If I don't die by Thursday, I'll be roaring Friday night.

This shouldn't be a surprise, but the New York Times reports today that newly declassified documents show that as a special envoy for the Reagan administration in 1984, Donald H. Rumsfeld, now the defense secretary, traveled to Iraq to persuade officials there that the United States was eager to improve ties with President Saddam Hussein despite his use of chemical weapons.

Additionally, during the Iran/Iraq war, the United States secretly provided Iraq with combat planning assistance, even after Mr. Hussein's use of chemical weapons was widely known. The highly classified program involved more than 60 officers of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who shared intelligence on Iranian deployments, bomb-damage assessments and other crucial information with Iraq.

Now, it seems, Mr. Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials are citing Iraq's use of poisonous gas as a main reason for going to war to oust Mr. Hussein. Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, said: "Saddam had chemical weapons in the 1980's, and it didn't make any difference to U.S. policy."

So today, the American public is being stuck with an almost 200 billion dollar price tag for the Republican's murky alliance with its former friend...

and the body count is still rising.