NEW YORK: The United States conducted a covert military campaign to aid Iraq during its war with Iran, despite intelligence that the regime intended to use deadly chemical weapons during a number of decisive battles, according to new reports.

The programme is said to have been carried out during the Reagan administration at a time when the White House was publicly condemning Iraq for its use of lethal gas.

The current president George Bush and the US national security adviser, Condoleeza Rice, have repeatedly cited Iraq’s use of gas warfare during the 1981-1988 conflict as justification for a potential attack on the country.

The report in the New York Times quotes senior military officers with direct knowledge of the secret programme.

The sources said that US aid came in the shape of critical battle planning assistance. It has long been known that the US had provided intelligence to the Iraqis through satellite photography to help them understand how Iranian forces were massing against them.

But the highly classified programme is said to have involved more than 60 defence intelligence agency officers who secretly provided information on Iranian deployments, tactical planning for battles, plans for air strikes and bomb-damage assessments.

The allegations may embarrass the secretary of state, Colin Powell, who was Ronald Reagan’s national security adviser. Through a spokesman, he described the report as “dead wrong”.

During the war, the US wanted to see the thwarting of Iran, which it feared would over-run other oil producing states and possibly spread the Islamic revolution.

Frank Carlucci, the former defence secretary, said his understanding was that what was provided to Iraq “was general order-of-battle information, not operational intelligence.” He added: “I did agree that Iraq should not lose the war, but I certainly had no foreknowledge of their use of chemical weapons.”

The military officials who were cited said that while Iraq did not share its plans to use chemical weapons, it became increasingly evident that they were part of the nation’s arsenal. Colonel Walter Lang, who was a senior defence intelligence official at the time, said the defence intelligence agency and the CIA “were desperate to make sure that Iraq did not lose” the war with Iran. “The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern,” he told the Times.

Another veteran of the programme said the Pentagon “wasn’t so horrified by Iraq’s use of gas. It was just another way of killing people — whether by bullet or phosgene, it didn’t make any difference.”—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.