Letting Down the Troops

By BOB HERBERT

ot long ago I interviewed a soldier who was paralyzed from injuries he had suffered in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Like so many other wounded soldiers I've talked to, he expressed no anger and no bitterness about the difficult hand he's been dealt as a result of the war.

But when I asked this soldier, Eugene Simpson Jr., a 27-year-old staff sergeant from Dale City, Va., whom he had been fighting in Iraq - who, exactly, the enemy was - he looked up from his wheelchair and stared at me for a long moment. Then, in a voice much softer than he had been using for most of the interview, and with what seemed like a mixture of sorrow, regret and frustration, he said: "I don't know. That would be my answer. I don't know."

We have not done right by the troops we've sent to Iraq to fight this crazy, awful war. We haven't given them a clear mission, and we haven't protected them well. I'm reminded of the famous scene in "On the Waterfront" when Terry Malloy, the character played by Marlon Brando, tells his brother: "You shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit."

The thing to always keep in mind about our troops in Iraq is that they were sent to fight the wrong war. America's clearly defined and unmistakable enemy, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, was in Afghanistan. So the men and women fighting and dying in Iraq were thrown into a pointless, wholly unnecessary conflict.

That tragic move was made worse by the failure of the U.S. to send enough troops to effectively wage the war that we started in Iraq. And we never fully equipped the troops we did send. The people who ordered up this war had no idea what they were doing. They were wildly overconfident, blinded by hubris and a dangerous, overarching ideology. They thought it would be a cakewalk.

In May of 2003, President Bush thought the war was over. It had barely begun. Many thousands have died in the long and bloody months since then. Even now, Dick Cheney, with a straight face, is calling Iraq "a remarkable success story."

One of the worst things about the management of this war is the way we've treated our men and women in uniform. The equipment shortages experienced by troops shoved into combat have been unconscionable. Soldiers and marines, in many cases, have been forced to face enemy fire with flak jackets from the Vietnam era that were all but useless, and sometimes without any body armor at all. Relatives back home have had to send the troops such items as radios and goggles, and even graphite to keep their weapons from jamming.

One of the most ominous signs about the war is the growing disenchantment of the troops. They've spent too much time on the most dangerous roads in the world without the proper training, without up-to-date equipment, without the proper armor for their vehicles and without the support they feel they should be getting from their Iraqi allies.

The Times's Edward Wong, after a series of interviews with marines in the Sunni-dominated city of Ramadi, wrote:

"They said the Iraqi police and National Guard are unhelpful at best and enemy agents at worst, raising doubts about President Bush's assertion that local forces would soon help relieve the policing duties of the 138,000 American troops in Iraq. The marines said they could use better equipment from the Pentagon, and they feared that the American people were ignorant of the hardships they faced in this dessicated land."

Several members of an Army Reserve unit refused a direct order to deliver fuel along a dangerous route in Iraq a couple of weeks ago. They said their trucks were not armored and were prone to breaking down. An example of the kind of catastrophe they were seeking to avoid came just a week later, when 49 unarmed and otherwise unprotected Iraqi soldiers were attacked and killed in cold blood in a remote region of eastern Iraq.

This has been a war run by amateurs and incompetents. Whatever anyone has felt about the merits of the war, there is no excuse for preparing so poorly and for failing to see, at a minimum, that the troops were properly trained and equipped.

The United States has the most powerful military in history, yet it is bogged down in a humiliating quagmire in a country that was barely functional to begin with. We've dealt ourselves the cruelest of hands in Iraq. We can't win this war and, tragically, we don't know how to end it.

From the NY Times:

Letting Down the Troops

By BOB HERBERT

ot long ago I interviewed a soldier who was paralyzed from injuries he had suffered in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Like so many other wounded soldiers I've talked to, he expressed no anger and no bitterness about the difficult hand he's been dealt as a result of the war.

But when I asked this soldier, Eugene Simpson Jr., a 27-year-old staff sergeant from Dale City, Va., whom he had been fighting in Iraq - who, exactly, the enemy was - he looked up from his wheelchair and stared at me for a long moment. Then, in a voice much softer than he had been using for most of the interview, and with what seemed like a mixture of sorrow, regret and frustration, he said: "I don't know. That would be my answer. I don't know."

We have not done right by the troops we've sent to Iraq to fight this crazy, awful war. We haven't given them a clear mission, and we haven't protected them well. I'm reminded of the famous scene in "On the Waterfront" when Terry Malloy, the character played by Marlon Brando, tells his brother: "You shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit."

The thing to always keep in mind about our troops in Iraq is that they were sent to fight the wrong war. America's clearly defined and unmistakable enemy, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, was in Afghanistan. So the men and women fighting and dying in Iraq were thrown into a pointless, wholly unnecessary conflict.

