Monday, September 9, 2013

CIA Files Show U.S. Played Role in Iraq’s Chemical Attacks on Iran from NY MAGAZINE August 26, 2013


Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 10 November 1987 in Amman during a session of the emergency Arab summit. Saddam took the number two job under president Ahamd Hassan al-Bakr, began purging the army of non-Baathist officers, ridding the political scene of Kurds and communists. When Bakr stepped down, officially for health reasons, the stage was set for Saddam, who became president on 16 July 1979. Fearing the impact of Tehran's Islamic revolution on Iraq's majority Shiite Moslem population, Saddam launched a war against Iran in 1980 to defend "the eastern flank of the Arab nation from the Persian. But he only managed to obtain a cease-fire in 1988. On 02 August 1990, Saddam directed his army against Kuwait. In February 1991 a multinational coalition led by the United States chased Iraqi troops out of he emirate.  (Photo credit should read MONA SHARAF/AFP/Getty Images) Saddam Hussein in 1987.
The United States appears to be moving closer to taking military action in Syria over President Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons, but a new report in Foreign Policy shows that the U.S. government wasn't always so vehemently opposed to the use of such tactics. According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials, the U.S. government had evidence that Iraq was using chemical weapons in 1983, but concealed those facts as Iran tried to prove that to the United Nations. Even worse, toward the end of the war, the U.S. shared information with Iraq about Iran's military position that it knew was likely to lead to a chemical attack. As Foreign Policy puts it, the new revelations are "tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched."

TO READ MORE CLICK HERE



 

No comments:

Post a Comment