Iran-Iraq War

Here is a summary description of the Iran-Iraq war, and this one is more detailed. On one level this war grew out of an historical border dispute that had gone on for a long time. There is mention of a waterway for oil - Shatt el-Arab, and the fact that the Ayatollah had been expelled from Iraq brought in a personal animosity. This quote from the detailed article perhaps best describes the overt reasons for the conflict:- "The Iran-Iraq War was multifaceted and included religious schisms, border disputes, and political differences. Conflicts contributing to the outbreak of hostilities ranged from centuries-old Sunni-versus-Shia and Arab-versus-Persian religious and ethnic disputes, to a personal animosity between Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini. Above all, Iraq launched the war in an effort to consolidate its rising power in the Arab world and to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state." With regards to global intervention this quote also presents a confusing picture:- "When two of the world's leading suppliers of oil go to war, the world has to take sides, but when the war pits a corrupt dictatorship against a fanatic theocracy, it's hard to know which side to take. As a purely practical matter, however, it's best to line up with corrupt dictatorships because they're usually more willing to work a deal. During the Iran-Iraq War, the world as a whole tossed in with Iraq.", following with "The United States supplied the Iraqis with intelligence, and committed the US Navy to safeguarding the flow of oil out of (and the flow of money and arms into) Iraq, but secretly sold arms to Iran in order to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua, and gain influence with hostage-holding Muslim militias in Lebanon." . This would indicate US complicity in weaponising Iraq but it would be a stretch based on this to claim that this was a US-inspired war. This was clearly a volatile situation and the only people to benefit were the arms manufacturers. It is worth noting that the Shah of Iran was a close British ally, and his overthrow by Islamic fundamentalists must have sparked consternation:- "The young prince came to power during World War II after an Anglo-Soviet invasion forced the abdication of his father Reza Shah. During his reign, the Iranian oil industry was nationalized under Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, and Iran marked the anniversary of 2,500 years of continuous monarchy since the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. The Shah's White Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms intended to transform Iran into a global power, succeeded in modernizing the nation, nationalizing many natural resources, and extending suffrage to women. A secular Muslim himself, the Shah gradually lost support from the Shi'a clergy of Iran, particularly due to his strong policy of modernization, secularization, conflict with the traditional class of merchants known as bazaari, and recognition of Israel. Various additional controversial policies were enacted, including the banning of the communist Tudeh Party, and a general suppression of political dissent by Iran's intelligence agency, SAVAK. Amnesty International reported that in 1978 Iran had as many as 2,200 political prisoners.[citation needed]" [Wiki Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi] To dispute the western position of the moral high ground for an invasion of Iraq, I would like to investgate further, if possible, whether this statement can be made:- "How The United States Illegally Armed Saddam Hussein." This is what came to be known as Iraqgate. Here is a quote from the UPI article quoted above:- "The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group. This former official said that he personally had signed off on a document that shared U.S. satellite intelligence with both Iraq and Iran in an attempt to produce a military stalemate. "When I signed it, I thought I was losing my mind," the former official told UPI. A former CIA official said that Saddam had assigned a top team of three senior officers from the Estikhbarat, Iraq's military intelligence, to meet with the Americans. According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days. The Saddam-U.S. intelligence alliance of convenience came to an end at 2 a.m. Aug. 2, 1990, when 100,000 Iraqi troops, backed by 300 tanks, invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. America's one-time ally had become its bitterest enemy." From an old Democracy Now (dated 14/11/02) clip it was described how the "US created the monster Saddam Hussein" by the then Financial Times correspondent, Alan Friedman (working as Chief Economics Correspondent for the International Herald Tribune in Rome in 2002 - type Alan Friedman in wiki). This weaponising, that became known as Iraqgate, clearly demonstrates that until the Gulf War Saddam was working with the backing of the US. I like insiders. In 1995 there was still an effort to cover up Iraqgate. Clinton was in power so it was hoped that he would spill the beans but his adminstration remained tightlipped in the bipartisan solidarity that exists at the root of government (Lifting the Veil), especially during war. In this article it describes how, the insider, Howard Teicher, let the cat out of the bag:- "But on Jan. 31, this bipartisan dike finally sprang a leak. Howard Teicher, who served on Reagan's National Security Council staff, offered an affidavit in the Teledyne case that declared that CIA director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert M. Gates, "authorized, approved and assisted" delivery of cluster bombs to Iraq through Cardoen (In These Times, 3/6/95). Teicher also described a still-secret National Security Decision Directive signed by President Reagan in June 1982 that set forth a U.S. policy of preventing Iraq from losing its war with Iran. "CIA Director Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war," Teicher stated. ". Here is his affidavit to the Florida court. There is further supporting documentation here. To my satisfaction at least I have established that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant from the word "go". Despite this he received support from the US in his rise to power, and once in power he received US support for weaponising in the Iran-Iraq war. Saddam's character as a tyrant was a moral justification for the allies in both wars, yet he was still financed throughout his life by the US establishment. Before I start on the first Gulf War itself, I want to look at the Kurdish question, Saddam's atrocities towards the Kurds being called genocidal - the Kurdish question.

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