That tragic move was made worse by the failure of the U.S. to send enough troops to effectively wage the war that we started in Iraq. And we never fully equipped the troops we did send. The people who ordered up this war had no idea what they were doing. They were wildly overconfident, blinded by hubris and a dangerous, overarching ideology. They thought it would be a cakewalk.

In May of 2003, President Bush thought the war was over. It had barely begun. Many thousands have died in the long and bloody months since then. Even now, Dick Cheney, with a straight face, is calling Iraq "a remarkable success story."

One of the worst things about the management of this war is the way we've treated our men and women in uniform. The equipment shortages experienced by troops shoved into combat have been unconscionable. Soldiers and marines, in many cases, have been forced to face enemy fire with flak jackets from the Vietnam era that were all but useless, and sometimes without any body armor at all. Relatives back home have had to send the troops such items as radios and goggles, and even graphite to keep their weapons from jamming.

One of the most ominous signs about the war is the growing disenchantment of the troops. They've spent too much time on the most dangerous roads in the world without the proper training, without up-to-date equipment, without the proper armor for their vehicles and without the support they feel they should be getting from their Iraqi allies.

The Times's Edward Wong, after a series of interviews with marines in the Sunni-dominated city of Ramadi, wrote:

"They said the Iraqi police and National Guard are unhelpful at best and enemy agents at worst, raising doubts about President Bush's assertion that local forces would soon help relieve the policing duties of the 138,000 American troops in Iraq. The marines said they could use better equipment from the Pentagon, and they feared that the American people were ignorant of the hardships they faced in this dessicated land."

Several members of an Army Reserve unit refused a direct order to deliver fuel along a dangerous route in Iraq a couple of weeks ago. They said their trucks were not armored and were prone to breaking down. An example of the kind of catastrophe they were seeking to avoid came just a week later, when 49 unarmed and otherwise unprotected Iraqi soldiers were attacked and killed in cold blood in a remote region of eastern Iraq.

This has been a war run by amateurs and incompetents. Whatever anyone has felt about the merits of the war, there is no excuse for preparing so poorly and for failing to see, at a minimum, that the troops were properly trained and equipped.

The United States has the most powerful military in history, yet it is bogged down in a humiliating quagmire in a country that was barely functional to begin with. We've dealt ourselves the cruelest of hands in Iraq. We can't win this war and, tragically, we don't know how to end it.

John Kerry The Rolling Stone Interview By JANN S. WENNER

For two days in October, the John Kerry campaign came to a brief stop at a hotel and conference center on the high-plains sprawl of suburban Denver, where the candidate holed up with his staff and prepared for his second debate with George Bush. While the traveling press idled over endless buffets in one of the hotel dining rooms, Kerry and his closest advisers sequestered themselves behind closed doors, getting ready for the next night's crucial events.

The morning's calm was broken when Kerry's press advisers began circulating word that the candidate would soon be making a statement about the war in Iraq, a canny move to seize control of the day's news cycle, which was already full of bad news for President Bush: A government-commissioned report had concluded that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction; Paul Bremer, until recently his chief administrator in Iraq, had been quoted as saying that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had been done with too few troops; and Donald Rumsfeld had conceded that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. The press was herded out to a field in front of the hotel, chosen for its view of the mountains in the distance. When Kerry emerged, he was wearing his presidential blue suit, and with little fanfare or preamble he ripped into Bush with icy efficiency, saying how in light of the morning's news it was now clear that George Bush and Dick Cheney "may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq." After some questions from reporters, he disappeared, projecting the attitude that he had more important things to do.

A few minutes later, we were ushered up to Kerry's suite, where the candidate was tucking into a huge lunch. Gone was the crisp blue suit. He'd changed into khakis and running shoes and had dropped the formal manner. By the door stood a battered guitar case. Through an open door, one could see a framed picture of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, on a bedside table. For the hour that we spoke with Kerry, he was conversational and forthright, relaxed but clearly wearing his game face.

You were tough out there today.

Well, I should be tough on him. This is an amazing moment in American history -- where a president of the United States is finding the rationale for invading another country after the fact.

The president has now given twenty-four reasons for going to war. Why do you think we really invaded Iraq?

Well, I think you've heard all the reasons. I can't psychoanalyze them. They were driven by ideology; they were driven by a fixation on Saddam Hussein. They took their eye off of Osama bin Laden and the real war on terror, and the consequences for our country are gigantic: $200 billion, and counting; the loss of credibility and prestige in the world; the loss of alliances that we need to be helping us. The American people are paying a very, very bitter price for their bad judgment -- no matter what the cause is.

Did you walk out of the first debate with the sense that you'd won?

You can't ever tell. We're the last people to ask -- the people on the stage. It's always tricky how people see it on TV. But I felt good, like I'd done the things I came to do, and I felt confident about the message.

How do you assess Bush's performance?

