Behind the war on Iraq: research unit for political economy

The Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980 (on the pretext of resolving border disputes) thus solved two major problems for the United States. Over the course of the following decade two of the region's leading military powers, neither of them hitherto friendly to the United States, were tied up in an exhausting conflict with each other. Such conflicts among third world countries create a host of opportunities for imperialist powers to seek new footholds, as happened also in this instance.

Despite its strong ties to the USSR, Iraq turned to the West for support in the war with Iran. This it received massively. As Saddam Hussein later revealed, the United States and Iraq decided to reestablish diplomatic relations--broken off after the 1967 war with Israel-just before Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 (the actual implementation was delayed for a few more years in order not to make the linkage too explicit). Diplomatic relations between the United States and Iraq were formally restored in 1984--well after the United States knew, and a UN team confirmed, that Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranian troops. (The emissary sent by U.S. president Reagan to negotiate the arrangements was none other than the present U.S. defense secretary; Donald Rumsfeld.) In 1982, the U.S. State Department removed Iraq from its list of "state sponsors of terrorism," and fought off efforts by the U.S. Congress to put it back on the list in 1985. Most crucially, the United States blocked condemnation of Iraq' s chemical attacks in the UN Security Council. The United States was the sole country to vote against a 1986 Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of mustard gas against Iranian troops--an atrocity in which it now emerges the United States was directly implicated (as we shall see below).

Brisk trade was done in supplying Iraq. Britain joined France as a major source of its weapons. Iraq imported uranium from Portugal, France, and Italy, and began constructing centrifuge enrichment facilities with German assistance. The United States arranged massive loans for Iraq's burgeoning war expenditure from American client states such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. administration provided "crop-spraying" helicopters (to be used for chemical attacks in 1988), let Dow Chemicals ship its chemicals for use on humans, seconded its air force officers to work with their Iraqi counterparts (from 1986), and approved technological exports to Iraq's missile procurement agency to extend the missiles' range (1988). in October 1987 and April 1988 U.S. forces themselves attacked Iranian ships and oil platforms.

Militarily, the United States not only provided Iraq with satellite data and information about Iranian military movements, but, as former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officers have recently revealed to the New York Times, they also prepared detailed battle planning for Iraqi forces in this period--even as Iraq drew worldwide public condemnation for its repeated use of chemical weapons against Iran. According to a senior DIA official, "If Iraq had gone down it would have had a catastrophic effect on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and the whole region might have gone down--that was the backdrop of the policy."