[Seascamp]

By the way Larry, I worked some projects is Iraq. Most notably three of the base-load power plants in the Baghdad area and the petroleum pipe line going into Turkey. A business British colleague of mine was grabbed up and chained to a turbine generator set during GWI, was brutalized horribly and didn?t live to see Y2K as a result. So I suppose that makes me one of the supposed goons you reference. And by the way you missed virtually all the German and French companies operating in Iraq at the time, every one of them, especially the French National Oil company that was operating the vast majority of the oil fields. But you did hit the American outfit I was contracted to, interesting.

But to make amends and beg forgiveness I also worked on the trans Siberia to Europe petroleum pipe line and on a new industrial complex near a place called Tol?yatti, right on the Volga River. Right and proper Communist, I yam, I yam. That ought to make Gimpy squirt, LOL.

Sir, I beg to differ with you on many of your conclusions but on the other hand there is a grain of truth in some of your findings and this is a debate forum not a history class. Long and short of all that experience was that Iraq was a scary- ass place to work and your assertion that ?We loved? Saddam and his minions is a real nasty slap in the face to us American ex pats out working the world infrastructure and making a living. And I assert that Saddam was a well entrenched totalitarian dictator before we became fellow travelers on a similar path. I further assert that Iraqi forces were about to be routed with absolutely nothing standing between the Islamic Shiite fanatical hordes and the Port of Aden but distance, period. I don?t know that is a reason to introduce WMD, but it was the apparent reason at the time. Oh what a wonderful world.

Keith,
I believe that 20/20 hind sight has a lot of potential for an individual as there is opportunity for a sharp focus and a wide field of vision. However, in terms shuffling things around for the sake of political leveraging or the current hate agenda, it?s more like kids on an Easter egg hunt or burning ants with a magnifying glass. Sure, specific episodes can be taken out of the whole of a story and virtually anything can be made of it. And sure there can be an exercise in connecting the dots to reach some conclusion, whatever that might be. But for my part, I?ll only study the History works of a research scholar that is not directly associated with a US University and preferably not a US Citizen. I think our academic institutions have really screwed the pooch in terms of academic credibility and accuracy when it comes to contemporary US History. Too many cooks with multiple loyalties make for really crummy soup.

Scamp