Bush Defends U.S. Invasion of Iraq

I watched President Bush’s April 13 press conference. In my 73 years, I have never seen or heard such stumbling, bumbling ignorance by an American president. He never fully answered one question and deliberately rambled on in order to kill time and answer fewer questions.

This illiterate man is an embarrassment to our country. Does he really believe that the world is a safer place since the invasion of Iraq? We have just lost, in the last two weeks, more than 70 servicemen and women. And how many are injured and maimed for life? This is progress? He proudly calls himself a “war president,” as if this is some badge of honor. God help us all.

I am so proud of our servicemen and women. May they soon return to our shores safe and sound.

Phyllis Lilly

Ridgecrest

Are my husband and I the only people in the L.A. area who support the president and feel that he is doing an excellent job? Judging from the letters that you print (April 15), it must be true.

Carole Larcom

La Verne

I will say one thing for President Clinton. He was much easier to criticize. All you had to be was an expert on sex. (Aren’t we all?) With Bush, it gets more complicated. You have to be an expert on international law, political science, world affairs, etc., and you have to have access to all sorts of information, much of it classified. Fortunately for our country, judging by the letters The Times prints, we seem to have lots of people who meet those requirements.

John Waugen

Anaheim

Among the many canards in Bush’s press conference was one that is particularly drenched with irony. He apparently has the deep belief that “free societies are peaceful societies.” All right, maybe the U.S. wasn’t a free society before the Civil War, or when it engaged in genocides of Native Americans. Yet what sort of society does Bush think the U.S. was in the 20th century when, at the beginning, it brutally suppressed Filipinos yearning not to be occupied by the U.S.; in the middle, it used WMD against its enemy; later, it overthrew governments in Iran and Guatemala, with very bloody results; and, finally, it capped the century with millions killed in Southeast Asia? What free and peaceful society was it that last year invaded Iraq?

Henry Mendell

Los Angeles

Among the questions not asked at the news conference: Why did Bush choose to invade Iraq and not Saudi Arabia, where Osama bin Laden and most of the 9/11 perpetrators and their support originated?

Florence Brawer

Los Angeles

Bush mentioned several times that innocent people have died because of terrorists. He failed to mention, however, how many innocent people have died in Iraq because of our government.

Jan Hart

Anaheim