Word: preware
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...bungle Iraq, or did he make a decent job of an inherently tortuous situation? Desert Shield and Desert Storm -- the diplomacy of building an anti-Saddam coalition and then routing the Iraqi dictator on the battlefield -- are an acknowledged triumph. The smart bombs of hindsight are aimed instead at prewar diplomacy, where Bush is accused of coddling Saddam despite mounting evidence of his aggressive intentions...
...Cover-Up? Bush critics dub the most controversial parts of prewar Iraq policy "Iraqgate": claims, still unproved, that the Administration has tried to hide the full extent of its tilt toward Iraq by interfering with the prosecution of the Atlanta branch of Italy's Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, which extended more than $4 billion in illegal loans that helped finance Baghdad's purchase of equipment with potential military applications. Officials at the Departments of State, Commerce, Defense and Energy who monitored "dual use" & sales, which amounted to $500 million between 1985 and 1990, knew they were helping Saddam's military...
Bush's basic error was to leave his prewar Iraq policy on autopilot. The Administration had a big investment in its belief that Saddam -- whom Bush called "worse than Hitler" after the invasion -- could be cajoled into better behavior. So the U.S. pulled its diplomatic punches in a way that not only seems like appeasement in retrospect but also struck some as such at the time. If the U.S. had few tools to influence Saddam's prewar behavior, as Bush aides now acknowledge, then perhaps little would have been lost had they just written Iraq off, but Bush...
...will be a strange irony if the sociopath Saddam outlasts Bush, who attempted to sketch the outlines of a new world order in defeating him. That new world will present future Presidents with more dilemmas like prewar Iraq -- Syria and China are current examples -- where the moral costs of engaging with a thuggish regime must be weighed against the practical chances of coaxing it into the concert of nations -- and making a buck in the meantime. Bush's Iraq policy is not a perfect model for future action, but neither is it a perfect example of what to avoid...
...This case is the mother of all cover-ups," Cook thundered. "It is not the truth." Cook, echoing charges by Democrats and critics of the Administration's prewar support of Iraq, portrayed his client as a pawn, a bit player used by the Bush Administration to warm relations with Iraq, only to be discarded when hostilities broke out. Cook presented no evidence to support his theory, other than to claim that his client's confession was forced by government pressure. "It got to where he just couldn't swallow it anymore," the lawyer drawled...