Saddam, we hardly knew ya. The Long Sordid and Cozy Relationship of Saddam and Republicans

Saddam's long time friends in the U.S. Gov. and the C.I.A. Look Back On the good ole days.

UPI-Exclusive: Saddam key in early CIA plot

U.S. forces in Baghdad might now be searching high and low for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but in the past Saddam was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials.

United Press International has interviewed almost a dozen former U.S. diplomats, British scholars and former U.S. intelligence officials to piece together the following account. The CIA declined to comment on the report.

While many have thought that Saddam first became involved with U.S. intelligence agencies at the start of the September 1980 Iran-Iraq war, his first contacts with U.S. officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim.

In July 1958, Qasim had overthrown the Iraqi monarchy in what one former U.S. diplomat, who asked not to be identified, described as "a horrible orgy of bloodshed."

According to current and former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Iraq was then regarded as a key buffer and strategic asset in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. For example, in the mid-1950s, Iraq was quick to join the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact which was to defend the region and whose members included Turkey, Britain, Iran and Pakistan.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030410-070214-6557r

CNN shilled for Saddam

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html

While last October they claimed to be honest

http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts_102502_jordan.html

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