Word: saddamism
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...proposed putting Iraq back on the terrorist list. Officials prepared to tighten export controls and canceled another $500 million in commodity export credits because the Iraqi program was tainted by fraud. But Baghdad was still repaying its loans, and senior officials figured any harsh sanctions would only intensify Saddam's paranoia about U.S. intentions. Just days before the invasion, Bush continued to oppose restrictions proposed by Congress...
...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 buildup but grew uneasy at signs that some U.S. devices were making their way into Saddam's nuclear and missile programs. Bush's policy of favoring Iraq persuaded them to resolve some cases in Baghdad's favor...
...this, Bush aides say: the policy didn't work, but we were right to try it. Says a senior Bush adviser: "We asked ourselves not whether Saddam was a wonderful human being but whether by sticks and carrots we could encourage him to take a more moderate course." The pro-Baghdad stance, the aides insist, "was a very limited exploration" strongly advocated by other Arab states and U.S. allies...
Administration officials say there was little they would have done differently. The U.S. was giving Iraq agricultural export credits that helped American farmers. Saddam's Arab neighbors and many European countries were advising Washington to be nice to Iraq and would have resisted, out of fear or Arab solidarity, any drive toward containment. The U.S. did not sell arms directly to Iraq. The dual-use equipment sold by the U.S. was not cutting-edge technology but rather more generic items and processes that could have been bought in 10 other countries...
Responding to Perot's broadside in the debate, Bush declared that "there hasn't been one single scintilla of evidence that there's any U.S. technology involved" in Saddam's nuclear program. In fact, as Bush later admitted, U.N. inspectors found advanced American products in Iraqi nuclear-weapons labs, purchased with proper export licenses. "Our own records show U.S. computers went to virtually every known nuclear and ballistic missile site," says Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington. But it is also true that much more dual-use equipment -- and military weapons -- came from...