WAR ON IRAK

Observer: Deep roots of Bush's hatred for Saddam

The determination in Washington to confront Saddam goes back more than a decade. The men who are now President Bush's key advisers have long advocated regime change in Iraq. This is how their beliefs became the driving force behind the administration

Sunday March 16, 2003
The Observer

Twelve years ago, in the aftermath of the first Gulf war, the two men who would become the key players in driving the US towards a second war against Iraq sat down to collect their thoughts. They were Dick Cheney, now Vice-President of the United States, and Paul Wolfowitz, presently Deputy Secretary for Defence.
What they wrote would form the basis of US policy today. Serving as Secretary of Defence, Cheney was even then a political veteran. He had been chief of staff to President Gerald Ford, and a friend of George Bush Snr for 20 years, a quiet mover in the shadows who knew the mechanics of Washington and almost everyone in the capital as well as anyone. Wolfowitz was a more mercurial, less conventional figure.