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This week in Baghdad began another crimes-against-humanity trial for 15 flunkies of Saddam Hussein, accused in the massacre of Shia in the wake of the first Gulf War. Journalist Christopher Hanson says that – amid the euphoria of military triumph - the story was undercovered at the time, leaving the question of culpability a murky one.
Other Iraq-U.S stpries were undercovered. During the'80's we secretly supported Saddam in his war against Iran. Saddam used banned chemical WMD and we rebuked him publicly but sent Donald Rumsfeild twcie in 1983/4 to assure him our aid would continue unabated. In 1988 he gasse his Kurdish citizens--an enormous atrocity--but we only slapped his wrist. In his 2000 election campaign and the lead up to the Iraq invasion, Pfeadient Bush kept repeating "Saddam used poison gas on his own people." This history was known by then but the press did not inform the American electorate. --Ben Solomon
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