Levin raises tough question about Bush
President's credibility at risk
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OUR VIEW
KEY TOPIC: Our Nation
As calls for a full accounting of our reasons for going to war increase, U.S. Sen. Carl Levin's voice may be loudest. While the Bush administration has sought to say as little as possible on the misinformation about pre-war Iraq's alleged nuclear preparations, Levin demands that the White House come clean.
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Levin is raising troubling questions about the devolving evidence President Bush presented to justify the Iraq invasion. Most disturbing is whether Bush deliberately misled the American people and the world about Iraq's quest for uranium.
In a meeting with the Times Herald editorial board last week, Levin said the now infamous "16 words" the president used in his January State of the Union address were deleted from an October speech he made in Ohio. To reappear in the most important speech the president has made to the American people is "more than a mistake," Levin said.
Furthermore, Levin said the Bush administration filed a report with Congress prior to the State of the Union address. The document, he said, included this sentence: "Saddam has not explained why Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Niger."
The White House was uncertain about Iraq's interest in Niger's uranium. Yet, Bush included it in a report to Congress that is required by law.
"Well, how did that get in the report?" Levin asked.
It is a question that goes to the heart of the national debate about Bush's credibility. It is one the president is obligated to address.
The case for the war against Iraq was a mile wide and an inch deep. Bush was determined to invade that nation despite massive protests abroad and within America's borders. The rush to war was premised upon the immediate threat Iraq posed as a manufacturer of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction and as a rogue nation willing to use them against its neighbors and the United States.
The war's results are significantly different than the Bush administration led Americans to believe. Weapons of mass destruction have yet to be uncovered, despite a regime change that gave U.S. and British forces run of the country.
The U.S. occupation of Iraq, once estimated in months, now is indefinite. American units, overdue for rotation, must wait because few U.S. allies are willing to join our effort to restore order to a nation America destabilized. Worse, an Iraqi resistance movement has sprung up, one that threatens to inflict more casualties than U.S. forces suffered during the conventional war.
When Bush insisted Iraq must be invaded, the 16 words he uttered to Congress and the American people demanded a heavy price -- the lives of American and British soldiers and Iraqi citizens. Those words have begun to unravel. The president must answer for them. |
