Reagan, First Bush Administrations Cynically winked at Saddam’s use of Chemical Weapons: Salon.com
Barry Lando, writing in Salon.com, surveys the ways in which Reagan and Bush senior winked at Saddam’s use of chemical weapons.
Excerpt:
Lando: “More than a decade earlier, the United States performed the same sleight of hand — now we condemn civilian casualties, now we don’t — with regard to Saddam’s actions in the aftermath of the Gulf War, even when it involved Saddam’s use of weapons of mass destruction. There is strong evidence that the administration of George H.W. Bush covered up the Iraqi dictator’s use of chemical weapons to put down a Shiite uprising in 1991. That uprising, and its ruthless repression, which the current Bush administration prefers not to acknowledge, set the stage for the current turmoil in Iraq.”