Rumsfeld admits meeting with Saddam Hussein

US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that he had met with the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 1983, when he was a special envoy for the US President Ronald Reagan to the Middle East.

Rumsfeld recalled this fact replying to a question put by one listener to Infinity Radio on Thursday, Live, saying that the US "was ( then) giving intelligence information for Iraq to help it in its war against Iran." He added in an attempt to justify the American policy," that Washington has provided weapons and various aids to the opposition Iraq groups since the Gulf war, including the Kurdish groups in northern Iraq.