American people must hold Bush accountable for war

American people must holdBush accountable for war
EDITOR:
I'm concerned about the enormous price military families are paying for the war in Iraq. Military families know the risks and sacrifices that they sign up for. However, our president has an obligation to use war as a last resort and to be honest with Americans about the real reasons for going to war.
President Bush was not honest with military families or the rest of the country about why he felt it was urgent to launch an illegal pre-emptive war against Iraq last March. The clear implication of all the statements made by President Bush and his administration before the war was that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States because of weapons of mass destruction. He also claimed that we had to act, alone if necessary, to defend ourselves.
Before the war, Bush was repeatedly told there was no definitive evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He knew Iraq was not a nuclear threat. He also knew there was no Iraq connection to 9/11. Iraq posed no imminent danger to the United States. There was no case for a pre-emptive war.
So far, more than 500 American service people have lost their lives, and more than 3,000 have been wounded and maimed for life. Yet he relentlessly led us into a war and wasted tens of billions of dollars. There is no end plan, and we are not welcome, despite the pre-war claims. Many people in this administration had and continue to have a stake in this illegal war.
Recently CIA Director George Tenet told us that the intelligence analysts "never said that there was an 'imminent' threat," and that there was disagreement over the status of Iraq's WMD programs. Now we know, of course, that Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction. There was no nuclear program, and any biological or chemical weapons he may have possessed (none were found), were given to him in the 1980's by our government, to brutally use to do our bidding against Iran.
So far, the war in Iraq has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $150 billion. It cost $14 billion between last September and last November alone. Iraq is being given a new infrastructure to replace what we destroyed, while our own American infrastructure highways and schools decay. Is this why we pay taxes?
Not only do we not know how much more American taxpayers will have to pay, but the Bush administration won't give us an estimate until after the election -- the costs of military operations in Iraq are not included in the 2005 budget.
This isn't surprising, as President Bush has misled us from the beginning as to why it was so important that we launch a pre-emptive war, hiding the ambiguity of the intelligence from Congress and the American people. It has now been proved that Iraq was not an imminent threat to us and that we could have used more time to work toward a peaceful solution, or at least to build more international support, which would have lowered the price we're now paying, in both dollars and American lives.
President Bush must be held accountable for his actions. I hope our senators, Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich, at the least, will censure him for misleading the American people.
MARK T. KENDALL
Poland
Christ's words should allayfears about anti-Semitism
EDITOR:
It is reported that a few Jewish leaders who have seen the movie "The Passion of the Christ" think it is anti-Semitic. I would believe that such thoughts would be unfounded as far as true Christian believers are concerned.
The crucifixion is part of history and was foretold in the writings of the Old Testament. Read the 22nd Psalm, which was written over 900 years before Christ and 500 years before the practice of crucifixion. The Old Testament also foretells of Christ's being rejected by his own people, but being trusted by the Gentiles.
The movie "The Passion of the Christ" should not invoke hatred of the Jewish people by believers of Christ. There are no Jewish people living today who had anything to do with his crucifixion and neither did most of his day. Think, the very one we Christians look to for salvation was himself born a Jew.
Christ's words from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," should lay to rest the idea of hatred.
DONALD G. BAKER
Youngstown