Regarding the Thursday letter, “Thank Bush for preventing disaster”: The writer is mistaken to offer thanks to President Bush for protecting us from Saddam Hussein. We were never threatened by Saddam. Mr. Bush’s war has put us at great risk from those, including al-Qaida, who do threaten us.
The biological weapons Saddam used against his own people in 1988 were provided to him by Ronald Reagan and George Bush the First, who also defended him against UN criticism for his crimes (for details, see chapter 8 of “A Problem from Hell” by Samantha Powers).
The head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, admitted to Congress in January 2004 that “we were all wrong” about Saddam’s WMD. Mr. Kay was one of the war’s biggest cheerleaders, but he could not bring himself to lie after the fact. The alleged “mobile biological weapons labs” were actually used to make hydrogen for weather balloons.
So much for the lies that got us into Iraq. As for the consequences, the CIA itself has reported, as recently as last summer, that the Iraq war is inspiring and training new recruits for terrorist groups, thus putting the U.S. (and the rest of the world!) at greater risk than if we had left Saddam alone.
Saddam had nothing to do with the criminal attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Those acts of mass murder left millions of us, including me, with deep and painful wounds that ache to this day. It also seems to have caused many Americans to turn off their common sense. Rather than use her own brain, the writer is letting George Bush’s spin machine do her thinking for her. And anyone who tries to enlighten her is written off as a “Bush-hater.”
What a shame.
Sandy Thompson
Everett
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