Nope, there was no Iraqi nuclear weapons program under Saddam....

JohnSSC wrote: Ah yes, when in doubt, blame Carter! Except it was the USA who had the perfectly legitimate ruler of Iran "removed" and the Shah put in his place in the first place - I think that was Eisenhower (Dulles & Co.). The Middle East was not invented 30 years ago kids. The West has been screwing with it since the turn of the century. Remarkably, our interests there coincided with the discovery of oil... The problem with not learning from the past is that we are doomed to repeat it...

Credit was given to both the president AND congress. Then as now, it takes co-operation from both to accomplish the good and the bad.

However, I have little remorse in letting Carter get the recognition he deserves for the success(es) his term as a "change" nominee actually delivered.

The West has been messing with the Middle East long, long before oil was used as a fuel source. Think "Crusades" and a little ditty performed by the Marine Corps band that make a reference to a place named Tripoli.

The Halls of Montezuma refers to a land battle of the Mexican-American War. Texas had seceded from Mexico in 1836 and declared themselves an independent republic, even fought a war to secure their independence. Texas was annexed by the US in 1846, the Mexican government said they couldn't do that and so initiated military action against the US.

The Tripoli reference is to the US Marines ending piracy of American ships (see The First Barbary War http://www.mariner.org/usnavy/06/06a.htm ). Hmmm, I think that might fall under the heading of 'defense of American interests against state sponsored terrorism.' It also long predates the discovery of oil in the Mideast.

Interesting sidebar: at the time, the Barbary countries claimed that the Koran gave them the right to plunder the ships etc of non believers. Some things never change.

Iraq was cobbled together after WWI by the British. They also forced the creation of Israel after WWII. So it could be argued that we are cleaning up the remains of Britain's imperial messes.

Stupid beef eaters.