
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992                   TAG: 9203180337
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ASK NOMINEES ABOUT FOREIGN AID

I HOPE everyone who subscribes to this paper read the article in the Feb. 23 issue regarding secret aid given Iraq by the Bush administration. Read it if you are at all curious about how the national deficit grew to such a staggering sum.

While our president kept trimming the budget, the deficit kept growing. Why? Misdirected foreign aid is in large part responsible.

In the 1980s, when Iran was considered our enemy as well as Iraq's, we poured billions into Saddam's arsenal. The Reagan-Bush administration believed helping Iraq defeat Iran was just.

But Bush continued financial support after the Iran-Iraq war, after the massacre of thousands of Kurds, and despite the objections of three government agencies. Bush was warned that U.S. aid was being diverted to buy weapons in violation of our laws. These warnings were brushed aside. American taxpayers are now stuck with $2 billion in defaulted loans to Iraq.

When we hear that our government is giving aid to foreign countries, we naive Americans usually think in terms of food and medicine. But while aid to our own people was shrinking, cut by cut, Bush generously handed over billions to a country eager to build nuclear weapons.

In this election year we need to ask our nominees some heavy-duty questions about foreign aid and demand accountability for that policy. We need to show elected officials that we are watching them and will not tolerate secret aid to any country.

ROSEMARY HAWKINS

ROANOKE

by CNB