Declassified CIA documents confirm that the CIA, under the direction of President Ronald Reagan, helped Saddam Hussein carry out chemical weapons attack against Iran, and his own people.
by Jerry Robinson, FTMDaily.com Editor-in-Chief
FTMDAILY – As the U.S. government plots its next move against Syria amid an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus, a new report has surfaced showing that America’s military and intelligence communities “knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen.”
According to the report, released by Foreign Policy magazine:
“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.”
According to the explosive report, the Reagan administration, which was committed to an Iraqi victory in their brutal eight-year war with Iran, knew about Hussein’s chemical attacks against innocent civilians, including his own people, and failed to disclose it as it would hinder their efforts to secure victory for Iraq.
“The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.”
While the timing of this report is interesting, these revelations are hardly new. The Guardian-UK broke a similar story in 2002 exposing the Reagan administration and its special Middle East envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, in particular, for their participation and support of Iraq’s illegal usage of chemical warfare. (The connection between Saddam Hussein and the CIA is a long and sordid tale spanning all the way back to 1959.)
Foreign Policy reportedly discovered the details among a large amount of declassified CIA documents held in the National Archives in College Park, MD.
You can read the entire report here.
Below are a handful of declassified CIA documents that detail how the Reagan administration not only turned a blind eye to Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against tens of thousands of people, but actually supplied Iraq with intelligence that made the chemical weapons attacks so successful.
CIA Confirms Iraq Used Nerve Agent
Note on Chemical Weapons Proliferation and Posisble Consequences
