United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war

United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, and Special Operations training. At no point, however, did the U.S. directly supply arms to Iraq.

Support from the U.S. for Iraq was not a secret and was frequently discussed in open session of the Senate and House of Representatives. On June 9, 1992, Ted Koppel reported on ABC's Nightline that the "Reagan/Bush administrations permitted—and frequently encouraged—the flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq."

Following the Iranian Revolution, the Carter administration continued to see Iran as a bulwark against Iraq and the Soviet Union, and therefore attempted to forge a strategic partnership with the new Interim Government of Iran under Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan. "Acting head of the U.S. embassy in Tehran" Bruce Laingen realized that Iranian officials were acutely interested in U.S. intelligence on Iraq, and convinced Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Harold H. Saunders to approve an intelligence-sharing liaison with the Iranian government, culminating in an October 15, 1979 meeting between longtime CIA officer George Cave and the Iranian Deputy Prime Minister Abbas Amir-Entezam and Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi. Cave claims he briefed Entezam and Yazdi on Iraqi military preparations and covert operations "that could only be explained as preparations for a major invasion of Iran," although no final decision had been made. Cave urged his Iranian interlocutors to monitor the movement of Iraqi troops with "the IBEX listening posts the CIA had constructed in northern Iran" under the Shah. If Cave's account is accurate, neither Entezam nor Yazdi seem to have shared this information with other Iranian officials, perhaps out of fear that their relationship with a CIA officer would be misconstrued. However, "Cave remains the only source under the impression that an Iraqi attack was likely at any point in 1979." According to Bureau of Intelligence and Research analyst Wayne White: "The Iraq army was doing little more than continuing its well-known annual schedule of primarily battalion and brigade-level training exercises ... Very little of the Iraqi military was anywhere near the Iraqi-Iranian frontier." Similarly, the head of the Iran desk at the State Department, Henry Precht, states: "I had no impression at the time that anyone believed Iraq was planning a major attack although we thought that [Iraqi President] Saddam [Hussein] might be stirring up the Kurds. At the time I did not think he would take on his larger and still probably more potent neighbor." It is possible that Cave's briefing contained fabricated evidence intended to "highlight the mutual benefits of maintaining the intelligence facilities," but the most probable explanation for this discrepancy is that the evidence in question was "heavily disputed by other parts of the U.S. intelligence community" and therefore "not passed around" to the rest of the U.S. government.

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