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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (51054)	10/11/2002 10:26:59 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

To answer your question, I don't believe that we created Saddam as our monster. From the beginning (1979 is when he officially took power) Saddam had close ties with the Soviet Union, and received a great deal of military and commercial aid from the Soviets. However, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, this caused a rift. Then, in 1980, the Soviets cut off military supplies to Iraq in an effort to halt the Iran-Iraq war, although they resumed again in 1982. So Saddam looked to the West for support. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq was the largest importer of armaments in the world, purchasing weapons from France, China, West Germany, Italy, Brazil, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Egypt, among others. But the Soviets remained Iraq's chief supplier of weapons during the Iran-Iraq war. The US did supply Iraq with technological assistance and did sell weapons to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, because we were worried that the Iranian Shiite revolution would spread. BTW, Pollack, who has been mentioned a lot on this thread recently, used to be an Iraq analyst for the CIA and the National Security Council. I haven't read his book yet but perhaps he addresses the details of our intentions with respect to Saddam's WMD. I have yet to read anyone with knowledge say that we intended that Saddam use WMD on anyone. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I used to read a lot of science fiction but I outgrew it. Read most of the Dune series, but just got tired of it. My favorites were Phillip K. Dick, Ursela K. LeGuin, and James Tiptree, Jr. Now the only science fiction I read is William Gibson. And Douglas Adams, alas.