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1/28/2012 How I woke up to the untruths of Barack Obama: The President's State of the Union address was as weaselly as any politician's could be.
When I happened to wake up in the middle of the night last Wednesday and caught the BBC World Service’s live relay of President Obama’s State of the Union address to Congress, two passages had me rubbing my eyes in disbelief. The first came when, to applause, the President spoke about the banking crash which coincided with his barnstorming 2008 election campaign. “The house of cards collapsed,” he recalled. “We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them.” He excoriated the banks which had “made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money”, while “regulators looked the other way and didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behaviour”. This, said Obama, “was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work.” I recalled a piece I wrote in this column on January 29, 2009, just after Obama took office. It was headlined: “This is the sub-prime house that Barack Obama built”. As a rising young Chicago politician in 1995, no one campaigned more actively than Mr Obama for an amendment to the US Community Reinvestment Act, legally requiring banks to lend huge sums to millions of poor, mainly black Americans, guaranteed by the two giant mortgage associations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was this Act, above all, which let the US housing bubble blow up, far beyond the point where it was obvious that hundreds of thousands of homeowners would be likely to default. Yet, in 2005, no one more actively opposed moves to halt these reckless guarantees than Senator Obama, who received more donations from Fannie Mae than any other US politician (although Senator Hillary Clinton ran him close). (London Telegraph)
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posted: 1/29/12                   0       7
#1 
keywords: Alternative Energy, BBC, Baghdad, Barack Obama, Big Oil, Camp Ashraf, Camp Liberty, Carbon Dioxide, Chicago, Climate Change, David Phillips, European Council, Fannie Mae, Financial Crisis, Freddie Mac, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Igor Judge, Iran, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Iraq, Martin Kolber, Military, National Council For Resistance IN Iran, Natural Gas, Nouri Al-maliki, People's Mujahideen Of Iran, Real Estate, Residential Mortgage-backed Securities, Rudy Giuliani, Tehran, Terrorists, US Congress, US Department Of State, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, Wall Street, White House, Wind Turbines Add New Keyword To Link



12/14/2010 Berkeley votes on naming Bradley Manning a hero
Berkeley City Council will today vote on whether to name the US Army private suspected of leaking military secrets to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning, a hero. The resolution, from the city's Peace and Justice Commission, describes the military's treatment of Manning as unjust, and calls on the city to press the military for his release. It cites Marjorie Cohn, professor of International Human Rights Law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, as saying: "If Manning did what he is suspected of doing, he should be honored as an American hero for exposing war crimes and, hopefully, ultimately, helping to end this war." (TG Daily)
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posted: 12/23/10                   0       9
#2 



8/31/2010 Worries about US data on Iraqis: Privacy advocates, those scanned fear misuse if files shared
Over the past seven years, US soldiers in Iraq have used sweeping wartime powers to collect fingerprints, iris scans, and even DNA from ordinary people and suspected insurgents, an effort that has helped the Pentagon amass one of the world’s most comprehensive databases of biometric information collected during a war. As the war draws down, however, the collection of so much personal information has raised questions about how data gathered during wartime should be used during times of peace, and with whom that information should be shared.

Nearly 7 percent of Iraq’s 29 million people are cataloged — their names, facial scans, and often other details about them, such as whether they were considered a friend or foe. Now, US officials are debating about how much of the powerful data should be shared with Iraq and how much Iraq’s own troubled security forces should be encouraged to continue collecting information. Some Iraqis fear that the transfer of data to their government could create a “hit list’’ of Iraqis who worked with the US military or a tool for settling ethnic or sectarian scores. “Those people, they trusted the US government and worked with them,’’ said Naseer Nouri, 52, who helps run an organization to assist Iraqi refugees in adjusting to life in the United States.

Today, the Pentagon’s database, which is kept separate from the FBI files, contains information on some 4 million people from around the world, about 40 percent of whom are Iraqis. Officials would not divulge from where the rest of the information was gathered. US forces started collecting fingerprints in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, as part of interrogations of agents of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The US military also helped computerize Iraq’s fingerprint files from Hussein’s era. US soldiers reportedly collected fingerprints and DNA samples from 80,000 detainees in their custody. (It is not clear how those samples have been used.) (Boston Globe)
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posted: 10/6/10                   0       3
#3 



7/26/2010 NYT defends publishing leaked military records
The White House condemned Sunday night's leak of more than 90,000 secret military records covering the Afghanistan War by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts secret documents online. National Security Adviser Jim Jones, in a statement, said “the United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security.”

