U.S. Played a Key Role In Iraq Military Buildup
By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer 

Monday 30 December 30 2002; Page A01  

* Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad In 1983 as Hussein Used Chemical Weapons  

* Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds 
  
High on the Bush administration's list of justifications for war 
against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons, 
nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international   
terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these 
offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington 
as a valued ally.  

Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad 
during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense 
secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special 
presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi 
relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to 
Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an 
"almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.  

The story of U.S. involvement with Saddam Hussein in the years before 
his 1990 attack on Kuwait -- which included large-scale intelligence 
sharing, supply of cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and 
facilitating Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors 
-- is a topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It 
is a world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights 
violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with arms 
proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of my enemy is 
my friend."  

Throughout the 1980s, Hussein's Iraq was the sworn enemy of Iran, then 
still in the throes of an Islamic revolution. U.S. officials saw Baghdad 
as a bulwark against militant Shiite extremism and the fall of pro-American 
states such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan -- a Middle East 
version of the "domino theory" in Southeast Asia. That was enough to 
turn Hussein into a strategic partner and for U.S. diplomats in Baghdad 
to routinely refer to Iraqi forces as "the good guys," in contrast to 
the Iranians, who were depicted as "the bad guys."  

A review of thousands of declassified government documents and 
interviews with former policymakers shows that U.S. intelligence 
and logistical support played a crucial role in shoring up Iraqi 
defenses against the "human wave" attacks by suicidal Iranian troops. 
The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized 
the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian 
applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological  
viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague. 

[snip snip snip]



Full article at Truthout
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.31A.us.role.iraq.htm

Cheers, Steve..

---