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Bush's deceptions thrust nation into needless war

Bush's deceptions thrust nation into needless war

Date published: 7/11/2003

The only travesty greater than allowing President Bush to launch a war against Iraq is allowing him to go unchallenged now that his reasons for war are shown to be groundless. I believe that single-source information, not intelligence, was twisted to support the president's position, that reality was dismissed when it didn't support the president's position, and that the president was fully cognizant of this.

The president insisted Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. The facts are that Iraq was economically devastated, its military was a shadow of the force we readily defeated in 1991, the United States controlled Iraqi airspace, and the United States had forces surrounding Iraq. Iraq did not pose an economic or military threat.

The president contended Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and a WMD program. In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq's only nuclear facility. By the time U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the inventory of Iraqi Scuds and chemical and biological munitions had been destroyed.

WMD were not found by the inspectors, and have not been found by U.S. forces.

So, where are the Iraqi WMD that posed such a threat? Were they removed from the country or destroyed during the war? If you believe either, I have some beautiful beachfront property in central Arizona I'll sell you.

Let's not forget that the international community rejected President Bush's rationale for war. It would be ludicrous to believe they did so out of greedy economic concerns or were soft on terrorism. They did so because they realized President Bush's basis for war was a work of fiction.

And let's also remember that the president sold this as a pre-emptive war. Basing a war on anything less than irrefutable intelligence is nothing short of criminal, yet President Bush did exactly that, and no amount of attempting to justify this war by saying we got rid of a tyrant will change the facts.

We are now more than 200 dead U.S. service personnel into a war that was not necessary and that was based on lies and disinformation. We have paid and will continue to pay a price in national treasure for allowing President Bush to have his war.

God bless our troops and God bless the U.S.A. We live in perilous times, with much of that peril being created by our national leadership.

Bob Straight

Stafford

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Date published: 7/11/2003