The problem with most of these interviews with "former policymakers" is that they refer to Howard Teicher, who is a liar. Teicher insisted for years that several of the classified Reagan-era NSDD (national security decision directives, including NSDD-26 & 28) from 1982 secretly authorized the arming of Iraq. Unfortunately for him, those documents are now declassified, and really had nothing to do with Iraq (they established nuclear weapon stockpile policies). You can go to the Reagan presidential library and see for yourself if you like.
The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague
While techically true, this sounds more ominous than it is. The "numerous items" were just biological cultures, freely given at the time to just about anyone who asked for them (anthrax for cattle vaccine, etc) who had the proper technical credentials (they were sent to universities in Baghdad). They were also approved by the Commerce department, which, while technically part of the "administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush", were really just bureaucrats doing their job without any influence from any higher authority.
In other words, part of the Washington Post story based on a lie; the rest is just a deliberate distortion.
The term for this is "Postaganda"