This happened 20+ years ago...
The door to Iraq was first opened during the Iranian hostage crisis.
What were we to do then...We really had few options; unfortunatly for US, when the Shaw left Iran, he didn't take the military apparatus with him. As such, the Iranians were in a posistion to wipe Sadam and all of Iraq off the map. If we didn't support Sadam at that time, Iran would have been in a position to hold the whole of the Middle East Hostage.
This is ancient history and irrelevant to the troops stationed on the Iraqi border with orders to lock and load.
Scott