Wow. I thought this was common knowledge.
The US did, indeed, support Saddam. The US helped him get to power and helped Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq was, for a time under Reagan with Donald Rumsfeld (yes, that Rumsfeld) as an emissary, the third largest recipient of US assistance on earth.
The first Bush doubled US assistance to Iraq and, apparently, purposefully ignored Iraq as it obviously planned to invade Kuwait.
link [en.wikipedia.org]
 "For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death." |