Oh, come along ard, don't be so shy, why not tell the whole story? Perhaps because it may dilute the point you are trying to make, in yet another one of your feeble attempts at maligning the British Government?

Let's put in a few corrections to actually make your post a bit more accurate:

My point?, are you still with me?. A great number of companies and businesses, from many countries throughout the world had been working on Saddam`s various projects for years, as far back as 1979, when Saddam became Iraq's President. I knew two of the men Sadamm held as hostage , they worked for Mivan a Belfast firm, and they weren`t too displeased as they were paid quite a sum by Mivan when they returned.

All of those firms went out to Iraq with the blessings of their respective governments as throughout that time it was perfectly legitimate for them to do so. Exceptions here could possibly be the French and Russian governments who were rather keen on the idea of providing Iraq with a nuclear power plant that would be capable of providing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Initially, Saddam, although a dictator (as were his predecessors), on assuming the leadership of the Ba'athist party in Iraq, did many things that were of great benefit to the people of Iraq, particularly in the area of infrastructure, healthcare and education.

Saddam, a secular pan-arabist, viewed the arrival of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, as something that might cause the Iraqi Shia population to question the advisablity of living in a secular Arab state, likewise with the upheaval in Iran the Kurdish populations of Iran, Iraq and Turkey felt the time might be right to press for either an independent state or for greater autonomy within their respective countries. Now Saddam had not butchered large numbers of his fellow Ba'athists to gain power, only to oversee the fragmentation of Iraq, hell no - besides their regions were the ones that held the vast majority of Iraq's oil wealth.

Just prior to taking over power in Iraq, a meeting was held at Camp David, where a peace accord was reached between Egypt and Israel. Up to then Egypt had led the pan-Arabist movement, so Saddam decided that Iraq under his leadership would assume that role, it had to be done gradually as Hassad in Syria had better claim to take over that role, and besides Saddam felt he had some clearing up to do at home to get his population in line with this new direction. Material for his oil production and infrastructure projects he got from the west, military hardware he got in abundance from the Soviet Union, and Iraq's oil paid for it.

In his quest, to become leader of the Arab nations aligned against Israel, he felt that not being a "front-line" Arab state was a bit of a drawback, so he had a Mr. Bull (he of super-gun fame) contacted. If Iraq had a super-gun, Iraq could hit Israel, so Saddam set about acquiring one, but it needed special steel. So Saddam got his buyers to contact probably the best specialist steel company in the world, Churchill's of Sheffield, to obtain the tube sections for his gun, the order being disguised as an order for high specification steel pipe to be used in the Iraqi oil and gas industry. Unfortunately for Saddam, one of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise Officers at Immingham Docks took a closer look at these pipes, and the rest is history, Mr. Bull died and Saddam never did get his super-gun.

Meanwhile the situation in Iran was going to hell in high gear, Saddam saw in this an opportunity to resolve a long running dispute with Iran concerning the Shat-al-Arab waterway. The Iranians were willing to negotiate, which Saddam took as a sign of weakness, so he mustered all of his Army, superbly equipped by Russia and kicked-off the Iran-Iraq War. At first it all went according to plan, but things started going haywire. Shipping was attacked in the Arabian Gulf, which caught the attention of the rest of the world, particularly Japan and the USA.

Now the USA's, Japan's and the West's take on things was that they actually preferred things the way they were prior to the start of this war and they did not want either side to win it. Neither side would listen to either the UN, or the USA, so Uncle Sam and the Western powers decided to help both sides fight it out until it dawned on both sides that neither would win. This is what did come to pass and a peace deal was negotiated.

Sitting back in his corner, Saddam had a look at Iraq's current account and decided it would need a fresh injection of funds in order to pay for the war (which had been catastrophic for Iraq) and to finance any future ventures. Looking around he spotted Kuwait and thought that that would do nicely, so after waiting until his Russian and French friends had resupplied him with military hardware, in he went............ I think we all know the rest.
   
Oh, ard, the difference between the tyrant up until the start of the Iran-Iraq War and the tyrant after was that after the Iran-Iraq War the tyrant became a clear threat to the peace and stability of the region.