Bush Sr. Has Questions To Answer On Iraq
Helen Thomas
Dear Mr. President:
I can understand your emotional defense of your son when you spoke to the Petrochemical and Refiners Association in San Antonio last week.
You referred to the hurt you feel when you think the current President Bush has been criticized unfairly by the news media.
You told the oil executives that you found it "deeply offensive and contemptible" to hear "elites and intellectuals on the campaign trail" dismiss progress in Iraq since last year's overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Well, the "progress" you speak of is not too apparent right now, with thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans dead and thousands wounded on both sides. And there's no end in sight.
Although you called the advances made in Iraq "a miracle," the daily headlines about the war in Iraq speak more of heartaches than miracles.
I think you will find there is a multitude of Americans -- not just some pundits -- who also feel that the price of your son's "war of choice" is too high.
On that point, check out the new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It shows that only 40 percent of Americans approve of the way your son is handling Iraq. In January, 59 percent approved.
You said there was "something ignorant in the way they dismiss the overthrow of a brutal dictator and the sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that troubled part of the world."
But Mr. President, you served as a professional public servant long enough to know that criticism goes with the turf -- especially during an unpopular war.
The question is this: Why does the 2003 "shock and awe" invasion of Baghdad all make sense to you now -- but you decided back in 1991 not to carry the first Gulf war deep into Iraq after Kuwait had been liberated?
Back then, you made it quite clear that the human cost of invading would be devastating if American troops would fall into a Vietnam-style quagmire in Iraq.
Furthermore, you made sure that the United States had the support of the global community before attacking the Iraqi occupiers of Kuwait.
You talked 28 nations into joining the U.S.-led coalition. And you knew that if you had tried to go beyond your mandate and evict Saddam, the coalition would break up.
In your San Antonio speech, you said: "Iraq is moving forward in hope and not sliding back into despair and terrorism."
Perhaps you are unaware that even the president has conceded that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and the Osmana bin Laden terrorists.
Of course, outsiders have flocked to Iraq since the U.S. occupation to help the Iraqi resistance oppose yet one more Western occupation of a nation whose civilization goes back 5,000 years.
Not only was there no connection between Saddam and bin Laden but you obviously know by now that the president's claim that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction also turned out to be wrong.
And, of course, the administration's claim that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States also has turned out to be an empty scare-tactic.
Do you think we should forget the fiction that took us into the Middle East conflagration and drift along with the conventional wisdom that we now have to stay in Iraq simply because we are there?
Did it disturb you to have your son thumb his nose at the United Nations, where you once served with grace as the U.S. representative? (The president has since learned the relevance of the world body.)
Your advice to your son throughout this ordeal has been private. But I wonder whether you cautioned him against taking the nation to war to avenge you after Saddam reportedly targeted you for assassination back in 1993.
Is that why we are in a war with Iraq? Some people think so. Or did we covet Iraq's vast oil reserves. Or did we go to war to satisfy the geopolitical ambitions of the president's hawk advisers who are intent on empire building in the Middle East?
Right now the administration is running on empty when it comes to explaining why we are in Iraq. I wonder what justification the White House will come up with to justify continuing the carnage.
Sincerely,
Helen Thomas
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