pressure on Iran to release the hostages" in exchange for spare parts for Iran's largely U.S.-built military. (Yet Sick denied any foreknowledge of the invasion by Brzezinski.) However, Brzezinski's plan was undermined, at least in the short-term, by Israel and Vietnam supplying the U.S.-origin spares that Iran needed. Brands considers it ironic that "the green light thesis ... assumes that the Carter administration was clever enough to manoeuvre a dictator with a history of antipathy to the United States into a disastrous war, but clumsy enough that it failed to prevent an ally [Israel] from taking actions that would bankrupt the entire initiative." In Emery's judgement, claims that the Reagan administration's later "tilt" in favor of Iraq was merely a continuation of Carter-era policies cannot be supported by available evidence: "The impetus for America to adjust its policy of neutrality, and take a definitive position on which side to back, came in 1982, when the Iranian military threatened to overrun Iraq." In Carter's own account, "I despised Saddam Hussein, because he attacked Iran when my hostages were being held. It was President Reagan who established diplomatic relations with Saddam Hussein after I left office." Gibson avers: "If Washington had any foreknowledge of the invasion, logic would suggest that the timing would be postponed until after the hostages were successfully released." Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods describe the green-light theory as having been "convincingly debunked," citing Gibson. Hahn states that "there is no evidence to support the Iranian contention" that the U.S. helped instigate the conflict, finding several holes in this theory. Brands concludes: "There is no hard evidence that a green light was given, while there is substantial documentary proof that the Carter administration neither expected nor welcomed the war." As of 2012, no reference to an agreement with the U.S. regarding the invasion of Iran has been found in available Iraqi archives. To the contrary, in an October 17, 1980 meeting Aziz was recorded worrying that "Khomeini may not support it, but for his hatred of us he will accept [U.S. support] over an agreement with us," and in the same meeting Saddam speculated that U.S. airborne early warning and control systems (AWACs) supplied to Saudi Arabia were being used to spy on Iraq: "They are monitoring the operations zone and we do not feel safe from such a procedure ... We are afraid that the information collected