Letter: Government may have brought terror to U.S.

Thursday, April 3, 2003 | 9:15 a.m.

At the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, the first Bush administration began a program, which the Clinton administration continued, to resettle thousands of Iraqi POWs in the United States at taxpayers expense.

Many or even most of the estimated 300,000 Iraqi-Americans and resident aliens are law-abiding people who fled Saddam's brutal reign, which U.N. sanctions have exacerbated by targeting the civilian population while leaving the dictator unmolested. It is reasonable to believe, however, that Saddam's intelligence apparatus seeded that population with terrorists as a way of retaliating against the U.S., should the Gulf War resume.

In fact, we know for certain that the Iraqi refugee population contains highly trained assets of the Iraqi military, including the vaunted Republican Guard. We know this because Washington brought them here.

If, God forbid, another incident of mass terrorism decimates an American city, it will likely be the handiwork of enemies brought within our gates -- and perversely protected -- by our own government.

FRANK M. PELTESON

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