State Department cables and court records reveal a wealth of information on how US foreign policy shifted in the 1980s to help Iraq. Virtually all of the information is in the words of key participants, including Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense.
The new information on the policy shift toward Iraq, and Rumsfeld’s role in it, comes as The New York Times reported Sunday that United States gave Iraq vital battle-planning help during its war with Iran as part of a secret program under President Reagan — even though US intelligence agencies knew the Iraqis would unleash chemical weapons.
The covert program involved more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency who helped Iraq in its eight-year war with Iran by providing detailed information on Iranian military deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for airstrikes and bomb-damage assessments, the Times said.
The Times said it based its report on comments by senior US military officers with direct knowledge of the program, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.
Iraq and neighboring Iran waged a vicious war from September 1980 to August 1988. An estimated 1 million people were killed and millions more were dislocated by the fighting.
Scope of the relationship: It has been known for some time that the United States provided intelligence assistance to Iraq during the war in the form of satellite photography to help the Iraqis understand how Iranian forces were deployed. But the full scope of the program had not been known until now, the Times said.
The cables and court records obtained by NBC News reveal the scope and nature of Rumsfeld’s role in shaping US policy.
Although US officials deny that the United States looked the other way while Iraq used American intelligence data to plan chemical weapons assaults against Iran in the 1980s, there is evidence in declassified State Department cables and court records to indicate that even though the United States was aware that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops, it was ready to help Iraq in thwarting Iranian “human-wave” attacks.
The Iraqis used chemical weapons mainly to halt the Iranian “human wave” attacks beginning in 1983, although they also used cluster bombs and fuel air explosives.
Iranian victory top concern: President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush personally sent advice to Saddam Hussein, both directly and through intermediaries, a NSC staff member said.
Indeed, the record shows that in 1983, Rumsfeld — then President Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East, now secretary of defense — told senior Iraqi officials that the use of poison gas “inhibited” normal relations between the two countries.
Nevertheless, at those same meetings in Baghdad with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and then-Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Rumsfeld stated the Reagan administration was so concerned about an Iranian victory that it offered Saddam unspecified assistance.
Specifically, Rumsfeld’s trip was the subject of several State Department cables from 1983. Some of the language from the cables is redacted, and much of what remains is couched in diplomatic-speak.
But in a January 1995 affidavit in a civil case involving Iraqi arms sales, NSC staff member Howard Teicher provides the most detailed discussion of the rationale behind the Iraq tilt. Moreover, Teicher, who accompanied Rumsfeld to Baghdad in 1983, lays out in the affidavit how both President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush personally delivered military advice to Saddam Hussein, both directly and through intermediaries.
Policy shift began in ’82: According to Teicher, the tilt towards Iraq began in the spring of 1982, about 18 months after Iraq invaded Iran in hopes of a quick victory over the Iranian mullahs. Iran, however, used the advantage of its huge population to gain the upper hand, raising fears in the Reagan administration of an Iranian surge through southern Iran and into Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
“In the Spring of 1982, Iraq teetered on the brink of losing its war with Iran,” wrote Teicher in the affidavit. “In May and June, 1982, the Iranians discovered a gap in the Iraqi defenses along the Iran-Iraq border between Baghdad to the north and Basra to the south. Iran positioned a massive invasion force directly across from the gap in the Iraqi defenses. An Iranian breakthrough at the spot would have cut off Baghdad from Basra and would have resulted in Iraq’s defeat.
“United States Intelligence, including satellite imagery, had detected both the gap in the Iraqi defenses and the Iranian massing of troops across from the gap. At the time, the United States was officially neutral in the Iran-Iraq conflict. President Reagan was forced to choose between (a) maintaining strict neutrality and allowing Iran to defeat Iraq, or (b) intervening and providing assistance to Iraq.”
Reagan, writes Teicher, decided to intervene secretly against Iran.
This, also from the Teicher affidavit:
“In June, 1982, President Reagan decided that the United States could not afford to allow Iraq to lose the war to Iran. President Reagan decided that the United States would do whatever was necessary and legal to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran. President Reagan formalized this policy by issuing a National Security Decision Directive (“NSDD”) to this effect in June, 1982. I have personal knowledge of this NSDD because I co-authored the NSDD with another NSC Staff Member, Geoff Kemp. The NSDD, including even its identifying number, is classified.”
“CIA Director [William] Casey personally spearheaded the effort to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war,” the affidavit continued. “Pursuant to the secret NSDD, the United States actively supported the Iraqi war effort by supplying the Iraqis with billions of dollars of credits, by providing US military intelligence and advice to the Iraqis, and by closely monitoring third country arms sales to Iraq to make sure that Iraq had the military weaponry required.”
