes apparent that the gambit has failed and that any attempt to get the UN to sanction armed intervention will be vetoed by France, the draft is withdrawn and the weapons inspectors are advised to leave Iraq.
On 18 March Bush announces that the only way war can be avoided is if Saddam and his sons leave Iraq within 48 hours. "Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing," Bush declares.
The offensive, called 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', beings on 20 March with an attempt to "decapitate" the regime through a targeted aerial bombing raid on a bunker in the south of Baghdad thought to be occupied by Saddam and other senior members of the government. However, Saddam survives the blast.
US and British ground troops enter Iraq from Kuwait and rapidly advance north to Baghdad, reaching the city's outskirts by 2 April. They encounter little opposition from Saddam's crumbling and disconsolate forces. Baghdad falls on 9 April.
On 1 May President Bush declares that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. However, violence continues and builds under the US occupation and the final death toll for the invasion is still to be tallied.
As at 9 March 2009, the Iraq Body Count website estimates the number of civilian deaths sustained during the invasion and occupation to be between 91,060 and 99,433.
On 28 October 2004 an independent survey published in 'The Lancet' medical journal concludes that there were at least 100,000 excess deaths in Iraq in the 18 months following the invasion.
A follow-up survey published in 'The Lancet' in October 2006 estimates that there have been 654,965 excess deaths in Iraq as a consequence of the invasion, with 601,027 of these attributable to violence.
"Although such death rates might be common in times of war, the combination of a long duration and tens of millions of people affected has made this the deadliest international conflict of the 21st century, and should be of grave concern to everyone," the survey concludes.
On 31 October 2005 'The Independent' newspaper reports that the US military has "admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq."
According to 'The Independent', a quarterly audit presented by the military to the US Congress during October 2005 included an estimate that "nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents, with an estimated 26 casualties a day between January and March of last year (2004), rising to 64 a day in the run up to the (2005) referendum on the new constitution."
On 12 December 2005, President Bush admits that 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the invasion.
"How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," Bush tells a meeting of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
On 9 November 2006, Iraq's health minister says that based on Health Ministry and Baghdad morgue statistics an estimated 150,000 civilians had been killed since the invasion.
In January 2008, a World Health Organisation study finds that between 104,000 and 223,000 violent deaths occurred in Iraq between March 2003 and June 2006.
Later in January 2008 a survey by the London-based research company Opinion Research Business and the Iraq-based Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies concludes that the death toll in Iraq between March 2003 and August 2007 "is likely to have been in the order of 1,033,000."
At 9 March 2009, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website reports that 4,256 US troops have died since the beginning of operations. The death toll for British soldiers stands at 179, and the toll for soldiers from other coalition countries at 139. The number of US military deaths in Iraq is the most sustained by the US Army in a single conflict since the war in Vietnam.
The number of Iraqi troops and paramilitaries killed during the conflict is unknown. Reuters news agency estimates that about 5,000 died in and around Baghdad alone. 'The Guardian' newspaper estimates that between 13,500 and 45,000 may have been killed across Iraq.
Meanwhile, the occupying forces fail to uncover any evidence to suggest that Iraq was engaged in programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix later says that Iraq probably destroyed almost all of its weapons of mass destruction in 1991, following the first Gulf War.
2004 - On 8 January the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace releases its report WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, concluding that while Saddam's "weapons programs represented a long-term threat that could not be ignored", they did not "pose an immediate threat to the US, to the region, or to global security." There was also no solid evidence of a cooperative relationship between Saddam's government and al-Qaeda.
According to the report, war was not the best - or only - option. The UN weapons inspections were working far better than realised.
The intelligence community failed in its assessment of Iraq's weapons capabilities the report says, and "administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat."
On 24 January the outgoing chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr David Kay, declares that he is "personally convinced that there were no large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. Kay recommends that an independent inquiry be held into how the intelligence system failed to correctly assess the situation.
At the start of February Secretary of State Colin Powell also concedes that Iraq may not have possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
A report released by the US Senate Intelligence Committee on 9 July finds that claims made by President Bush and his administration prior to the invasion of Iraq that Saddam's regime possessed or was developing weapons of mass destruction were based on flawed and faulty intelligence. The 500-page report also finds that claims about Saddam's ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network were similarly tenuous.
