Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

[Louis]

The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical
attacks in history -- and still gave him a hand.

The U.S. government may be considering military action in
response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation
ago, 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, Foreign Policy has
learned.

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.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical
attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he
was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick
Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988
strikes, paints a different picture.

"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas.
They didn’t have to. We already knew," he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews
with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had
firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At
the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical
attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case
to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence
implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret
reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence
officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment
for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United
States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks
by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold
calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of
chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. 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.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover
persuasive evidence of the weapons’ use — even though the agency
possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had
previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few
repercussions.

It has been previously reported that the United States provided
tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials
suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA
documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of
declassified material at the National Archives in College Park,
Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence
officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United
States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly
agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being
regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks.
They are tantamount to an official American admission of
complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks
ever launched.

Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central
Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President
Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical
weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to
make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from
its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to
help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and
bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian
troops and possibly civilians.

Officials were also warned that Iran might launch retaliatory
attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East, including
terrorist strikes, if it believed the United States was
complicit in Iraq’s chemical warfare campaign.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-
america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

[Stanislaus Stewart]

      I think I read, sometime ago, that both England and America were
selling arms, etc, to Hitler

     before he turned his attention to the West.