Meanwhile the homeland my father knew and loved was quickly disappearing behind him. Almost nothing was written about Saddam Hussein in the U.S. media in the 1980s. Saddam was considered a friend of the Reagan administration, even though his brutalities and murders were well-known abroad. During the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), the United States actively supported Saddam with intelligence and food credits—and also allowed Iraq to buy high-tech equipment for chemical weapons.
