A startling new book authored by Barry Lando, a former 60 Minutes producer, sheds new light on the complicity of Western nations arming Saddam Hussein when he was committing atrocities on his own people. The book, “Web of Deceit, The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, From Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush", traces the historical record of this shameful period in our history.
Lando reveals that in the late 1980s Hussein was launching his genocidal attacks on his own people with chemical and other weapons supplied by US arms merchants with the full knowledge and approval of the Reagan and Bush (senior) administrations. Efforts by the U.S. Congress to condemn Saddam Hussein were blocked by the White House. Senators from the farm states (including Senator Dole) rushed to meet Hussein to assure him that the U.S. was largely unconcerned about the genocidal attacks so long as Iraq continued to import U.S. agricultural products. Attempts by Iran to initiate UN intervention and investigations on the use of chemical weapons by Iraq were consistently blocked by the U.S. and United Kingdom. U.S. and other western arms merchants raked in billions of dollars in weapons sales to both Iran and Iraq during their 8 year war.
The rush to hang Saddam Hussein may well have been prompted by a desire to silence him before the unsavory facts connecting him to western leaders was made public.
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