Reply #9: Did you know? [View All]

[HysteryDiagnosis]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0420-05.htm

"As in Iran in '53, it was mostly American money and even American involvement on the ground," says Morris, referring to a U.S.-backed coup that brought the return of the shah to neighbouring Iran.

Kassem, who had allowed communists to hold positions of responsibility in his government, was machine-gunned to death. And the country wound up in the hands of the Baath party.

At the time, Morris continues, Saddam was a Baath operative studying law in Cairo, one of the venues the CIA chose to plan the coup.

In fact, he claims the former Iraqi president castigated by President George W. Bush as one of history's most "brutal dictators" was actually on the CIA payroll in those days.

"There's no question," Morris says. "It was there in Cairo that (Saddam) and others were first contacted by the agency."

In 1968, Morris says, the CIA encouraged a palace revolt among Baath party elements led by long-time Saddam mentor Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, who would turn over the reins of power to his ambitious protege in 1979.

"It's a regime that was unquestionably midwived by the United States, and the (CIA's) involvement there was really primary," Morris says.

His version of history is a far cry from current American rhetoric about Iraq, a country that top U.S. officials say has been liberated from decades of tyranny and given the chance for a bright democratic future.

There's no mention of America's own alleged role in giving birth to the regime.