at Saddam had links to the CIA as far back as 1959
             when he was part of a CIA-authorized plot to assassinate the then Iraqi
             Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim. (Sale 2003) Some ex-CIA officials
             have even suggested that the agency was involved in the 1963 coup in which
             Qasim was assassinated and brought Saddam's Ba'ath party to power. (Ibid.)
             Although CIA's involvement in the coup has been officially denied, there is
             no doubt about the covert help that Saddam received from the CIA and the US
             government in his war against Iran in 1980. During the war, CIA regularly
             delivered battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance
             aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces. The policy to
             bolster Saddam in the war was aimed at preventing an Iranian victory that
             would purportedly threaten the oil supplies from the region besides
             destabilizing the region politically. The United States even turned a blind
             eye to the use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi forces in the war.[2]
             The United States' honeymoon with Saddam ended when the dictator,
             perhaps emboldened by the US help during the war with Iran and his previous
             links with the CIA, invaded Kuwait in 1990 precipitating the first Gulf
             War. The Iraqis were roundly defeated by a US-led Western coalition and
             Kuwait was liberated. Saddam, though weakened and humiliated, managed to
             ...