What US policy initative changed in 12 years?

Submitted by Eldred V. Harris, JD.


In April 1991, after the Gulf War, Dick Cheney, then G.H.W. Bush's secretary of defense, explained why his administration did not continue into Iraq to remove Hussein:

"Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there....How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the U.S. military when it's there?...I think to have American military engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit the definition of a quagmire, and we have absolutely no desire to get bogged down in that fashion."

Quoted by Atonia Juhasz in The Bush Agenda,, p. 174.


So What US policy imitative could've changed so much in in 13 years?
Was it:

• That we could no longer keep GM, Ford etc., on artificially, large SUV, life support by maintaining $1.50 gas for an additional 15 years?

• That we trust the Saudis so little, that we needed to be within spitting range to spy on their new conversations with China?

• That we really would just like to rename Iraq - Exxon, and Iran - Mobil, and create the worlds first two "corporate states" and be done with it?

• That we were running out of fake reasons and strong-arm tactics to continue to force others around the globe to accept our Midwestern farmer's corn, so we created a fake need for expansion of corn based fuel products right here in the US?