It is truly amazing - not to mention alarming - how many crucial figures from the Reagan era illegal arms/oil trade with Iran and Iraq (and coverup thereof) continue to receive appointments to crucial positions in this administration's defense, intelligence and foreign policy establishment.

There's Cheney himself, of course, in addition to Gates, Silberman, Baker, Rumdumb, Hamilton, Abrams, Pipes, Poindexter... if I wracked by memory I could remember some more, leaving aside the unofficial administration helpers who led the cheerleading for the Iraq invasion from think tanks or media perches, like Ledeen, Woolsey, Gaffney, Stephen Emerson, Ollie.

It seems that Bush/Cheney need to have functionaries who know the score and how the Iranian game is played without having to be told.

Having gently wracked my memory I came up with one really intriguing Iran arms participant picked by Bush; Colin Powell, the General officer who in 1985 authorized the secret transfer of 4000 TOW missile systems from US Army stockpiles to the CIA for further transferral to Iran. The hobbled Iran-Contra investigations let Powell (and many others) off the hook, but he would have been a very incurious general indeed not to find out the destination of so many advanced and extremely flexible US missile systems.