Originally Posted by bustr

Just what does what you think about what I think about hussein's habit of mailing pieces of his political prisoners to their families have to do with anything?

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

Iran invaded the US when they stormed our embassy there. Regardless of whether or not Iraq and Saddam started the Iran Iraq war, Iran started the Iran US war in 1979. Saddam was a tool of opportunity for us to try and do something about Iran without committing our own troops. And while you're right about Saddam's atrocities, that was not a true statement in the early 80's. Once again, we had to choose between allowing a group that had deliberately attacked us, and one who was already in a war with them. It was a case of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." That's a bogus philosophy in my opinion, but if you look at things in context, it is easy to see why we put our support where we did. Further, I would submit to you that if you were dealing with the same conditions in the same time frame with the same information, you'd have probably sold Saddam those weapons as well.

Originally Posted by Mike Brewer

I don't know why we chose to sell him the munitions we sold him, and frankly, neither does anyone else here. It is certain though, that he would have had chemical weapons anyway, and was mass producing them even without our help using Iraq's extensive chemical processing capabilities.