This article traces the evolution of US foreign policy towards Iraq over more than two decades—from 1979, the year Saddam Hussein assumed dictatorial power in Iraq, through to the war of 2003. It examines policy in1 the context of the comparative study of "genocide," the term referring to the destruction of peoples, coined by Raphael Lemkin and enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide 1948 . In brief, the intention is to explore the varying contexts in which the term "genocide," and the related language of mass atrocity, has been applied to actions occurring within the borders of Iraq since the 1980s; how the United States has reacted in policy terms, specifically to the evidence of atrocity; and what this might tell us about US policy on human rights more generally.