To: John Lacelle who wrote (39093 ) 3/17/1999 3:48:00 PM From: Daniel Schuh Read Replies (2) | Respond to
Well, if you want treason, there's always William Safire and certain business dealings preceding the gulf war:Back in the Bush Administration, press reports revealed the corrupt use of U.S. Government grain guarantees to help Saddam Hussein build his war machine before he surprised us by invading Kuwait. When the Justice Department shyly turned away, the need arose for independent counsel to explore "Iraqgate." Bush expected the combined forces of the Shi'ites, Kurds, and democratic opposition, along with potential rivals within the Iraqi establishment, to eventually lead to Saddams downfall. The only way in which he could hold the coalition together was to limit the objective, and besides, the American people were not prepared to occupy Iraq to shore up a successor regime. Bush's expectations were reasonable, and it is still not clear why the regime has continued to this point. One answer is that Saddam had so much built in redundancy in his military establishment that we didn't do nearly as much damage as we thought we had. Another is that there was little preparation or coordination among the opponents of the regime. One can only hope that the years have led to greater planning, and that any new initiatives will not be easily crushed. Message 8284213
