Someone recently (I can't go back and look it up) glossed over some details and said the U.S. created Saddam Hussein. It seems to me someone in the past said something similar about Osama bin Laden because the U.S. supported the mujahadeen in their insurgency against the USSR after the latter's invasion. The decision to support Saddam against Khomeini was made during the Reagan administration, but who made the decision to support the Jihad against the USSR in Afghanistan? Wright, p 99: "Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was the U.S. national security advisor for the Carter administration . . . saw the invasion as an opportunity. He wrote to Carter immediately, saying, 'Now we can give the USSR its own Vietnam war.' Looking for an ally in this endeavor, the Americans naturally turned to the Saudis - that is, to Turki, the American-educated prince who held the Afghan account. . . . [who] became the key man in the covert alliance of the United States and the Saudis to funnel money and arms to the resistance through the Pakistani ISI. It was vital to keep this program secret in order to prevent the Soviets from having the excuse they sought to invade Pakistan. Until the end of the war, the Saudis would match the Americans dollar for dollar, starting with only seventy-five thousand dollars but growing into billions." Lawrence