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On this day in 1980, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran (after getting approval from the US) launching one of 20th century's most deadly wars, killing over 1 million people and injuring over 100,000 with U.S.-supplied chemical weapons.
In 2015, the legendary journalist Robert Parry found secret congressional documents referring to Jimmy Carter’s “Green Light” for Saddam’s invasion. https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/11/saddams-green-light/
As early as 1982, just 2 years into the war, the US began providing major intelligence and weapons sales after it became clear Saddam would lose the war without major U.S. assistance.
The Reagan Administration conducted a highly classified program of over 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency secretly providing detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments for Iraq.”
This strategic information provided by the U.S. was used to direct where Saddam’s forces should launch their chemical weapons attacks. US exported materials needed to make chem & biological weapons to Saddam as his army used these weapons against Iran.
According to the journalist Bob Woodward, the CIA secretly supplied Iraq with intelligence used to “calibrate” its mustard gas attacks on Iranians. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/
By 1983, Iran reported that Iraq had been regularly using chemical weapons, and a UN investigation later found Saddam’s forces had been regularly using Sarin nerve gas, Mustard Gas, and other chemical weapons.
The US’s own intelligence knew Saddam was using chemical weapons, but the U.S. provided diplomatic cover for Iraq at the U.N., effectively blocking a draft resolution asking the U.N. to condemn Iraq's chemical weapons use.
100,000 survivors of chemical warfare live in Iran, more than any other country. Many of those maimed by Saddam’s chemical weapons have suffered life long injuries and have difficulty treating their injuries due to inhumane US sanctions. https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2013/sep/02/iran-chemical-weapons-wmd-sanctions
The US even exported helicopters to Iraq with crop spraying abilities, which were used in 1988 chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, which killed 5000 people.
