Honesty becomes an issue in Iraq war

Did President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney lie? Before the war, I remember reading about the evidence they said proved that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program and ties to Al Qaeda.

I thought at the time that if that’s the best they could come up with, with all their access to spy planes, satellites and the CIA, they actually had no real proof.

Bush and Cheney either deliberately exaggerated shaky evidence to stampede the public and Congress, which is the same as lying, or they actually believed their own Chicken Little hype, which shows they do not have the good judgment that should be required to send troops into danger. Which is it?

JIM CODY

North Hollywood

*

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) is right in calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq to begin immediately. It takes courage to admit a mistake.

The Bush administration obviously lacks that courage. It is up to a groundswell of American voices, like Murtha’s, to assert that courage.

To do otherwise -- to talk of staying the course -- only perpetuates the fiction of somehow turning a mistake into a victory and the folly of continuing the daily and massive human loss and tragedy.

BILL HESSELL

Culver City

*

Bush is overusing the word “irresponsible.” He must think that if he calls opponents of the war in Iraq irresponsible, it will make it true.

The truth is that Bush is the one who acted irresponsibly in getting the U.S. into war.

DOROTHY NICHOLSON

Inyokern, Calif.

*

Re “A lie for a just cause,” Opinion,

Nov. 17

Jonah Goldberg uses dishonesty in defense of dishonesty. He claims that weapons of mass destruction were not a chief part of the Bush Doctrine. I suggest he reread the statements made by Bush administration officials on the eve of the war.

He makes reference to Hussein’s atrocities, ignoring the fact that most of them were perpetrated with the blessing of a previous Republican regime that included many of the same bad actors in the current one. Goldberg then reaches the conclusion that war based on lies is OK if the cause is just. I’m wondering if Goldberg would have the same breezy take on war if he were in danger of having to fight in one.

MATT JOCKS

Riverside