-Caveat Lector- >From http://www.iht.com/articles/73454.html
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Cheney didn't mind Saddam Nicholas D. Kristof The New York Times Saturday, October 12, 2002 Monster of the month NEW YORK George W. Bush and Dick Cheney portray Saddam Hussein as so menacing and terrifying that one might think they have lain awake at night for years worrying about him. But when Cheney was running Halliburton, the oil services firm, it sold more equipment to Iraq than any other company did. As was first reported by the Financial Times on Nov. 3, 2000, Halliburton subsidiaries submitted $23.8 million worth of contracts with Iraq to the United Nations in 1998 and 1999 for approval by its sanctions committee. This was legitimate business conducted through joint ventures that had been acquired as part of a larger takeover in September 1998. Zelma Branch, a Halliburton spokeswoman, says the subsidiaries completed their pre-existing Iraq contracts but did not seek new ones. So this is not evidence of scandalous conduct or egregious misjudgment. But as Americans debate whether to go to war with Iraq, it is a useful reminder of how fashions change in perceptions of rogue states. Public Enemy No. 1 today is a government that Cheney was in effect helping shore up just a couple of years ago. More broadly, the United States has a long history in which Saddam, although just as monstrous as he is today, was coddled. In the 1980s it provided his army with satellite intelligence so that it could use chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers. When Saddam used nerve gas and mustard gas against Kurds in 1988, the Reagan administration initially tried to blame Iran. The United States shipped seven strains of anthrax to Iraq from 1978 to 1988. These days it sees Iraq as an imminent threat to its way of life, while just a couple of years ago Iraq was perceived as a pathetic dictatorship hardly worth the bother of bombing. What changed? Not Iraq, but rather American sensibilities after Sept. 11. We Americans need to be wary that we are not just pursuing the latest fashion in monsters. Iran was the menace of the 1980s, so we snuggled up with Iraq. The Soviet threat led us to cuddle with Islamic fundamentalists like those now trying to blow us up. In 1994 the vogue threat changed, and hawks pressed hard for a military confrontation with North Korea. America came within an inch of going to war with North Korea, in a conflict that a Pentagon study found would have killed a million people. In retrospect, it is clear that the hawks were wrong about confronting North Korea. Containment and deterrence so far have worked, kind of, just as they have kind of worked to restrain Iraq for 11 years. If Washington spent money on hypocrisy detectors as well as anthrax detectors, they would be buzzing. For example, Republicans are trying to defeat the Democratic senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota by running commercials featuring Saddam Hussein. When I was writing from Iraq lately, some peeved readers suggested I stay there for good. The fact is that neither Tim Johnson nor any lily-livered columnist ever bolstered Saddam's government the way Vice President Cheney did - perfectly legitimately - in 1998 and 1999. Before they prepare to go to war, Americans need to take a deep breath and make sure they are doing so to overcome a threat that is real and enduring, not one that they are conjuring in part out of the trauma of Sept. 11. Old monsters like Libya, North Korea and Iran have proved - well, not ephemeral, but at least changeable, less terrifying today than they used to be. And the Iraqi threat, for which Americans are now prepared to sacrifice hundreds or thousands of American casualties, just a few years ago was simply another tinhorn dictatorship where CEO Cheney was earning his bonus. The New York Times Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; I don't believe everything I read or send (but that doesn't stop me from considering it; obviously SOMEBODY thinks it's important) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. 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