The US government knew of the fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons, and did not deter them

"The United States helped protect the last Middle Eastern tyrant thought to use chemical weapons. That dictator was Iraq’s Saddam Hussein." "It's quite selective. The government knew of the fact that Iraq was using chemical weapons, and did not deter them," Joyce Battle, an analyst at the National Security Archive, a nonpartisan research center, said in an interview Tuesday. "But when it's thought to be in U.S. interests, the government will adopt a moralistic stand when it wants to justify its policies." Put another way, foreign policy calculations are invariably cold-blooded, notwithstanding moral declarations." (thanks Amir)