"It Was The Express Policy Of Reagan To Ensure Iraqi Victory-"Including Helping Saddam Gas Iran"

[kpete]

A moral obscenity

[font color=purple]We lose the moral high ground in repudiating the use of chemical weapons
if we are complicit in their use.[/font]

President Reagan read the report and, according to Francona, wrote a note in the margin addressed to Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci: "An Iranian victory is unacceptable."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/new-docs-show-us-involvement-saddams-nerve-gas-attacks/68698/


http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/new-docs-show-us-involvement-saddams-nerve-gas-attacks/68698/





The U.S. knew about, and in one case helped, Iraq's chemical weapons attacks against Iran in the 1980's, according to recently declassified CIA documents obtained by Foreign Policy. Their detailed timeline, also constructed with the aid of interviews with former foreign intelligence officials, indicates that the U.S. secretly had evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks in 1983. The evidence, FP writes, is "tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched."

...............

On Sunday, a U.S. official suggested that the U.S. is moving closer to possible military action in the country as the U.S. has "little doubt" that an "indiscriminate" chemical attack took place. Officials are reportedly looking to the 1998 air war on Kosovo for a precedent — a similar humanitarian crisis in the face of virtually no chance of a U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize use of force, thanks to dissent from Russia. And while Foreign Policy's additional reporting places the Iraq situation in contrast to today's debate over Syria, the details reveal just how sharply, in the past, the razor of U.S. interests in the Middle East has cut: "it was the express policy of Reagan to ensure an Iraqi victory in the war, whatever the cost," the report explains. And apparently, that went up to and including helping Saddam Hussein gas Iran.


MORE:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/08/new-docs-show-us-involvement-saddams-nerve-gas-attacks/68698/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran

[MisterP]

1. "but that's why we have to go into Iraq and Syria--to atone for propping up those dictators"

[JHB]

2. "We know Saddam has chemical weapons. We have the receipts" n/t