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Most commentators reviewing the role of outside powers involved in the Iran/Iraq war.........already know some of the more publicized stories:
1. The CIA met CIA Saddam in Jordan to officially request that he attack Iran, whilst the Iranian military disintegrated around 1980......60% of the Shah era military had deserted, frightened by the mullahs torture and execution of many officers using kangaroo courts. Ayatollah Khalkali.
2. The CIA also supplied the Iranians with weapons via Israel...Iran/Contra for many years. Singapore and Chile also played a role in this covert game.
3. The CIA provided satellite information on Iranian troop movements, and assembly points to CIA Saddam, who was recruited in the 1950's by the CIA, and received CIA training in Lebanon, and Egypt.
4. The CIA encouraged Egypt and Jordan to send military units to fight for CIA Saddam in Iraq, as fellow Arab brothers against the dreaded 'Persians.' On the contrary, The Mullahs of Iran, installed by the very same CIA are Arabists, and have since 1979 encouraged the Arabization of traditional Persian culture....so for example if you have a Persian sounding name and not a Arabic sounding one, you may be disqualified from your job .....or if you are clean shaven...the mullah government will discriminate against you. If you celebrate the Persian new year Nowruz...too cheerfully, publicly that is another point of recrimination and discrimination.....if you drink wine, a traditional Persian habit...... of some 7500 ears old, then you can go to JAIL.....if you hold hands with your girlfriend in public you can go to jail.....and so on.
5. The CIA helped Saddam develop his WMD infrastructure especially in Chemical weapons.......and encouraged him to use it a few years into the war.
The PRIMARY OBJECTIVE of the CIA seems to have been to sustain the war, by helping BOTH sides, strategically. In the case of Iraq quite openly, and in the case of Iran covertly.
The story below is relevant in the current geo-political context in Syria.
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CIA files show agency was involved in Iraq’s gas attack on Iran
Newly
declassified CIA documents show that the United States had a hand in
Iraq’s deadly chemical attacks on Iran during the 1980-1988 war against
the Islamic Republic, a new report says.
During the war, the Iraqi military attacked Iran several times using mustard gas and sarin with the help of satellite imagery, maps and other intelligence provided by the US government, the Foreign Policy magazine said, citing CIA documents and interviews with former US intelligence officials.
US officials have long denied having knowledge of the US involvement but retired Air Force Colonel Rick Francona, a then military attaché in Baghdad, said the American officials knew of Iraq’s intention.
"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn't have to. We already knew," Francona told Foreign Policy.
In 1983, the Iraqi military carried out a chemical attack on Iranian forces and the Islamic Republic tried to take the issue to the United Nations.
Most of the evidence Iran needed at the time was among the CIA’s top secret reports and memoranda, which were all sent to the most high-ranking officials in the US. However, the US concealed the facts to block Iran’s bid at the UN.
"As Iraqi attacks continue and intensify the chances increase that Iranian forces will acquire a shell containing mustard agent with Iraqi markings," the CIA reported in a top secret document in November 1983. "Tehran would take such evidence to the UN and charge US complicity in violating international law."
Early in 1988, Washington even informed Baghdad of the location of the Iranian troops, knowing that Iraqi military was likely to attack Iran again with chemical weapons.
According to the documents, the satellite images, provided to Iraq in 1988, showed that Iran was going to gain a strategic advantage by using a hole in Iraqi defenses. CIA agents provided the Iraqi military with information on the movements of the Iranian troops and the location of the country’s logistics facilities as well as details about Iranian air defenses.
