Letter to the Editor

Claims distort reality of war

To the editor:

John Ruester claims the Iraq invasion was based on intelligence although the White House relied on discredited, self-serving lies offered by Iraqi ex-patriots in the exiled Iraqi National Congress and ignored our own intelligence.

He also makes the racist claim that 9-11 was, in some way, a function of a general Islamic attitude and argues that it is therefore acceptable to attack a nation that was totally unconnected with 9-11 since it happened to be Islamic.

He must surely today be eating his words that attacks against Americans have diminished.

Scott Mangels trots out the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. As the Hussein relative in charge of the WMD program testified when he reported its existence, the weapons were destroyed in the mid-1990s.

Of course, the Bush administration failed to mention this critical information because it did not suit their need for reasons to invade Iraq.

Mangels also makes the absurd claim that somehow President Bush had U.N. support.

In arguing that the public has no idea what else Bush knew that we don't, he completely ignores the evidence that Bush had one foreign policy goal upon taking office, and that was to invade Iraq. The events of 9-11 were merely a justification for that invasion.

Finally, U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson employs typical Republican distortion to lump Afghanistan (where Osama bin Laden was based) and Iraq (with no connection to bin Laden) and argues that an attack against Iraq was justified by 9-11.

JENNIFER ST.CLAIR

Cape Girardeau