1981 - The US Government begins to court Iraq, holding official talks on matters such as trade and regional security.
The US is still smarting from the seizure of its embassy in Tehran and the taking of American diplomats as hostages in November 1979 following the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Attempts by Iran to export the revolution to other regions in the Middle East are also of concern. Iraq is seem as a bulwark against the spread of Iran's militant Shia extremism............
1982 - Hussein orders the withdrawal of troops from Iranian territory in June and attempts to negotiate a cease-fire with Iran. However, the Iranians continue to advance, crossing the Shatt al-Arab in the south to within and few kilometres of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and capturing mountain passes in the north, where they are assisted by Kurds.
With the aid of tanks, rocket launchers and helicopter gunships purchased from the Soviet Union the Iraqis are able to contain and reverse the Iranians but cannot remove them entirely from their territory. Kurdish resistance is quelled by the reported use of chemical weapons and forced deportation to Iran.
Meanwhile, Iraq's armoury receives another boost in February when the country is removed from a US Government list of alleged sponsors of terrorism. Iraq is now receiving major arms shipments from the Soviet Union and France, and the US has just opened up as a potential weapons supplier........
1983 - In December the US sends a special Middle East envoy to Iraq to hold talks with Hussein. The envoy,
Donald Rumsfeld, the future US secretary of defence under the administration of George W. Bush, is the highest-ranking American official to visit Baghdad in more than 16 years.
At their meeting on 20 December Rumsfeld tells Hussein that the US is ready to resume full diplomatic relations.
1984 - Rumsfeld returns to Baghdad for meetings with the Iraqi foreign minister on 24 March, the same day that the
United Nations (UN) releases a report finding that Iraq is using mustard gas and the nerve agent tabun against Iranian troops.
The US State Department also acknowledges Iraq's actions, releasing a statement on 5 March saying that "available evidence indicates that Iraq has used lethal chemical weapons."
Nevertheless, full diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US are restored in November, allowing the US to provide Iraq with further aid to fight the war.
It is later reported that the US aid includes battle-planning assistance. According to a report published in 'The New York Times' on 18 August 2002, more that 60 officers of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) secretly supplied Iraq with detailed information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments. Satellite photographs of the war front were also provided by the CIA.
One former member of the program is quoted as saying the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of (poisonous) gas. It was just another way of killing people - whether with a bullet or phosgene, it didn't make any difference."
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2002/081802.htm (link to the NYT report)
It's ok. I'm a big boy now. I can take it. 