Moreover, says Teicher, the US actually provided military advice to the Iraqis, relaying US intelligence to Saddam from the highest levels of the US government, from President Reagan and then-Vice President Bush, father of the current president.
Backchannel advice: “The United States also provided strategic operational advice to the Iraqis to better use their assets in combat,” says Teicher’s affidavit. “For example, in 1986, President Reagan sent a secret message to Saddam Hussein telling him that Iraq should step up its air war and bombing of Iran. This message was delivered by Vice President Bush who communicated it to Egyptian President Mubarak, who in turn passed the message to Saddam Hussein.
President Reagan maintained the covert program after Iraq's use of chemical weapons became known, officials familiar with the program told The New York Times.
“Similar strategic operational military advice was passed to Saddam Hussein through various meetings with European and Middle Eastern heads of state. I authored Bush’s talking points for the 1986 meeting with Mubarak and personally attended numerous meetings with European and Middle East heads of state where the strategic operational advice was communicated.”
Critical to Iraqi success was finding a way to overcome Iran’s human wave attacks which persisted throughout the war, although Teicher’s affidavit gives no indication that the United States condoned the use of chemical weapons, which were used against those human-wave attacks. Nevertheless, the US government certainly was aware of how important it was to Iraq to stop those human wave attacks. US intelligence officers never opposed such action because they considered Iraq to be struggling for its survival and feared that Iran would overrun the crucial oil-producing Persian Gulf states, the Times reported.
CIA implicated: In his affidavit, Teicher said he “personally attended meetings in which CIA Director Casey or CIA Deputy Director [Robert] Gates noted the need for Iraq to have certain weapons such as cluster bombs and anti-armor penetrators in order to stave off the Iranian attacks.
Teicher said his notes, memoranda and other documents in his files showed or tended to show that the CIA, “including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-US origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq.”
Teicher’s comments about an Iraqi tilt are borne out in the declassified State Department documents related to Rumsfeld’s 1983 Baghdad trip, although not in such detail.
‘Presidential message’: President Reagan authorized Rumsfeld to travel to Baghdad as part of a trip throughout the Middle East, the arrangements being made between the US Interests Section in Baghdad and then-Iraqi Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Mohammed Sahhaf, according to State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archives under the Freedom of Information Act. [Sahhaf is now Iraqi Foreign Minister.]
The visit, which included meetings with Aziz and Saddam Hussein, was laid out in cables sent by the Interests Section and Rumsfeld himself to George Shultz, then the secretary of state.
Rumsfeld informed the Interests Section that he was “pleased with the positive response…to your sounding,” adding that he would “probably be carrying a presidential message for Saddam [cq].” Arrangements were made for a visit on the night of Dec. 19-20, 1983.
State Department officials who met with Sahhaf noted that “perhaps the greatest benefit of the visit would be the establishment of direct contact between an envoy of President Reagan and President Saddam Hussein.”
‘A thoughtful man’: Iraq’s Tariq Aziz told Rumsfeld that he would find Saddam “a thoughtful man who analyzed and learned from experience.”
Rumsfeld did carry a conciliatory letter from Reagan to Saddam. The letter has not been released, but parts of it were quoted in the State Department cables. Saddam at one point expressed “great pleasure” at the letter, and Aziz quoted Reagan as saying “the Iran-Iraq war could pose serious problems for the economic and security interests of the US, its friends in the region and in the free world.”
Rumsfeld first met with Tariq Aziz, then foreign minister on Dec. 19. Rumfeld laid out the shared interests of the two countries, telling Aziz: “While there were a number of differences of view between us, we also see a number of areas of common interest. We both desire regional peace, stability and correcting regional imbalance.”
In a response, described by a member of Rumsfeld’s team as “eloquent,” Aziz said renewed US-Iraqi ties were possible. Aziz told Rumsfeld that he would find Saddam “a thoughtful man who analyzed and learned from experience.”
US sympathy with Iraqi aims: Rumsfeld lamented that it was unfortunate an entire generation of Iraqis and Americans were growing up without contact with each other and promised the United States “would approach our allies in terms of specific instances where they are either directly or indirectly providing weapons which enable Iran to continue the war, and would try to foster strategic understanding of the dangers of focusing on narrow, short-term interests.”
NBC: Iraqi envoy warns the US
Rumsfeld’s own notes of the meeting, — notes that presumably included the specifics of what the United States could do to help Iraq beyond asking US allies to end arms exports to Iran — were sent separately to the Secretary of State, and were edited by the State Department’s Freedom of Information Act Office. However, what was released indicates American empathy with Saddam’s intentions.