Baquet, along with reporters Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, went to the White House last week to discuss what they planned on publishing. (Politico’s Glenn Thrush first reported on aspects of the meeting, but did not speak with Baquet.) “I did in fact go the White House and lay out for them what we had,” Baquet said. “We did it to give them the opportunity to comment and react. They did. They also praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible.” Jones said that WikiLeaks, unlike the Times, did not contact the U.S. government first. That's not too surprising, given the recent friction between WikiLeaks and the military. In April, WikiLeaks posted a classified video of a U.S. attack in Baghdad that killed several civilians and Reuters employees. (Yahoo)
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posted: 7/27/10                   0       8
#4 



3/10/2010 Synergy in Security: The Rise of the National Security Complex
In his January 17, 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautioned: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” Five decades later, this complex, which Eisenhower defined as the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry,” is no longer new. And while Eisenhower’s warning is still pertinent, the scale, scope, and substance of the complex have changed in alarming ways. It has morphed into a new type of public-private partnership—one that spans military, intelligence, and homeland-security contracting, and might be better called a “national security complex.”

 (Dollars and Sense)
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posted: 10/13/10                   0       2
#5 



12/19/2009 U.S. Companies Shut Out as Iraq Auctions Its Oil Fields
Those who claim that the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to get control of the country's giant oil reserves will be left scratching their heads by the results of last weekend's auction of Iraqi oil contracts: Not a single U.S. company secured a deal in the auction of contracts that will shape the Iraqi oil industry for the next couple of decades. Two of the most lucrative of the multi-billion-dollar oil contracts went to two countries which bitterly opposed the U.S. invasion — Russia and China — while even Total Oil of France, which led the charge to deny international approval for the war at the U.N. Security Council in 2003, won a bigger stake than the Americans in the most recent auction. "[The distribution of oil contracts] certainly answers the theory that the war was for the benefit of big U.S. oil interests," says Alex Munton, Middle East oil analyst for the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, whose clients include major U.S. companies. "That has not been demonstrated by what has happened this week." (Read "The Reasons Behind Big Oil Declining Iraq's Riches") In one of the biggest auctions held anywhere in the 150-year history of the oil industry, executives from across the world flew into Baghdad on Dec. 11 for a two-day, red-carpet ceremony at the Oil Ministry, broadcast live in Iraq. With U.S. military helicopters hovering overhead to help ward off a possible insurgent attack, Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahrastani unsealed envelopes from each company, stating how much oil it would produce, and what it was willing to accept in payment from Iraq's government. Rather than giving foreign oil companies control over Iraqi reserves, as the U.S. had hoped to do with the Oil Law it failed to get the Iraqi parliament to pass, the oil companies were awarded service contracts lasting 20 years for seven of the 10 oil fields on offer — the oil will remain the property of the Iraqi state, and the foreign companies will pump it for a fixed price per barrel. (Time Magazine)
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posted: 9/14/11                   0       1
#6 
keywords: Alex Munton, Baghdad, Big Oil, British Petroleum, Canada, China, Chinese National Petroleum Company, Christophe De Margerie, Cnpc, Exxon Mobil, France, Hussein Al-shahrastani, Ihs Global Insight, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lukoil, Malaysia, Middle East, Occidental Petroleum Corp, Petronas, Royal Dutch Shell, Russia, Samuel Ciszuk, Saudi Arabia, Total Oil, UN Security Council, United Kingdom, United States, Wood Mackenzie, Yves-louis Darricarrére Add New Keyword To Link



6/30/2009 Iraq regains control of cities as U.S. pulls back
"Our incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops is the most serious legacy we have inherited (from Saddam). Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake." (Reuters)
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posted: 7/1/09                   1       15
#7 



6/30/2009 US troops to quit Iraq cities
The Iraqi government declared the day a national holiday but soldiers and police were out in force to prevent insurgent groups spoiling the party as Iraqi forces took sole charge of security in cities, towns and villages for the first time since the 2003 invasion (Agence France-Presse)
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posted: 7/2/09                   0       11
#8 



6/15/2009 Laser-Related Eye Injuries Rising Fast
The lasers, also called "dazzlers," put out a green light that looks a bit like a sniper rifle laser. They allow soldiers to get the attention of Iraqi drivers. (Military.com)
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posted: 6/16/09                   1       23
#9 



