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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rock_nj who wrote (17103)	4/22/2004 9:25:25 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 81568

Congress should probe beyond nameless sources ________________________ April 22, 2004 One of the benefits of a free society is that citizens, aided by a free press, can examine the workings of their own government. That now is happening as Americans read reports of how the Bush administration took our nation to war in Iraq. Last month saw the publication of former anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies." On Monday another book was released, "Plan of Attack," by Bob Woodward, the Washington Post journalist of Watergate fame. It is based on interviews with 75 Bush administration policymakers, including President Bush. Although the book has been closely guarded, on Sunday evening Woodward was interviewed by CBS's "60 Minutes" program and revealed some key points: The build-up to the war was paid for by funds Congress approved for use in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, the U.S. commander, worked "out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs," Woodward said. "And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the preparations in Kuwait, specifically to make war possible." But, Woodward noted, the Constitution gives only Congress, not the president, the powers to spend money on specific programs. "Congress was totally in the dark on this," Woodward said. On Monday, reported The New York Times, "[T]he White House and the Pentagon said they had kept Congress informed of how they were allocating the money when they were required to." On Dec. 21, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet and his deputy, John McLaughlin, showed the president "their best evidence that Saddam really had weapons of mass destruction," reports Woodward. But the president was skeptical, saying to Tenet, "This is the best we've got?" Tenet replied, "The case, its a slam dunk." Alas, the president went against his own proper doubts and accepted Tenet's assurances. More books and other revelations will be coming out about this war, with books by President Bush, Rice and other top players presumably coming out after their terms in office end. But we can draw some conclusions from the revelations in the Woodward book. The first is that, as we have maintained all along, this was a war of choice, of prevention rather than preemption, that involved the United States in a quagmire that will prove difficult to get out of. The second is that Powell, or some other top administration official, should have blown the whistle on the administration's highly questionable war plans and the administration's circumvention of the Constitution in the early funding for the war. The third is that Congress needs to investigate thoroughly what happened. The American people deserve more than anonymous sources to tell us how we were led into this costly and deadly morass. kinston.com