On 16 September, as Iraq becomes increasingly unstable with rising levels of attacks by insurgents, UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan tells the BBC World Service that the occupation of the country by the coalition of the willing was illegal.
"I have stated clearly that it was not in conformity with the Security Council - with the UN Charter," Annan says, adding, "From our point of view and from the Charter point of view it was illegal."
On 6 October the CIA's Iraq Survey Group finally confirms that there were no weapons on mass destruction in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion.
The Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq's WMD finds that Iraq ended its nuclear program in 1991, after the first Gulf War. Biological weapons stocks were destroyed in 1991 and 1992, and the biological weapons program was abandoned in 1995. Chemical weapons stockpiles were destroyed in 1991.
According to the 1,000-page report, Saddam's prime motivation for developing weapons of mass destruction was to arm Iraq for any future conflict with Iran. The report concludes that Saddam intended to restart the weapons programs when possible, with a focus on tactical chemical warfare, long-range missiles, and nuclear weapons.
2005 - On 13 January the Bush administration officially acknowledges that the search by the Iraq Survey Group for weapons of mass destruction has been abandoned. In the 21 months since the invasion of Iraq no weapons of mass destruction have been found nor any evidence uncovered that weapons were moved to another country.
2006 - The US Senate Intelligence Committee pours further cold water on claims that Saddam Hussein had established links with the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
A report released by the committee on 8 September finds that Saddam was "distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda for material or operational support."
It is also reported in September that a combined National Intelligence Estimate by 16 US intelligence services has concluded that the invasion of Iraq has led to an increase in global terrorism.
At the start of October the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reports that there are now up to 1.6 million Iraqi refugees living outside their country and more than 1.5 million people displaced within Iraq itself.
More information
General
Henry Kissinger page at Third World Traveler
The Case Against Henry Kissinger, Part One, The Making of a War Criminal, Christopher Hitchens, Harpers Magazine, March 2001
The Case Against Henry Kissinger, Part Two, Crimes Against Humanity, Christopher Hitchens, Harpers Magazine, March 2001
Ronald Reagan page at Third World Traveler
Argentina
Jorge Rafaél Videla killer file
'Nunca Más' (Never Again) - Report of Conadep (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) - 1984
Cambodia
Pol Pot killer file
Cambodia - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Chile
Augusto Pinochet killer file
Chile - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Guardian Unlimited | Special Report: Augusto Pinochet
Cuba
Che Guevara hero file
The Timetable History of Cuba
East Timor
Xanana Gusmao hero file
Suharto killer file
Guatemala
Rigoberta Menchú Tum hero file
Efraín Ríos Montt killer file
Commission for Historical Clarification Report - 'Memory of Silence' (English) - Spanish copy of the report
Indonesia
Suharto killer file
Iraq
Saddam Hussein killer file
Iran - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq's WMD
Guardian Unlimited Special Report: Iraq
Iraq Body Count
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Iran
Mohammed Mossadegh hero file
Iran - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
New York Times Special Report: The CIA in Iran
Japan
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka and Matsui Iwane killer file
Japan - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Atomic Bomb: Documents on the Decision to Use the Atomic Bombs on the Cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Nicaragua
Anastasio Somoza Debayle killer file
Nicaragua - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series
Rwanda
Théoneste Bagosora killer file
Bystanders to Genocide - September 2001 Atlantic Monthly
Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh hero file
Vietnam - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
other killer files
Idi Amin
Ion Antonescu
Yasuhiko Asaka
Rifaat Assad
Théoneste Bagosora
Bhopal Industrial Incident
Nicolae Ceausescu
The Duvaliers
Francisco Franco
Joseph Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Elie Hobeika
Enver Hoxha
Saddam Hussein
Shiro Ishii
Radovan Karadzic
Kim Il Sung
King Léopold II
Mao Tse-Tung
Ferdinand Marcos
Josef Mengele
Slobodan Milosevic
Ratko Mladic
Efraín Ríos Montt
Benito Mussolini
Ante Pavelic
Augusto Pinochet
Pol Pot
Anastasio Somoza
Joseph Stalin
Suharto
The Three Pashas
Rafael Trujillo
United States Presidents
Jorge Rafaél Videla
Ne Win
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan
