A little addition to the previous chapter due to a reviewer's response and me realizing I might have left a few things out.

James Jago: "The whole thing is a story of bad judgements and self-interested blindness. Without those delivery systems it wouldn't have mattered if he'd got smallpox and sarin by the ton. Did NOBODY question the wisdom of giving a ruthless and possibly mentally unstable dictator the means to rain death and destruction on half the Middle East, even at the time?"

Actually, James, it wouldn't have mattered if the US gave him the weapons or not. Remember, the Soviets also gave them weapons with the ability to deliver the chemical warheads—had the US not given Hussein the delivery would not have stopped the murder campaign against the Kurds from happening.

Your question is the one I specifically pointed out as a flawed one. You're asking with the complete knowledge of what Hussein became capable of. At the time all that was known was that he gained power by killing his opposition. It's not something that makes him an automatic mass murderer equal to Hitler and Stalin. That being said, you're also missing a fundamental point that existed at the time. Dr. Andrew Frank, an American History expert, can recall his father saying that the Iran-Iraq War was the best thing that could happen to that area because the two countries were going to destroy each other.

It is important to understand this quote. The rest of the world saw two of the most powerful countries in the Middle East beating each other mercifully with everything they had. Iraq, being (to the USSR and the US) the lesser of two evils, became the country to publicly support and give most of the weapons too. Why you might ask? The Iranians revolutionaries (I abhor calling them "students") had been preparing their take-over for years and produced tons of anti-Soviet and anti-American literature. And let's not forget when the Khomeini revolutionaries did take over they held the American embassy hostage for 444 days—not releasing them until Reagan took over. The goal of the Shiite fundamentalists was to "cleanse" Muslim lands of non-Muslims. Granted, this would be tough seeing as that Shiites are the minority in Islam, but that was their goal for the most part.

Of course the Soviets also had reasons for supporting Iraq over Iran. First off, Iran controlled a big chunk of the Middle East (still does), including both oil and entryway into the Persian Gulf. As the Soviet Union saw it, the Iranian revolutionaries could choke them off from the ocean and corner the oil market to a certain extent. Another major sticking point: Iraq's Ba'athist Regime was, at its heart, socialist. The Soviet Union saw an ally—something they desperately needed in the region (which is just one of a few reasons they went into Afghanistan, but more on that later).

Now, here's something I forgot that I should have remembered to put in. The United States, though publicly supporting Iraq, also gave supplies (though broken down tanks and other faulty equipment might not necessarily qualify as "supplies") to Iran under the table. Using the money Iran paid for those supplies, Reagan funded an anti-Communist guerilla force in Nicaragua called the Contras—but this is neither here nor there.

The point I'm trying to make is that the US had pitted both countries against each other, attempting to keep them supplied in an effort to keep the brutal war going. The plan, as stated, was to get the two countries to exhaust each other into collapse. Two birds with one stone.

And remember, the Soviets were still Saddam's ally even after the 1987 ceasefire. They continued to re-supplied Hussein's depleted military with tanks, planes, you name it. So when Saddam went on his campaign of death in north Iraq against the Kurds, there was little the US could do. The one thing America wanted to avoid was another Vietnam (at the least) and nuclear war (at the most). There was no guarantee as to how the Soviets would have reacted if the United States intervened militarily. Unless, of course, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear disaster would be ok?

One final thing: if any other liberals/Democrats/people against Republicans care to continue to use the "They used American weapons to kill their own people!" argument I point you to an incident that occurred May 17, 1987. The US Navy, protecting (along with Soviet Navy vessels) were protecting Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian and Iraqi attacks. Both countries had become trigger happy on any tankers that were associated with Iraq or Iran, and the Kuwaitis feared their own being attacked. On May 17, 1987 an Iraqi MiG attack aircraft (that's a Soviet made jet) fired two Exocet (French made) anti-ship missiles at the USS Stark, a Navy frigate. Iraq apologized, claiming pilot error. Either way, it begs the question: If the United States was providing Iraq with such a great arsenal of weapons, why would it be necessary to use a Soviet aircraft to fire French anti-ship missiles?

That, James, is why you cannot look at the situation of the US and Iraq in the 80's through 20/20 hindsight goggles.