But then again, it is on the internet.
Well, not trying to be snarky, but, I do take offense to the FALSE claim that Saddam Hussein started out as an American puppet and we supplied him with arms which is simply and prima facie false.
Then to accuse Ronald Reagan of doing so is very much a Left-wing attack on him and his administration. I’m not saying you are, but your sources very much are doing so.
In fact, the memo you just posted was basically part of the Reagan Administration’s efforts to get the use of chemical weapons stopped. During that VERY same month and year I took part in a big exercise in full MOPP 4 chemical protection gear that lasted several days. It was absolutely in our best interests to see that chemical weapons were never used, and our efforts to be ready for them was actually part of that effort. Additionally, there were reports of the Communists using chemical weapons in Laos, Cambodia and Afghanistan. the so-called “Yellow Rain”
evidence that we were presenting back then in the United Weapons. For Rumsfeld to go to Iraq with orders from Reagan to sell/give Hussein chemical weapons—which he had ready access to already from the Europeans and Soviets, would make Reagan a horrible hypocrite and “Kissingeresque Realpolitker”. Nixon maybe, but Ronnie was just not mentally and morally able to do so, I really do believe.
This memo was around the same time (November of 1983) when we had just liberated Grenada, KAL 007 was shot down by the Soviets, our Marines were blown up in Beirut, operation Able Archer (which almost led to WWIII—I was in it in MOPP gear) took place and Yuri Andorpov was dying—which caused the Soviets to be very nervous. Their propaganda against Reagan was at its height. I can tell you that times were very, very tense then—probably the most since the Cuban Missile Crisis.