FIPS two-letter country codes/Talk

Question: What reason does the US government have for using this instead of ISO 3166? Is this just another example of the American insistence on doing everything different from everyone else in the world?

When was FIPS introduced? If it predates ISO 3166 (which first appeared in 1974), then it would be understandable that they didn't want all the work of switching over. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 17