Pre-war assertions false; what about the postwar?

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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/auto/epaper/editions/saturday/opinion_f3f073d7e688d18a00c4.html

Palm Beach Post Editorial
Saturday, July 12, 2003



For all of President Bush's talk about Iraq's alleged biological and chemical weapons, he had not sold doubters in the United States, much less the rest of the world, on his plan to invade. So Mr. Bush upped the ante in his Jan. 28 State of the Union speech. Saddam Hussein, he said, had "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" to restart Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

But a CIA representative sent last year to Niger to investigate had told Vice President Dick Cheney what the CIA and State Department already knew -- that the claim was bogus, based on forged documents. This week, the administration admitted that the accusation was false but tried to duck responsibility for making it. Secretary of State Colin Powell said allegations that Mr. Bush misled Congress and the country are "overwrought and overblown." He said, "There was sufficient evidence floating around at the time that such a statement was not totally outrageous." Yet Mr. Powell did not make the Iraq uranium-shopping claim in his own Feb. 5 speech to the United Nations because the information "was not standing the test of time."

In fact, most of the administration's statements about Iraq aren't holding up. The Defense Department's assertion that we could occupy Iraq with a minimum number of troops had been debunked long before admissions this week that forces could be there for four years. Also this week, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealed that the military costs are nearly $4 billion per month, double the pre-invasion estimate. Though Iraqis are supposed to create the first interim government this weekend, it is clear that the supposed postwar is going far worse than the war.

Congress has a responsibility to find out what the Bush administration plans. The administration and thus the country are fast losing credibility on Iraq, where the American body count continues to mount. According to the Pentagon, 216 U.S. soldiers have died since the beginning of operations in March. Nearly 80 have been killed since May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. At least 31 American troops, many serving as Iraqi policemen, have been killed by hostile fire in almost daily guerrilla-style attacks.

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