6/10/2009 A Drug War Truce? Obama's new drug czar says the administration won't legalize pot
but pressure for real reform is growing (Rolling Stone)
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posted: 6/18/09                   4       19
#10 



5/14/2009 Don't listen to me on torture, listen to this Republican military dude
"its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida" says Lawrence Wilkerson (Philadelphia Daily News)
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posted: 5/15/09                   4       34
#11 



1/1/2009 Top 25 of 2009: # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
Leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been meeting to secretly expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with “deep integration” of a more militarized tri-national Homeland Security force. Taking shape under the radar of the respective governments and without public knowledge or consideration, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)—headquartered in Washington—aims to integrate the three nations into a single political, economic, and security bloc. The SPP was launched at a meeting of Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, and Prime Minister Paul Martin, in Waco, Texas, on March 31, 2005. The official US web page describes the SPP as “. . . a White House-led initiative among the United States and Canada and Mexico to increase security and to enhance prosperity . . .” The SPP is not a law, or a treaty, or even a signed agreement. All these would require public debate and participation of Congress. The SPP was born in the “war on terror” era and reflects an inordinate emphasis on US security as interpreted by the Department of Homeland Security. Its accords mandate border actions, military and police training, modernization of equipment, and adoption of new technologies, all under the logic of the US counter-terrorism campaign. Head of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Finance Carlos Gutierrez, are the three officials charged with attending SPP ministerial conferences. (Project Censored)
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posted: 11/9/10                   0       1
#12 



3/7/2008 'Hillary Clinton's a monster': Obama aide blurts out attack in Scotsman interview
Mr Goolsbee, Mr Obama's top economic policy adviser, had told Canadian officials a public pledge to force a renegotiation of Nafta with tougher labour and environmental rules was "more about political positioning". But the Clinton camp said Mr Obama could not tell the public of Ohio, where many manufacturing jobs have been lost, one thing and then tell a foreign government something else behind closed doors. (The Scotsman)
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posted: 6/4/10                   0       7
#13 



1/30/2008 9/11 Commission controversy
The analysis shows that much of what was reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks on New York and Washington was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al-Qaida operatives. Each had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques." (MSNBC)
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posted: 5/15/09       4       25
#14 
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1/11/2008 Many Baghdad Residents See Snow for the First Time
Perhaps more significant, however, was the rare ripple of delight through a city snarled by army checkpoints, divided by concrete walls and ravaged by sectarian killings (FOX)
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posted: 7/20/09                   0       7
#15 



10/1/2007 GQ Icon: Colin Powell He was pushed aside in the run-up to war, but as he tells Walter Isaacson, he, too, bears some of the blame
"Yes, there are a few dangerous nuts in Brooklyn and New Jersey who want to blow up Kennedy Airport and Fort Dix. These are dangerous criminals, and we must deal with them. But come on, this is not a threat to our survival! The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it to ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex." (GQ)
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posted: 5/5/10                   0       4
#16 



9/26/2007 Gary Hart: Unsolicited Advice to the Government of Iran
Presuming that you are not actually ignorant enough to desire war with the United States, you might be well advised to read the history of the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor in 1898 and the history of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. Having done so, you will surely recognize that Americans are reluctant to go to war unless attacked. Until Pearl Harbor, we were even reluctant to get involved in World War II. For historians of American wars the question is whether we provoke provocations. Given the unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, you are obviously thinking the rules have changed. Provocation is no longer required to take America to war. But even in this instance, we were led to believe that the mass murderer of American civilians, Osama bin Laden, was lurking, literally or figuratively, in the vicinity of Baghdad. (Huffington Post)
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posted: 9/24/10                   0       2
#17 



7/1/2007 Ex-CIA Man Exposes Hysteria Of Car "Bomb" Terror: London car bombs would not have killed anyone, government using terrorist tactics by hyping fear to morph society
(Prison Planet)
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posted: 11/28/10                   0       1
#18 



