We ALWAYS had Saddam...

Saddam Hussein was always in the US's pockets and Iraq an American ally, right up to the invasion of Kuwait. The US and the West in general supplied the regime with weapons, including precursors for chemical and biological weapons, as well as parts for a nuclear reactor (in Osirak, destroyed in 1981 by an Israeli air strike). (photo above: Donald Rumsfeld meeting Saddam Hussein)

The main motive for supporting the Baath regime from the American perspective was that a strong, US-allied Iraq would provide a firewall against the Islamic Revolution regime of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Ironically, the emergence of the Islamic Revolution, whose slogan "Death to America" was practically a state endorsed mantra, came about when the Iranians finally rid themselves of the US backed, brutal, puppet regime of Shah Resa Pahlevi, in 1979.

I've commented on the West's "special relationship" with the Butcher from Baghdad in a piece called "How the West was Wrong", some time ago. Some proponents of the war in Iraq feel the need to relegate all this as no more than conspiracy theory, but my friends, resistance is futile: long-standing neo-cons like Richard Perle and others are only too proud of the US realpolitik of that epoch and don't attempt to hide or obfuscate it. It's all rather well documented, just like the Nazis recorded their own crimes diligently and in much detail. But then, some claim the holocaust never happened either...

Someone has now compiled and animated slideshow, summarising our special relationship right from the start, up to Saddam's capture...

An animated tribute to Saddam, the Butcher from Baghdad, forever ours...

Keywords: Saddam, Hussein, Saddam Hussein, Iraq, oil, US, Rumsfeld, Donald