Focus
Following
the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Iraq severed diplomatic relations with US
and did not respond to US suggestions to resume relations. “The
Iraqis have not shown any interest in resuming relations and have
been most vocal of the Arab states in opposing the US position on
the Middle East dispute. We nonetheless hope that in time a change
towards a better relationship will come about. As Iraq struck to its
position, and for other reasons, the US State Department towards the
end of 1979 put Iraq on the list of states sponsoring terrorism.
Next year, the US Defense Intelligence Agency asserted in a report
that Iraq had been “actively acquiring” chemical weapons
capabilities since the mid-1970s. In the normal course, one might
expect the US-Iraq relations to deteriorate. What happened was the
exact opposite: the United States started to embrace Iraq from 1982
onwards, an embrace that got tighter and tighter till the invasion
of Kuwait in August 1990.
Why
did America choose to embrace Iraq ruled by a despot? That America
has embraced many a despot is no secret, and no serious student of
American foreign policy is surprised, though shocked she might be,
as the impressive list of such despots is written down. The fall of
the Shah-n-Shah of Iran in 1979 who, since his restoration to power
by the CIA in 1953, had served as America’s ‘policeman’ in the
region, and the hostility between the successor regime in Tehran and
Washington, prompted America to look for allies to counter Iran.
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq fulfilled all the necessary conditions. That
he was a despot, or that he had been acquiring chemical weapons
hardly mattered. In 1982, President Reagan, “apparently without
consulting Congress”, removed Iraq from the list of sponsors of
terrorism. Iraq was thus made eligible to receive “dual-use” and
military technology. American business, whether it had any hand in
causing the decision or not, did not waste time, and soon US sold to
Iraq 60 Hughes helicopters and, a little later, 10 Bell helicopters
to be used for ‘crop spraying’. Eventually, the same helicopters
were used to ‘spray’ the Kurds with chemical weapons in 1988…
American military support to Iraq in its war against Iran continued.
The Reagan Administration allowed and encouraged Jordan, Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt to transfer to Iraq US howitzers,
helicopters, bombs and other weapons. President Reagan telephoned
Italian Prime Minister Guilio Andereotti to channel arms to Iraq.
All this happened in 1983.
On
6 March 1984, the State Department announced that based on available
evidence, “it had” concluded that Iraq used “lethal chemical
weapons” (specifically mustard gas) in fresh fighting with Iran.
On 20 March 1984, US intelligence officials said that they had
“what they believed to be incontrovertible evidence that Iraq has
used nerve gas in its war with Iran and has almost finished
extensive sites for mass-producing the lethal chemical warfare
agent.” According to Washington Post, the CIA began in 1984 to
secretly give Iraq intelligence that was used to “calibrate” its
mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. In August 1984 the CIA
established a direct Washington –Baghdad intelligence link, and
for 18 months, starting in early 1985, the CIA provided Iraq with
“data from sensitive US satellite reconnaissance photography.. to
assist Iraqi bombing raids.” The Post’s source said that this
data was essential to Iraq’s war effort. It should be noted that
diplomatic relations were restored on 26 November 1984, just a year
after Iraq’s first well-publicized use of chemical weapons. In
March 1989, the CIA Director William Webster testified before
Congress that Iraq was the largest CW producer in the world. But
that testimony did not come in the way of Secretary of State James
Baker’s telling the Iraqi Under Secretary Nizar Hamdoon of the
Administration’s interest in “broadening US Iraqi ties”. By
October 1989, when all international banks had cut off loans to
Iraq, President Reagan signed National Security Directive (NSD) 26
mandating closer links with Iraq and $ 1 billion in agricultural
loan guarantees. When one American firm twice contacted the Commerce
Department with concerns that their product could be used for
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, the Department requested for
written guarantees from Iraq, and decided that a license and review
was unnecessary, and convinced the company that the shipment was
acceptable.
(From The Commonsense on the War on Iraq by K.P. Fabian, pp. 43-48)