About the publisher: robin

Arkar Abcar

clearly describes how the American public was duped by the George W. Bush administration and helped by the mainstream media to start a war with Iraq.

What she fails to emphasize is that the military-industrial complex fraud led by Vice President Dick Cheney and his cohorts led to the unwarranted squandering of the substantial budget surplus (the “peace dividend”) that surfaced in the 1990s .

This has led to a massive increase in government debt and constant unnecessary bickering about the need to raise the debt ceiling. A great opportunity was missed.

Noel Johnson, Glendale

..

About the publisher: Abcarian is certainly right that most media outlets have largely failed to carry water because of the Bush administration’s fabricated reasons for the war in Iraq. But to say that the Washington bureau of the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain was the only notable exception is to shortchange other journalism.

In January 2004, Jason Vest and Robert Dreyfus of Mother Jones magazine published The Lie Factory, which details the Bush administration’s systematic falsification and falsification of evidence about Iraq’s attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

The article is still worth reading.

Alex Murray, Altadena

..

About the publisher: I am appalled by columnist Lorraine Ali’s description of senior editors at Newsweek, where she worked when the Iraq War began in 2003, who treated the bombing of Baghdad as a legitimate target rather than the horrific and hysterical act it was .

Was the public behind it? I certainly wasn’t behind it, and neither was anyone I knew. It was clear that the claim of weapons of mass destruction, and thus the need to destroy Baghdad, was an insane response from a loose cannon (President Bush). No one threatened or attacked us.

I didn’t think Baghdad was deserted; I thought evil would descend on mothers and babies in my name as a US citizen. It was a very, very shameful start to an unjust war.

I hope our government will have wiser leaders who will not give in to violent impulses that shake the world.

Beth Reuben, Santa Barbara