Reply #17: Kissinger and Nixon: Duplicity, the Kurds and destabilizing Iraq

[bushmeister0]

Christopher Hitchens foudn this interesting tid-bit about what the Commission found out about our suckering the Kurds into keeping up an insurgency up against Iraq in the service of the Shah of Iran, until that is, we made a deal with Saddam.

When our good buddy the Shah was in power in the 70's, Tricky Dick and his attack dog Henry Kissinger actively supported the Kurds in their insurgency against Iraq. The then leader of Iraq Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, had the audacity to give refuge to Ayatollah Khomeini and otherwise discomfort the Shah. The Pike Commision report found that Kissinger used the Kurds to help destabilize Iraq. . . but not too much.

"Documents in the Committee's possession clearly show that the President, Dr. Kissinger and the foreign head of state hoped that our clients would not prevail. They preferred instead that the insurgents simply continue a level of hostilities sufficient to sap the resources of our ally's neighbor . . .

This policy was not imparted to our clients, who were encouraged to continue fighting."

See, we wanted them to keep fighting, but we never wanted them to be successful. When Kissinger made a deal with Saddam, before he took power, we pulled the rug from under the Kurds and shortly after Saddam began his genocidal efforts to wipe them out completly.

Hitchen's article in harpers:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/1991/01/0000414

Additional infor on the various committees investigating the CIA in the 70's

http://bss.sfsu.edu/fischer/IR%20360/Readings/pike.htm