Letter to the Editor, The PI:

The one thing that has become clear about the Iraq war is that the Bush administration wanted to have it and was willing to say whatever they needed to say to make the American public accept it. Since the reasons they gave for the war are so easily dismissed, one has to ask what the real reason was. You will get many answers- the importance of oil in global geopolitical strategy, the importance of oil in American politics, the president's desire to "succeed" where his father had "failed," defense of Israel, generation of business for Halliburton and other defense contractors, the goal of being reelected as a war president. The truth is that all of these answers are correct. Each of these causes had its advocate in the president's inner circle. A political goal is achieved by an alliance of those with related interests.

While the American press has been much maligned for its complicity in the pre-war deception, the fact is that there has been a remarkable post-war achievement for which the press has to receive some credit. Following the Spanish-American war, it took a hundred years for Americans to become suspicious about the sinking of the Maine. Following the Vietnam war, it took thirty years for the public to become aware of the fact that the Tonkin Gulf incident was fabricated to generate political support for the war. Following the Iraq war, it has only taken a year to reach a similar awareness.

Now, if reporters and editors were really doing their jobs, a fabricated pretext for war would be exposed before the war even began. It's not that hard. In fact, hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters did know, before the war, things that the major American news outlets only published afterwards. The editors of radio, TV, and newspapers need to explain to the nation why they couldn't connect the dots, and they need to promise to do better next time.

James Eachus
Lynnwood, WA