“On December 20 [1983], Donald Rumsfeld travels to Baghdad as a presidential special envoy to meet Saddam Hussein. Although Iraq is using chemical weapons almost daily, Rumsfeld does not raise the issue with Saddam.” – Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 302 […]
Category: quotes
12/15/1983
In The Iraq War Reader, Joost R. Hiltermann wrote: “As President Ronald Reagan’s special envoy for the Middle East, Rumsfeld in December 1983 made the first visit by an American official of his seniority to Baghdad, where he met President Saddam Hussein and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Iraq had broken off diplomatic relations with the […]
12/15/1983
“The U.S. rapprochement with Saddam gathered momentum in December 1983 when [Middle East Envoy Donald] Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad [Iraq]. During the visit Rumsfeld met with Saddam and delivered a personal letter from President Reagan. The visit must have been a success for, after Rumsfeld returned to Washington, the United States began to exert pressure […]
12/15/1983
“According to David Mack, a former U.S. diplomat who accompanied [Middle East Envoy Donald] Rumsfeld on his [December 1983] Bagdad [Iraq] mission, the American desire to reopen formal channels with Iraq reflected the different U.S. geopolitical priorities that existed for the Middle East at that time. ‘We were looking to bring pressure to bear on […]
11/26/1983
Regarding the defense of American oil interests in the Persian Gulf, President Ronald Reagan said, in National Security Decision Directive 114 on November 26, 1983: “[W]e should assign the highest priority to access arrangements which would facilitate the rapid deployment of those forces necessary to defend the critical oil facilities…” – Ronald Reagan, “U.S. Policy […]
11/15/1983
” ‘Vietnam taught us to think twice before again getting involved in the affairs of other nations, so some people question the justification for U.S. economic and military assistance to Central American countries and worry about getting sucked into their military conflicts,’ [Representative Dick] Cheney [R-WY] wrote [in his monthly newsletter ‘Congressman Dick Cheney Reports […]
11/1/1983
“A State Department memo [dated November 1, 1983] confirmed Iraqi chemical weapon producers were buying materials ‘from Western firms, including possibly a U.S. foreign subsidiary,’ and added that ‘it is important that we approach Iraq very soon in order to maintain credibility of U.S. policy on CW (chemical weapons) as well as to reduce or […]
10/25/1983
“…on October 25, 1983, 9,600 U.S. troops were involved in the invasion of Grenada, a small island in the Caribbean Sea. Their mission was to rescue some 600 American medical students who had become hostages of Cuban and Grenadian forces in the wake of a bloodless coup (believed to have been backed by the Soviet […]
10/25/1983
“On October 25, 1983, President [Ronald] Reagan dispatched some 2,000 U.S. troops to Grenada in an effort to put down a Cuban-backed Marxist coup that had taken place two weeks earlier. The coup targeted the Grenadian prime minister, Maurice Bishop, who was also a Marxist, and resulted in his ouster and later his death. Cold […]
10/23/1983
“…on October 23, 1983, six months and five days after the American embassy bombing [in Beirut, Lebanon]–the United States suffered its worst peacetime military loss ever. A suicide driver drove a truck filled with explosives through the front door of a building [in Beirut] the marines had converted into a barracks. Two hundred and forty-one […]