How did Saddam Hussein acquire the WMD?

Joe Nation states:

Quote:
What our policy in the Middle East has been about is influence and we have consistently backed the wrong horses.
The present war is the direct result of short sighted, wrong-headed American foreign policy dating back to the Reagan presidency. It was only after Hussein had used gas on Kurd villages that the US government opened diplomatic relations with the current Iraqi regime. We were not opposed, in fact, we encouraged the prosecution of the Iran-Iraq War, first as a method of revenge against the Ayatollahs of Iran for holding our diplomats for 666 days (which of course was revenge for our installing the Shah over their country, but how far back shall I go here?)and second, in the hope that the two countries would fixate on the battles between them and be less inclined to get involved in the Israeli/Palestinian matters.



And Asherman goes beyond to point out the duplicitious involvement of other countries in the present situation: notably some key players in the recent UN debacle.

I would welcome an explicit discussion about the hows and whys of Hussein acquiring his odious WMD.