Sen. Warner’s Call for Hearings on Iraq War

Re “Congress’ Turn on Iraq” (editorial, June 3) and Sen. John Warner’s (R-Va.) call for hearings: Warner appeared on numerous news shows advocating and insisting on invasion of Iraq, and he now wants hearings to determine if the intelligence was manipulated or flawed? The answer is behind door No. 3. It was shoved down the throats of the American people, who were accused of being “unpatriotic” for saying what any peasant out there could see ... that is, the emperor has no clothes.

Warner was a big player in selling this invasion to the American people and should not continue to add insult to injury by pretending that he was duped. He knows the robes of the emperor are spun from air. Unfortunately, the hatred of America is not. To borrow from a now infamous phrase, it’s the foreign policy, stupid!

Georgia L. Uremovic

Fresno

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I agree with Robert Scheer (Commentary, June 3) that President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld misled the American people on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. And now, in Bush’s new era of preemptive strikes, going to war on the basis of a lie makes us the most dangerous country in the eyes of the world. Countries now fear they will be invaded no matter what the truth may be. That puts Americans in greater peril. Bush has made us the monster that the world must unite against. Even if we do find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, no one will believe they were not planted there by us ... all because Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld lied. Bush is not a moral, ethical leader, or even wise. He is the boy who cried wolf and our safety is more at risk.

Arlene Williams

Sparks, Nev.

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Scheer is on a personal mission to confront the Bush administration about the need to go to war in Iraq. That is a reasonable debate. However, to suggest, as do many others, that the Bush administration lied because no weapons of mass destruction have been found is a very “slippery slope” argument.

One could then suggest that the Bush administration must also be lying about Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. After all, we have not found them. Hussein should be much easier to find than WMD. Maybe these things take longer than we anticipate. It took seven-plus years to find Eric Robert Rudolph, and the FBI had been looking for him since the Atlanta Olympic bombing in 1996. The truth will be told in due time. Scheer should not “anticipate” the truth, based on his intense dislike of the Bush administration.

Roy A. Fassel

Los Angeles

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If Iraq’s WMD are not soon uncovered in Iraq or neighboring countries, can someone answer a simple question? Why didn’t Hussein freely allow unlimited inspections to United Nations inspectors over all the years they were requested rather than allow his country to go up in smoke? Believe it, WMD will be found in due time.

Glenda Johnson

Santa Clarita

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Re “Panel to Probe U.S. Claims of Banned Arms,” June 2: I was struck by the suggestion by “Rumsfeld and others ... that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein hid or destroyed banned weapons in the buildup to war.” If I were a military dictator facing invasion by a superpower, I might be thinking more about preparing the deadliest weapons in my arsenal for use instead of hiding them. I mean, what greater emergency or threat would I be hiding them for?

The suggestion that the Iraqis would secretly destroy them is even more intriguing. Perhaps Rumsfeld and others can explain why Hussein preferred to provoke an invasion by destroying his most deadly weapons secretly instead of handing them over openly to the U.N. inspection team that was in country looking for them.

Eric Mankin

Venice

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The lack of WMD and the decision to build an Iraqi government handpicked by the Bush administration (June 2) give solid credence to a deceptively orchestrated plan to gain control of the second-biggest producer of oil in the world at the expense of thousands of innocent lives.

Gerald Orcholski

Jim Phillips

Pasadena

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Regarding Bush and Iraqi WMD: Is manipulating intelligence anything like lying? Just wondering. (So we can know when to get the impeachment proceedings rolling.)

Jim Mallon

San Luis Obispo