WASHINGTON: Suddenly, the tide has appeared to turn in the internal US administration’s debate about whether to launch a pre- emptive strike against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Not coincidentally, since some of the same people are involved, present and former captains of US industry have lost their immunity from criticism in the wake of the growing corporate scandals in the United States.

The two trends converge in the case of US Vice President Dick Cheney, who appears to be one of the intellectual engines behind the administration’s policy on Iraq, as well as being one of the once- revered wealthy businessmen who represented the widely held concept that wealth rightly comes to those who are intelligent enough to earn it.

Cheney, who retired with some 20 million dollars as the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Halliburton Corp. to return to politics, was also a former defence chief, thus giving him the credentials needed to gain the ear and the respect of President George W. Bush.

But now it appears that his career at Halliburton was flawed by a major mistake that could cost the company huge amounts of cash and possibly its existence. As CEO, Cheney engineered the takeover of a company, Dresser Industries, that is a minefield of liability claims from former employees and other people who have suffered from breathing asbestos used by the company.

Documents that have surfaced suggest that there was ample information about the financial situation available to Cheney as CEO and that he should have been aware of the danger at that time. But he went ahead with the merger anyway.

He now refuses to respond to questions about the affair, leading the New York Times to say, in an editorial, that Cheney’s value “is tipping from positive to negative.”

That fall from grace in business terms comes at the same time that the Iraqi planning operation, which Cheney is helping to run, has run into flak from an unexpected source, former officials, such as Henry Kissinger and Lawrence Eagleburger, both of whom served as secretaries of state in previous Republican administrations.

They suggest that the plans for war against Iraq are inadequate or badly flawed, the equivalent of a botched corporate takeover. Their public criticism says that the Iraqi operation does not consider the risking of American alliances with European and Middle Eastern states, nor the enormous complexities of trying to run a shattered country that is now tightly controlled by a brutal dictatorship.

The public criticism has been taken up by influential members of Congress, who complain that they have not been informed or consulted, as they should be under the American constitution. As a consequence, they warn, they would oppose an attack on Iraq, and could block financing the military effort.

Brent Scowcroft, a former National Security Advisor to the earlier President George H.W. Bush, makes a telling point when he suggests that an Iraqi invasion by the United States would shatter the anti- terror coalition that the current president has ambitiously assembled.

Some of this is the normal process of partisan politics. But it appears that Vice President Dick Cheney — and the right-wing branch of the Republican party that he represents — is seen by opponents as the spot in the administration that is most vulnerable to attack. This does not suggest a bright future for Cheney.—Dawn / dpa