Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop cancer cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. PSC 833 may increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy by making cancer cells more sensitive to the drugs. Combining chemotherapy with peripheral stem cell transplantation may allow the doctor to give higher doses of chemotherapy drugs and kill more cancer cells. Interleukin-2 may stimulate a person's white blood cells to kill cancer cells. This randomized phase III trial is studying giving combination chemotherapy together with PSC 833 followed by a peripheral stem cell transplant with or without interleukin-2 to see how well it works compared to combination chemotherapy alone followed by a peripheral stem cell transplant with or without interleukin-2 in treating patients with acute myeloid leukemia.