TEHRAN -- In a live interview with the Infinity CBS Radio, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confessed that his country assisted Saddam Hussein to prevent Iran's victory over the dictator of Baghdad during the eight years of Iran-Iraq war.

He also said that Saddam used chemical weapons against his own people.

What follows is an excerpt from his interview.

Kroft: Mr. secretary, back in the '80s, when you were a Middle East envoy for the Reagan administration you actually met Saddam Hussein on one or two occasions. You're probably one of the few Americans who have met him. What do you remember about that meeting, and has it influenced your response in dealing with him in this crisis? Rumsfeld: I remember the meeting well, but it hasn't influenced my response in this crisis at all. If you think back to that time, Iran and Iraq were in a war. Our friends in the Persian Gulf region were concerned about the possibility that Iran could win. And were deeply concerned that it could upset, and create an instability in the entire region. So I was asked to go over there, and I met with Tariq Aziz and with Saddam Hussein and talked to him about our interests. And the fact that -- it was one of the few countries from the Middle East war that we had not reestablished relationships with. So I was, I guess, the first senior American to go in there in some time. And we had a good discussion. He recognized his situation, and was interested in getting some assistance, so that he had better information. And I was Middle East envoy for about six months, right after 241 marines had been killed in Beirut, Lebanon, at the airport there. And it's my understanding that subsequent to my visit, the United States government did, in fact, provide some intelligence assistance to him, so that he -- the war ended up kind of at a standstill, or a stalemate, rather than either country being defeated.

Kroft: Do you remember anything about it, did he impress you one way or the other? Rumsfeld: Well, he's -- I suppose anyone who lives in a country that he's the head of, like Saddam Hussein is, and sees his picture in every room in every building, in every city of the country, begins to inhale and believe that he's different.

I suppose that could happen to most anybody. But, he is clearly a survivor, he is a brutal, repressive dictator; he has imposed enormous harm to his people. His determination to have weapons of mass destruction is so great that he's denied his people billions and billions, and billions of dollars of revenue they would have if he wanted to give up his weapons and have the sanctions lifted.

But, he won't do it. He has an attitude about himself that suggests that he wants to try to destabilize the neighboring countries, and periodically describes them as illegitimate, and attempts to take them over. I guess he is a long-term dictator who has killed an awful lot of people. He's even used chemical weapons on his own people.