Declassified government docs show U.S. let Saddam gas Kurds for farm deal

Declas­si­fied U.S. gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments show that while Sad­dam Hus­sein was gassing Iraqi Kurds, the U.S. opposed pun­ish­ing Iraq with a trade embar­go because it was cul­ti­vat­ing Iraq as an ally against Iran and as a mar­ket for U.S. farm exports.

Accord­ing to Peter Gal­braith, then an ide­al­is­tic Sen­ate staffer deter­mined to stop Hus­sein from com­mit­ting geno­cide, the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion “got car­ried away with their own pro­pa­gan­da. They began to believe that Sad­dam Hus­sein could be a reli­able part­ner.”