Required Reading:The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf. Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark describes the history of the US using Saddam Hussein as an excuse for increasing US presence and control in the Middle East, a process which obviously continues to this day. He shows how at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war (for which we armed both sides), the US immediately abandoned support for Iraq and Saddam and did everything possible to further impoverish the war-torn country. He shows how the Kuwaiti royal family was encouraged to provoke Saddam through land and oil grabs until Iraq, with apparent US acquiescence, invaded Kuwait. Within weeks, Saddam was "worse than Hitler" and the Bush I administration ignored all efforts to negotiate a solution. I haven't finished the book yet, but I think it is a real eye-opener for anyone who thinks that there was any real justification for Gulf War I.