Bush’s Secret Aid for Iraq

Is this James Baker who insists on blocking loan guarantees to Israel--a four-decade ally of the United States--the same James Baker who used political pressure to reverse decisions of the Agriculture Department, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Office of Management and Budget on a $1-billion loan to Saddam Hussein just 15 months before Operation Desert Storm, loans which allowed Hussein to use Iraq’s scarce cash reserves to finance its war machine and nuclear weapons? Can the Bush Administration tell the difference between a friend and an enemy?

DENA SCHULMAN

Canoga Park