Oil-Slick Jim Moves In

About half of what’s quoted here was removed for brevity, but there still had to be enough left that it would make sense so it’s longer than I would like.

It’s worth going over the work the Butcher of Baghdad did for his Texas patrons when he was their butcher:

  • 1979: Seizes power with U.S. approval; moves allegiance from Soviets to U.S. in Cold War.
  • 1982: Bush-Reagan regime removes Saddam’s regime from official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
  • 1984: U.S. Commerce Department issues license for export of aflatoxin to Iraq useable in biological weapons.
  • 1987-88: U.S. warships destroy Iranian oil platforms in Gulf and break Iranian blockade of Iraq shipping lanes, tipping war advantage back to Saddam.
  • 1990: Invades Kuwait with U.S. permission.

U.S. permission? On July 25, 1990, the dashing dictator met in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie. When Saddam asked Glaspie if the U.S. would object to an attack on Kuwait over the small emirate’s theft of Iraqi oil, the ambassador told him, “We have no opinion…. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction … that Kuwait is not associated with America.” Saddam taped her.

Glaspie, in her 1991 Congressional testimony, did not deny the authenticity of the recording, which diplomats worldwide took as a Bush Sr’s okay to an Iraqi invasion.

So where is Secretary Baker today? … Mr. Baker is a successful lawyer, founder of Baker Botts of Houston, Riyadh, Kazakhstan. Among his glittering client roster is Exxon-Mobil oil and the defense minister of Saudi Arabia. Baker’s firm is protecting the Saudi royal from a lawsuit by the families of the victims of September 11 over evidence suggesting that Saudi money ended up in the pockets of the terrorists.

And Baker has just opened a new office … at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This is a White House first: the first time a lobbyist for the oil industry will have a desk right next to the President’s. Baker’s job, to “restructure” Iraq’s debt. How lucky for his clients in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom claims $30.7 billion due from Iraq.

Should be newsworthy that the U.S. essentially gave permission for Iraq to attack, and then used its doing so as an excuse to attack Iraq, don’t you think?

The full article is an excerpt from the new edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.