So I read that Saddam is going to be charged with a 1982 massacre.
Saddam punished a Shiite village where his convoy was fired upon by killing dozens of men & boys and imprisoning 100, later to kill many of the prisoners.
...which got me to thinking about the date of this photo:
That's our boy Rumsfeld, special envoy from R. Reagan, greeting Saddam the year following the village massacre.
So, I guess our standards for cooperating with "madmen" was somewhat lower in the Reagan years.
In fact, in February 1982 the State Department had removed Iraq from its list of states supporting international terrorism.
For the balance of the Reagan years, abundant financial and military aid was given to Saddam.
It will be interesting to see some of this come out in his trial.
For those inclined to want to know more about our history with Saddam, click here:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/