It is still not clear who actually used chemical weapons near Damascus last week which killed hundreds of civilians, but a new alliance of the willing under commander-in-chief Barack Obama seems to seriously prepare for the next adventure in the Middle East. The shocking news today were reported by Foreign Policy magazine which has it that the CIA willfully helped Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he used mustard gas and the nerve gas sarin against Iranians in 1988. As Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid write,

“In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.” (Emphasis added.)

The material has only recently been declassified. U.S. officials had so far denied having tolerated Saddam’s use of chemical weapons since 1983. However, the firm handshake of then Special Envoy to the Middle East Donald Rumsfeld with the dictator Saddam Hussein in December 1983 indicated almost cordial friendship.

That the U.S. is not prissy in the Middle East is long known. In 1998, a diplomatic report by then Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, was declassified who, on 25  July 1990 had more or less given a “green light” to Saddam to invade Kuwait one week later. The report was later republished by WikiLeaks. Last week, documents were finally declassified proving CIA’s involvement in the 1953 coup in Tehran which toppled the only democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.

26 August 2013 @ 6:38 pm.

Last modified August 26, 2013.