4/20/2007 Millions in Iraq to get MMR jab -- A major immunisation campaign is to take place in Iraq in a bid to prevent an outbreak of measles.
The World Health Organization and Unicef are overseeing the work of 8,000 volunteers who aim to give up to 3.9 million children the MMR vaccine. The children, aged one to five, have missed out on their routine jabs because of the instability in Iraq. Health experts warn measles could kill up to 10% of infected children if an epidemic took hold. While measles in countries like the UK is often perceived as a relatively harmless childhood illness, it kills more worldwide each year than any other disease which can be prevented by vaccination. Iraq's Ministry of Health is organising the two-week MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) immunisation campaign, which is also being funded by the European Commission. (BBC)
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posted: 9/19/11                   0       0
#19 
keywords: Anbar, Baghdad, Diyala, Epidemic, European Commission, Iraq, Iraqi Ministry Of Health, Mmr, Naeema Al-ghasser, Roger Wright, Unicef, United States, Vaccines, World Health Organization Add New Keyword To Link



5/6/2006 Rumsfeld Protester Injured, Gives Insider Account
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern questioned Rumsfeld at length during the unusual public question and answer session. McGovern asked Rumsfeld why he lied to the American people about weapons of mass destruction and Rumsfeld said he didn’t lie, CNN clips show. “Well, if he’s saying that he’s a psychopath, that he doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies, then I don’t know what to think of that. If he tells a lie and he thinks it’s the truth. Does he not know they difference between a lie and the truth?” Tatum remarked. (Atlanta Progressive News)
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posted: 5/15/09                   3       25
#20 



10/23/2005 Natural Disasters and the Militarization of America
Both the Avian Flu threat, which has taken on a political twist, and the hurricane disasters are being used by the Bush White House to justify a greater role for the Military in the country's civilian affairs (Global Research)
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posted: 8/1/09                   0       10
#21 



5/1/2005 The secret Downing Street memo
We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. (London Times)
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posted: 7/3/09                   0       9
#22 



10/17/2004 Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that ''if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.'' The nature of that conflict, as Bartlett sees it? Essentially, the same as the one raging across much of the world: a battle between modernists and fundamentalists, pragmatists and true believers, reason and religion. ''Just in the past few months,'' Bartlett said, ''I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do.'' Bartlett, a 53-year-old columnist and self-described libertarian Republican who has lately been a champion for traditional Republicans concerned about Bush's governance, went on to say: ''This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them. . . . ''This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts,'' Bartlett went on to say. ''He truly believes he's on a mission from God. Absolute faith like that overwhelms a need for analysis. The whole thing about faith is to believe things for which there is no empirical evidence.'' Bartlett paused, then said, ''But you can't run the world on faith.'' Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?''' (New York Times)
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posted: 4/3/11                   0       1
#23 



6/17/2004 The Ties That Blind: How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons
On August 18, 2002, the New York Times carried a front-page story headlined, "Officers say U.S. aided Iraq despite the use of gas". Quoting anonymous US "senior military officers", the NYT "revealed" that in the 1980s, the administration of US President Ronald Reagan covertly provided "critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war". The story made a brief splash in the international media, then died. While the August 18 NYT article added new details about the extent of US military collaboration with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran, it omitted the most outrageous aspect of the scandal: not only did Ronald Reagan's Washington turn a blind-eye to the Hussein regime's repeated use of chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and Iraq's Kurdish minority, but the US helped Iraq develop its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. Nor did the NYT dwell on the extreme cynicism and hypocrisy of President George Bush II's administration's citing of those same terrible atrocities--which were disregarded at the time by Washington--and those same weapons programs--which no longer exist, having been dismantled and destroyed in the decade following the 1991 Gulf War--to justify a massive new war against the people of Iraq. A reader of the NYT article (or the tens of thousands of other articles written after the war drive against Iraq began in earnest soon after September 11, 2001) would have looked in vain for the fact that many of the US politicians and ruling class pundits who demanded war against Hussein--in particular, the one of the most bellicose of the Bush administration's "hawks", defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld--were up to their ears in Washington's efforts to cultivate, promote and excuse Hussein in the past.

"The US spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted... US export control policy was directed by US foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was US foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein." -William Blum (Counter Punch)
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posted: 7/29/10                   0       4
#24 



6/6/2003 Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense? (FindLaw's Legal Commentary)
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posted: 6/9/09                   1       24
#25 



3/16/2003 Pope issues strong appeal against war
Pope John Paul II, in one of his strongest appeals yet against war, today implored Saddam Hussein to avoid giving the West reason to attack and warned the United Nations Security Council that military intervention could trigger an explosion of extremism (Associated Press)
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posted: 8/7/09                   0       11
#26 



2/25/2003 Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
The Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) was one of a series of crises during an era of upheaval in the Middle East: revolution in Iran, occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by militant students, invasion of the Great Mosque in Mecca by anti-royalist Islamicists, the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, and internecine fighting among Syrians, Israelis, and Palestinians in Lebanon. The war followed months of rising tension between the Iranian Islamic republic and secular nationalist Iraq. In mid-September 1980 Iraq attacked, in the mistaken belief that Iranian political disarray would guarantee a quick victory.

