Creating Saddam

It has been said, often, that Saddam was our creation. Rumsfeld sold arms to him. Britain sold arms to him. We armed him then attacked him.

Other bloggers have picked up on this, but it bears repeating. Harry's Place mentioned an analysis of Saddam's arms purchases between 1973 and 1990, carried out by those raving Neo-Cons, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:

Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact 68.9%
France 12.7%
China 11.8%
USA 0.5%

The UK's supplies were so few they aren't even on the map.

What was it Galloway said? Ah yes:

I am on the anti-imperialist left... If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe.

Perhaps, with the benefit of continued arms supplies from the USSR, Saddam would by now have been able to ensure that the war was not in the Middle East, but rather in Europe.

It's almost worth remarking, in passing, on the irony of a member of the "anti-imperialist left" speaking about his support for the Soviet empire. But then, this is Galloway. Irony is the thing he gets his maid to press his shirties with.