(no subject)

[dotinthesky]

Saddam Hussein must have shed a few tears this weekend for the death of his old friend Reagan.

It was Reagan, after all, who helped him secure power in Iraq.

Comments

[wardytron.livejournal.com]

I found this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/walden/sad_about2.shtml) on a BBC site, which says the CIA were involved in the original coup in 1963 because the previous regime was pro-Soviet.

What you said about the 80s is essentially true, although the people who sold Iraq the most weapons were the Russians & the French (a total of $41 billion, against $5m by the US, according to page 22 of this (http://www.csis.org/mideast/reports/mbmeXiraq122898.pdf) report for the Center for Strategic & International Studies).

[wardytron.livejournal.com]

PS I now realise my original chronology was wrong - mea culpa - and it was in 1968 that the Ba'athists returned to power, but not until 1979 that Saddam assumed total control.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

no worries... :)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

You know, I've been wanting to read a good book that details the history of Iraq's connection to America. You wouldn't happen to know any?

:)

[wardytron.livejournal.com]

The only book I've read at all on the subject of Iraq is Regime Change by Christopher Hitchens, but like everything written about Iraq recently it's very one-sided; it's a series of essays arguing the case for the war. Oh, I also read Allies by William Shawcross, which was mostly dull apart from some interesting stuff about Saddam's personal closeness to Jacques Chirac. But other than that I am pig-ignorant.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I think a couple of books came out when the war was 1 month old... but, like you said, they seemed to be mostly one-sided. Perhaps it's just like everything else in history - we have to be slightly removed in years before we can look back objectively.