In article ,
"tw" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
...

You know, people keep claiming that "supported him for so long" bit,
when all that happened was a short-term information trade during the war
with Iran,

I suspect there was a bit more to it than that, but that's not the point.

Actually, that's *exactly* the point, or people never have tried to
bring it up in the first place. Attempting to tar the US with the brush
of "supporting Saddam" over $5 million in helicopter sales fifteen years
ago, when other countries were selling him billions of dollars worth of
real weapons...

I shouldn't have used the word supported.

No, "supported" is right, you just used it aout the wrong country. If
you had mentioned Russia/USSR, you'd have had a very good point.

What I meant was, for 40 years or so he was just another wog dictator
who we didn't care about especially, but suddenly when he's an easy
target it becmes imperative to take him out because of all the evil
freedom-hatin' stuff he does to his population.

For most of that time, we made the mistake of listening to other folks
who told us that interfering with other counties was wrong under any
conditions, no matter how horrible those places were. We just finally
realized that was stupid.

along with some sales of a few small helicopters (cancelled
after they started using them for non-civilian purposes) and some
pesticides (yes, really pesticides, not chemical weapons as some have
claimed).

The precursors are often similar.

Not similar enough. Making Sarin or Tabun from modern agricultural
pesticides would be immensely harder to do than making it from base
components in the first place (and they had the base components from
Europe already). If you want to find out where Hussein got his nerve
gas and mustard gas, look at France, Germany, and England, not the US.

Meanwhile, France has had a close, truly friendly relationship

I suspect it was based a hell of a lot more on money and oil than
friendship, you know.

No, it was very friendly.

with Hussein's Iraq since Day One (30 years worth), and nobody in Europe
seems to care.

That may be because the French haven't been so hypocritical about it.

Like hell.

They kept talking about protecting the Iraqi people, while letting them
die by the tens of thousands so they could get cheap oil in the "oil for
food" program. They sold Iraq piles of *real* weapons over the decades,
they tried to sell Iraq a fully-functioning nuclear reactor that was
designed specifically for making bomb materials, and they blocked UN
moves so they could keep collecting money from past weapons sales. They
even tried to relax the embargoes after Iraq spent over a decade not
following the conditions in the 1991 cease fire.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.