Powell Revisits the U.N. to Ask for Help in Iraq

How pathetic that George W. Bush has to send Secretary of State Colin Powell, hat in hand, to the United Nations to beg for support to help bail us out in Iraq (Sept. 4). Obviously this administration was so full of itself it ignored the U.N. and rushed us into this foolish, unnecessary Iraq war. I don’t believe the U.S. has ever been made to look any worse than it does now, and only God knows how many lives could have been saved, both American and Iraqi, if Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the rest had had the patience and wisdom to listen to more reasonable voices, such as Hans Blix, and let the U.N. inspectors do their work.

Judith Squires

Burbank

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It is difficult to understand how Bush, Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Powell would suddenly believe that an “old Europe” or an “irrelevant U.N.” could now help us in our well-run war in Iraq.

Ed Grubbs

Spring Valley, Calif.

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Your Sept. 4 editorial begs the question. We have a saying in the barrio: If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. The Bush administration arrogantly and with utter disdain for world opinion committed a crime not only against Iraq but against world society. After declaring the U.N. incapable and irrelevant, it is now groveling for its assistance in extricating itself from a mess it made. The U.N. should refuse. We made the mess; now it is up to us to clean it up.

Raymond Rodriguez

Long Beach

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Am I the only one who sees the irony in the U.S. seeking an extension on the destruction of our chemical arsenal (Sept. 4)? Did we not just fight a war, invade and occupy a country and murder thousands of civilians because we suspected same? I am beginning to understand the position of the countless nations that count the U.S. as the No. 1 terrorist on the planet. I guess we know who the next leader to refuse to allow weapons inspectors in will be. Making the world safer indeed.

Bob Mueller

Newport Beach

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Bush has accomplished the impossible. He has combined the worst aspects of Herbert Hoover’s Depression with Lyndon Johnson’s war. Hoover kept us at peace while Johnson gave us jobs along with war and inflation. In case you don’t think we’re in a depression yet, wait until Arnold Schwarzenegger lays off all those wasteful bureaucrats: police, firefighters, schoolteachers, nurses and all those other useless government workers. Taxes, however evil, are the price we pay for civilization.

David G. Stadelman

Hermosa Beach