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Subscribe to RSSThe British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s covertly supplied military equipment to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, according to once secret files being made public Friday.
The Financial Times said the files "contain an exhaustive list of equipment" that included Hawk fighter jets, Land Rovers, radar and spare tank parts.
Britain was officially neutral in Iraq's war with Iran, which began in 1980, and the Times noted it had also backed a U.N. resolution calling on its members to “refrain from any act which may lead to a further escalation and widening of the conflict”.
Britain later joined the U.S. in fighting Iraq when it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
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Saddam also got a great deal on used rifles from the French .... never fired, and only dropped once.
Who'd have thought it?
I'm glad that the UK was helping Saddam in the 80s. The USA was helping him as well, as we should have. Which was the bigger threat...a modestly aligned state (Iraq) with the USSR that we could help peel away from that Evil Empire through various forms of assistance, OR, a revolutionary state that, while fighting a war started by Iraq, was intent on exporting its own virulent version of Islamism?
At the time the answer was a no-brainer. So later Saddam went sideways on us and he had to be slapped down as well--this is how things are done. Most people will say it isn't how things must be done, a point I will concede, perhaps. I will concede the point if they can arrive at any other plausible/realistic policy which would have both helped to preserve the status quo ante between Iran and Iraq AND helped to undermine the relationship Iraq had with the USSR.