“I indicated our desire to have the war mediated and ended peacefully without further escalating tension in the Middle East. I offered our willingness to do more…” according to Rumsfeld’s notes. Eight lines of text laying out the specifics were redacted.
Indication of support: In a talking-points memo prepared by the State Department, Rumsfeld was asked to note that the United States hoped for a peaceful solution to the Iran-Iraq war, but to also deliver the following message to Saddam: “The [United States government] recognizes Iraq’s current disadvantage in a war of attrition since Iran has access to the Gulf while Iraq does not would regard any major reversal of Iraq’s fortunes as strategic defeat for the west,” a clear indication of which side the US was prepared to support.
Division plagues the opposition
The talking points memo also noted that it was “possible” that Iraq would suggest to Rumsfeld that “the US could lift restrictions on some military items Iraq wishes to purchase from third parties.”
Other issues in the Middle East, ostensibly the main reason for Rumsfeld’s trip, were also laid out in the memo, but were viewed as secondary. In one discussion, however, Rumsfeld was asked to seek Saddam’s personal advice on dealing with Syria.
Israeli offer of aid to Iraq: In his affidavit, Teicher noted that Rumsfeld was carrying a letter offering help from then-Israeli Foreign Minister Itzhak Shamir. “Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir asked Rumsfeld if the United States would deliver a secret offer of Israeli assistance to Iraq. The United States agreed. I traveled with Rumsfeld to Baghdad and was present at the meeting in which Rumsfeld told Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz about Israel’s offer of assistance. Aziz refused even to accept the Israelis’ letter to Hussein offering assistance, because Aziz told us that he would be executed on the spot by Hussein if he did so.”
Bush faces harsh warning on Iraq
Rumsfeld did note that United States “efforts to assist were inhibited by certain things that made it difficult for us, citing use of chemical weapons, possible escalation in the Gulf and human rights.”
In fact, the United States knew that Iraq has used poison gas against Iranian troops a few months before and that Iraq was building its own chemical weapons infrastructure. Iraq would use chemical weapons against Iran and later against the Kurds, for the remainder of the Iran-Iraq war, the most notorious being the bombing of the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988.
Human wave attacks: Repeatedly, Rumsfeld made clear that US interests coincided with Iraq’s in the war.
Nevertheless, Rumsfeld said the United States opposed an Iranian victory and noted that “we [are] improving our contingency planning with Gulf states as to our goal of keeping the Straits [of Hormuz] open.” If Aziz responded regarding American concerns regarding Iraqi chemical weapons development, it was not noted.
Aziz and Rumsfeld did discuss the fearsome nature of Iran’s human wave attacks. Rumsfeld wrote that Aziz told him the Iranian forces “essentially mount human-wave assaults with the so-called Khomeini Guards (young people with a piece of paper in their pockets that is their ticket to Paradise). Heaving themselves forward until they break and run as a result of the return fire. Tariq [Aziz] said he felt the war was over in the strategic sense in that Iraq will not lose.”
Repeatedly, Rumsfeld made clear that US interests coincided with Iraq’s in the war. He wrote in his own note to Shultz, “I said I thought we had areas of common interest, particularly the security and stability in the Gulf, which had been jeopardized as a result of the Iranian revolution. I added that the US had no interest in an Iranian victory; to the contrary. We would not want Iran’s influence expanded at the expense of Iraq. As with all sovereign nations, we respect Iraq’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Greetings from Saddam: ‘Saddam Hussein showed obvious pleasure with the President’s letter and Rumsfeld’s visit ... ’
From the Teicher affidavit: When Rumsfeld met with Saddam the following morning, accompanied by State Department Arab experts Robert Pelletreau and William Eagleton, Iraqi television videotaped the opening greetings and delivery of President Reagan’s letter to the Iraqi leader. Saddam was dressed in military uniform, a pistol on his hip. Rumsfeld conveyed his pleasure at being in Baghdad.
While there was no discussion of US military help to Iraq, Rumsfeld reiterated to Saddam the United States’ intention of eliminating arms deliveries to Iran, stating “The US and Iraq shared interests in preventing Iranian and Syrian expansion.” He said the US was urging other states to curtail arms sales to Iran and believed it had successfully closed off US-controlled exports by third countries to Iran.
For Saddam, the tenor and tone of Rumsfeld’s visit was a major positive.
“Saddam Hussein showed obvious pleasure with the President’s letter and Rumsfeld’s visit and in remarks,” Teicher’s affidavit says. ”[It] removed whatever obstacles remained in the way of resuming diplomatic relations but did not take the decision to do so.”
