{"id":9668,"date":"2013-08-26T18:45:25","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T18:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9668"},"modified":"2013-08-26T18:45:25","modified_gmt":"2013-08-26T18:45:25","slug":"cia-us-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9668","title":{"rendered":"CIA: US helped Saddam as he gassed Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sadam<\/a>
Saddam Hussein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.S. government may be\u00a0considering military action\u00a0in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America\u2019s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy\u00a0has learned.<\/p>\n

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq\u2019s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein\u2019s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.<\/p>\n

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq\u2019s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration\u2019s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn\u2019t disclose.<\/p>\n

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein\u2019s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attach\u00e9 in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture. – Foreign Policy<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. government may be\u00a0considering military action\u00a0in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America\u2019s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy\u00a0has learned. In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq\u2019s war … Continue reading “CIA: US helped Saddam as he gassed Iran”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,123],"tags":[5406,1235,2471,5535,5534,198],"class_list":["post-9668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","category-world","tag-chemical-weapons","tag-cia","tag-iraq","tag-nerve-gas","tag-saddam-hussein","tag-syria"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/sadam.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9670,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9668\/revisions\/9670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}