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| Iraqi military attache Brigadier Nabil Sa'id with the author in Washington (1987) |
As many of you know, I served as a liaison officer to the Iraqi directorate of military intelligence during the last year of the Iran-Iraq War, making numerous trips between the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. I was part of the then-highly classified relationship between the United States and Iraq to ensure that the Iranians did not emerge as the victors in the eight-year bloodbath known to us as the Iran-Iraq War. The Iraqis refer to it as the First Persian Gulf War, and by the Iranians as the Imposed War.
I have been interviewed on numerous occasions about American support for the Saddam Husayn regime in 1987 and 1988 - usually the final reporting is flawed, out of context, or just plain inaccurate. I am not sure how this interview stacks up against the rest - it is in Farsi. I have included the finished interview in Farsi for those of you who can understand it - the interview is preceded by a short clip entitled "Introducing Rick Francona," but from my limited understanding of Farsi, it could have been entitled "Portrait of a Spy."
The Iranian TV station (IRIB4) provided me with the raw footage in the original English, which I have included here (lower video). At least these are my words - of course, that means any mistakes are solely mine....
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