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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsReagan helped facilitate Saddam's use of poison gas against Iran.
In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons' use -- even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.
It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States' knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.
Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian troops and possibly civilians.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran?page=full
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)reusrename
(1,716 posts)When Fritz Hollings retired from the Senate, before he left he read into the record (for days IIRC) all of the invoices and shipping records for all of the chemical weapons that went to Saddam. I know it's in the Senate record, and he also put copies of all these documents in there too. It was all part of his last hurrah. Shockingly, the press didn't seem at all interested in the story.
bluedeathray
(511 posts)Are good for the bottom line.
Next question, what will our POTUS do about Syria?
WillyT
(72,631 posts)TheTruthBeKnown
(72 posts)Reagan knowingly sent money and arms to the corporate-controlled Guatemalan government to slaughter Mayans. Reagan sided with the Guatemalan government to squash people who just wanted just compensation for their labors. Reagan was against workers in the US and in Guatemala (with weapons & money from Reagan) countless poor, vulnerable workers were slaughtered. Corporate-ran armies killed men, women and children. Kids would be swung by their ankles so their heads hit trees killing them. This is just one other atrocity caused by Reagan.
Watch 'When the Moutains Tremble'. It's an excellent documentary about how the Guatemalan people were slaughtered with weapons & money from Reagan.