With Iran weakened and growing international support, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded his hated neighbor.
Despite widespread reports of Iraqi chemical weapons use, Reagan pulled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein off the list of known terrorists in 1982.
The U.S. began openly to support Iraq, through massive loans, military equipment, dual use chemical technology and training, and satellite intelligence on Iranian troop movements.
Iraq's use of chemical weapons "was not a matter of deep strategic concern" compared to U.S. fears that the Iranian revolution could spill into Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
By the end of the war in 1988, Iraq owed at least $60 billion to Britain, America, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Kuwait.
In 1989, President George H.W. Bush signed National Security Directive 26 calling both Persian Gulf oil and a "stable" relationship with Iraq matters of national security.
America's ally, however, could not be controlled. In 1990, with reconstruction costs rising, Saddam invaded Kuwait, citing billions in stolen oil.
"This aggression will not stand," George H.W. Bush said. Soon, military operations were under way to push Saddam out of Kuwait.
America dubbed it "The Persian Gulf War" — the same name they gave to the Iran-Iraq War just ten years earlier.
Bill Clinton took office in 1992 and in '94 extended crippling economic sanctions on Iraq, which led to death by starvation of up to 5,000 Iraqi children each month.
(BBC)
In 1995, the U.N. introduced the "Food for Oil" program, allowing Iraq to sell oil in the world market in exchange for food.
Two consecutive U.N. peace envoys, Hans Von Spok and Denis Halliday, resigned over the effect sanctions had on citizens.
In 1998, Bush wrote about not taking Baghdad: "We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed ... Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz committed to finding the "Iraq connection."
(NBC)
