All you need to know about Saddam Hussein and Iraq

I was just going through my archives and found the following comments about Saddam from Noam Chomsky, which I've repoduced below;
"In 1982 the Reagan administration decided to provide direct support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran. In order to do so, they had to remove Iraq from the list of states supporting terror. Then followed Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to Baghdad to arrange badly needed aid to the murderous tyrant, who, as you know, went on to use WMD, slaughtering 100s of thousands of Iranians, then turning the weapons against Iraqi Kurds with lethal effect, always with the support of Washington; the Reagan administration barred protests, and even sought to blame the crimes on Iran. The US finally entered the war directly, compelling Iran to capitulate. That did not end the love affair with Saddam. In 1989, President George Bush #1 not only expanded the aid, but also invited Iraqi nuclear engineers to the US for advanced training in nuclear weapons development. In April 1990, Bush sent a high-level senatorial delegation to Iraq, headed by Senator Robert Dole, Republican candidate for president six years later. Their mission was to convey the President’s warm regards to his good friend Saddam, and to assure him that he should disregard critical comments by some US journalists, who cannot be silenced because of the annoying protections for freedom of speech. A few months later, Saddam made his first mistake, disobeying orders, or perhaps misunderstanding them, and invaded Kuwait. Instantly he made the sharp transition from favored friend and ally to the new Hitler. There is no need to carry the story forward from there."