Supported by the west

"It was with Western support that Saddam was able to play a key role in the attempted assassination, in 1953, of Prime Minister Abd el-Karim Ali, whose pan-Arabist tendencies were feared in Washington and London as a potential threat to the flow of oil."

High Tea in Mosul, O'Donnell Lynne, 2007, Cyan Books, London, p 52

"in 1980 Saddam set his armies against Iran in a war that lasted eight years and claimed around a million lives...the western powers once again became involved on the Iraqi side as international support...providing diplomatic backup, cash and arms" p53