First Stop, Iraq

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Of the 18 signatories, eight now hold senior positions in the Bush Administration. But high office in itself was not enough. If they were to rid the world of Saddam and his weapons, they would have to bring on board one influential conservative whose name wasn't on the letter--who at the time was in thought and deed far removed from the Washington policy village. That person was Dick Cheney, who had good reasons to contest the view that the end of Gulf War I had been mishandled--because he was one of those who ended it.

THE RELUCTANT IMPERIALIST

Of all those responsible for the cease-fire in February 1991, none seemed more comfortable with the decision than Cheney. In many interviews Cheney explained why he opposed marching to Baghdad. If U.S. forces got there, he argued, it would not be clear what they were meant to do. Nor was it evident how a new government would handle divisions among Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds, how long the U.S. would have to stay in Iraq, or what would happen when it left.

Two considerations informed Cheney's view. The first, according to Dave Gribbin, Cheney's closest aide at the Pentagon, was practical. Just a few days after the invasion of Kuwait, Bush had assigned Cheney to win support from Saddam's Arab neighbors. "He was out there early telling the Arab world that the U.S. would come in and do just a couple of things," says Gribbin. "Get Saddam out of Kuwait and dismantle his ability to harm his neighbors. Since he promised that, he stuck with that. To occupy Iraq wasn't in the deal." The second reason--the more interesting one--turned on Cheney's political philosophy. Cheney is from Wyoming, and in 1991 he was pretty much a straight-up-and-down Western conservative, the kind of man who is skeptical of big, expansive government projects--except irrigation for cattle ranges. He was prepared to go to war in the gulf because it was in America's national interest to do so, not for any starry-eyed vision (few men have ever had fewer stars in their eyes) that the U.S., as a kindly imperial power, would bring an era of peace, order and good government to the Middle East. "He's not much for waxing rhapsodic," says Gribbin of his old boss. In fact, when Cheney left government, he gave the impression that he wasn't thinking much about Iraq or Saddam. In 1995 he moved to Texas to serve as CEO of Halliburton, the giant oil-services company. A colleague of Cheney's in both Bush administrations recalled how he would drop by Cheney's office when he visited Texas. "His interest in policy almost disappeared," says the colleague. "He was enjoying being out of it and in the business world."