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While past error is no indication of future action, the Kurds have not forgotten that Secretary of State Colin Powell was then the national security adviser who orchestrated Ronald Reagan's decision to give Hussein a pass for gassing the Kurds. Dick Cheney, then a prominent Republican congressman and now vice president and the Bush administration's leading Iraq hawk, could have helped push the sanctions legislation but did not.
And much of the country hasn't forgotten who was in charge when we let the Iraqi resistance get slaughtered after encouraging them to rise up against Saddam, either.
A responsible administration would stop doing these photo-ops for domestic consumption and propaganda, and start thinking of how to do some photo-ops that might actually please the Iraqis.