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Thatcher files: Ministers feared chemical hypocrisy

THE Thatcher government was reluctant to press for an international ban on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein obtaining chemical weapons for fear that it would leave itself open to claims of hypocrisy, newly released files have revealed.

Foreign Office papers, released by the National Archives at Kew, show that British officials received US intelligence in early 1983 suggesting that mustard gas was being manufactured at a plant in Iraq.

The Indian contractor which built the factory had acquired some of the equipment from a British firm, Weir Pumps, which supposedly believed that they were to be used for the production of pesticides.

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