[kach22i]

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Document 27: Department of State Cable from Kenneth W. Dam to the United States Interests Section in Iraq. "Rumsfeld Visit to Iraq," December 7, 1983.

Reports that Donald Rumsfeld wants to visit Iraq during his tour of Middle Eastern countries as an envoy for President Reagan, but notes that he does not think his visit will be worthwhile unless he meets directly with Saddam Hussein.

Document 46: United States Embassy in Austria Cable from Helene A. von Damm to the Department of State. "Iranian War Wounded in Vienna," March 13, 1984.

The U.S. embassy in Austria tells the State Department that a Belgian laboratory found residual amounts of mustard gas and mycotoxin in the blood of Iranian war casualties brought to Vienna for medical treatment.

Shaking Hands: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein greets Donald Rumsfeld, then special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, in Baghdad on December 20, 1983.




http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html

1983

* A SD report concluded that Iraq continued to support groups on the SD’s terrorist list.[5]

* Iraq reportedly began using chemical weapons (CW) against Iranian troops in 1982, and significantly increased CW use in 1983. Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, said that reports of Iraq using CWs on Iranian military personnel "drifted in" at the year’s end.[6] A declassified CIA report, probably written in late 1987, notes Iraq's use of mustard gas in August 1983, giving further credence to the suggestion that the SD and/or National Security Council (NSC) was well aware of Iraq's use of CW at this time.

# Analysts recognized that "civilian" helicopters can be weaponized in a matter of hours and selling a civilian kit can be a way of giving military aid under the guise of civilian assistance.[8] Shortly after removing Iraq from the terrorism sponsorship list, the Reagan administration approved the sale of 60 Hughes helicopters.[9] Later, and despite some objections from the National Security Council (NSC), the Secretaries of Commerce and State (George Baldridge and George Shultz) lobbied the NSC advisor into agreeing to the sale to Iraq of 10 Bell helicopters,[10] officially for crop spraying. See "1988" for note on Iraq using U.S. Helicopters to spray Kurds with chemical weapons.

# Later in the year the Reagan Administration secretly began to allow Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt to transfer to Iraq U.S. howitzers, helicopters, bombs and other weapons.[11] Reagan personally asked Italy’s Prime Minister Guilio Andreotti to channel arms to Iraq.[12][7]

From I could find the international community knew gas was being used in the Iraq/Iran war.............but it was not until 1988 using US helicopters that Saddam used gas on the Kurds.

Recap:
Iraq/Iran war (1980-1988).