Although official U.S. policy still barred the export of U.S. military equipment to Iraq, some was evidently provided on a "don't ask

don't tell" basis. In April 1984, the Baghdad interests section asked to be kept apprised of Bell Helicopter Textron's negotiations to sell helicopters to Iraq, which were not to be "in any way configured for military use" [Document 55]. The purchaser was the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In December 1982, Bell Textron's Italian subsidiary had informed the U.S. embassy in Rome that it turned down a request from Iraq to militarize recently purchased Hughes helicopters. An allied government, South Korea, informed the State Department that it had received a similar request in June 1983 (when a congressional aide asked in March 1983 whether heavy trucks recently sold to Iraq were intended for military purposes, a State Department official replied "we presumed that this was Iraq's intention, and had not asked.") (National Security Archive)
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posted: 8/1/10                   0       0
#27 



6/27/2002 Is America a Police State?
Mr. Speaker: Most Americans believe we live in dangerous times, and I must agree. Today I want to talk about how I see those dangers and what Congress ought to do about them. Of course, the Monday-morning quarterbacks are now explaining, with political overtones, what we should have done to prevent the 9/11 tragedy. Unfortunately, in doing so, foreign policy changes are never considered. I have, for more than two decades, been severely critical of our post-World War II foreign policy. I have perceived it to be not in our best interest and have believed that it presented a serious danger to our security. For the record, in January of 2000 I stated the following on this floor: Our commercial interests and foreign policy are no longer separate...as bad as it is that average Americans are forced to subsidize such a system, we additionally are placed in greater danger because of our arrogant policy of bombing nations that do not submit to our wishes. This generates hatred directed toward America ...and exposes us to a greater threat of terrorism, since this is the only vehicle our victims can use to retaliate against a powerful military state...the cost in terms of lost liberties and unnecessary exposure to terrorism is difficult to assess, but in time, it will become apparent to all of us that foreign interventionism is of no benefit to American citizens, but instead is a threat to our liberties. (US House of Representatives)
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posted: 9/20/11                   0       0
#28 



1/4/2001 Saddam Hussein profile
Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq for the past two decades, has the dubious distinction of being the world's best known and most hated Arab leader (BBC)
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posted: 6/8/09                   4       21
#29 



4/15/1994 Dick Cheney in 1994 on Iraq (CSPAN)
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posted: 5/17/09      
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#30 



2/23/1992 Bush Secret Effort Helped Iraq Build Its War Machine
Persian Gulf: Documents show that 9 months before Hussein's invasion of Kuwait the President approved $1 billion in aid. Objections from others were suppressed.

In the fall of 1989, at a time when Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was only nine months away and Saddam Hussein was desperate for money to buy arms, President Bush signed a top-secret National Security Decision directive ordering closer ties with Baghdad and opening the way for $1 billion in new aid, according to classified documents and interviews. The $1-billion commitment, in the form of loan guarantees for the purchase of U.S. farm commodities, enabled Hussein to buy needed foodstuffs on credit and to spend his scarce reserves of hard currency on the massive arms buildup that brought war to the Persian Gulf.

Bush's involvement began in the early 1980s as part of the so-called "tilt" toward Iraq initiated by then-President Ronald Reagan to prop up Hussein in his war with Iran. Hussein's survival was seen as vital to U.S. efforts to contain the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and thwart Iran's bid for dominance in the Middle East. Many in the American government, including Presidents Bush and Reagan, also hoped that U.S. aid would gradually cause Hussein to moderate his ways and even play a positive role in the Middle East peace process. But classified records show that Bush's efforts on Hussein's behalf continued well beyond the end of the Iran-Iraq War and persisted in the face of increasingly widespread warnings from inside the American government that the overall policy had become misdirected. Moreover, it appears that instead of merely keeping Hussein afloat as a counterweight to Iran, the U.S. aid program helped him become a dangerous military power in his own right, able to threaten the very U.S. interests that the program originally was designed to protect. (Los Angeles Times)
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posted: 7/29/10                   0       1
#31 




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