Letter: Administration continues search

Monday, June 2, 2003 | 8:46 a.m.

President George Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of the White House have now ratcheted up the search in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Those weapons, and the unsupported claim of ties between Iraq and al-Qaida, were the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

This was a presidential initiative that has already cost 150 American lives and many more wounded. A war that has alienated some of our strongest allies in Europe. A war that will cost this nation more lives and billions of dollars before it is all over.

The search is now on with desperation. The administration must prove to the world and the citizens of this country that President Bush did not lie to the world and that the war and sacrifices were necessary. But many people, like myself, look at the obvious, that the war was not over WMD or ties to al-Qaida, but for other reasons. Each of us can reach our own conclusions: Was it oil, was he carried away as leader of the world's only superpower, was it a personal vendetta against Saddam, a just war because of WMD or some other, more obscure reason?

If the reason had been regime change in Iraq, that should have been up to the Iraqis. In any case, the president and his confederates will continue their expensive search, doing anything to try to justify their original thesis. Remember, to some, President Bush can do no wrong and his run for re-election is on the horizon.

RAY HARBERT