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On this day in 1980, US-backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Iran, beginning the Iran-Iraq War, one of the deadliest conflicts since WW2 in which 500,000-1 million people were killed. The US provided Saddam Hussein’s forces with targeting intelligence. Two thirds of all chemical weapons used by Iraq were used in the last 18 months of the war, when CIA-Iraq cooperation was strongest. NATO countries also provided Saddam with the various technology and precursor chemicals needed to manufacture the chemical weapons that were being used on Iran.