You don't have time to do that. I was listening very carefully and focusing on what I wanted to share with America, and it's a pretty intensive process of focusing.

The Bush administration says it's a certainty there will be more terrorist attacks. Is this a scare tactic?

They are privy to more intelligence and more analysis than I am. But I have had briefings, and I am deeply concerned about the potential of another attack. I think there's much more we can and should do to protect ourselves.

What has Bush failed to do to protect us?

The list of things undone by this president to make America safer is staggering. The 9/11 Commission report contains a full list of what a creative, proactive leadership should have done by itself -- rather than resist the 9/11 Commission, as they did.

On homeland security they've talked a good game, and not implemented or acted. Ninety-five percent of the containers that come into our country don't get inspected. Bridges and tunnels don't have the security and escape routes that ought to have been put in place. On planes, the baggage is X-rayed but not the cargo holds. It's absurd. Firehouses are understaffed. Police officers are being cut from the streets of America -- not added.

There are chemical, biological and nuclear plants around the country that don't have the protection that they ought to. The president actually gave in to the chemical industry and folded, instead of doing what was necessary for some of the chemical-plant protection.

Now, can any president guarantee the absence of any attack? The answer is no. I mean, if someone wants to blow themselves up, they can pretty much find a way to do it and hurt somebody. The question is: Are you doing all that's possible to protect against the greatest catastrophe? And there this administration has clearly failed.

Why do you think they've dropped the ball on this issue?

I think Senator Richard Lugar summed it up. He said their administration of the reconstruction funds has been incompetent, and I think their administration of the Homeland Security department has been incompetent.

What do you think of the color-coded terror alerts the Department of Homeland Security issues?

I think Americans, sadly, laugh at it. They don't know what to do.

Will you continue that program?

No. I'm going to find some more thoughtful way of alerting America. If we have to alert America, I think the most important thing to do is alert law enforcement more effectively across the country. Law enforcement doesn't have even a single, unified watch list yet. They still have separate watch lists, with different names and different people. This is the single, simplest, most important thing the Department of Homeland Security was supposed to do, and they haven't done it.

Doesn't it seem the threat level gets raised at key moments during the campaign?

Yeah. But you know what? I'm not going to question motivations that I can't . . .

Who's the enemy in the "War on Terror"?

Americans should have no doubts that there is a real enemy out there, one who wants to wreak destruction. And that enemy is a conglomeration of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and radical, extreme -- mostly Muslim -- fundamentalist groups that want to create a radical Islamic state. These groups want to take over the perceived-to-be-moderate governments of the region, radicalize the populations and have a dominant presence, throughout the Middle East and parts of Europe. I mean, it is real, and it is a serious challenge to us.

Bush says, "They hate our freedoms and resent our democracy." Do you think their motives are so simple?

I think it's more complicated than that. There is a lot about us they don't like, but they believe that these moderate regimes in the Middle East have sold out. They are attacking the Saudi royal family, as they are attacking Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan, because those leaders deal with the West and have a sense of engagement in the world.

There is also power involved. They're preaching a very different kind of power -- through the madrasas and otherwise -- to populations that are impoverished and uneducated, and disenfranchised in their countries. And they're offering them someone to hate.

Do you think it's directed at the United States?

It is now. Look, there's no negotiating with these guys. They don't hold territory; they don't have a kingdom; they don't have a government; they don't have a guiding philosophy -- they just hate. They hate what they are not. And they want everything to be what they are, and they want that kind of control.

They certainly view their struggle as a holy war. Do you think the White House does, as well?

You have to ask the White House. But, certainly, George Bush has described it like that, occasionally.

As a war between two fundamentalisms?

I think you're looking at a war right now against people who attacked the United States of America. And it is appropriate, and was appropriate, for us to invade Afghanistan and to go after Al Qaeda, and I'm glad we did. What I regret is that George Bush didn't do the job. When he had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains, he didn't do what was available to him -- which was use the best-trained military in the world to go after bin Laden and kill him or capture him. He turned to Afghan warlords and outsourced the job to them. I think that was a terrible judgment by the president.

What are the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam?

Right now there is one parallel that's very disturbing, and that is the leadership in Washington has not told the truth to the American people. Unless this president begins to change direction, and recognize his mistakes, and get the policy right in Iraq, he could create a whole lot more parallels. But it doesn't have to be. And that's what I'm trying to offer America right now -- a realistic way to get our troops home, with honor, by achieving our goals but by sharing the burden and risk.

I am convinced that we can do that, because the rest of the world has a stake in the outcome. A failed Iraq is not in the interests of Arab states, and it's not in the interests of the European states -- but they're absent from the kind of effort necessary to prevent that from happening. That's where leadership is going to be necessary.

That's the difference that I intend to make, and that I must make -- for the sake of our country. To make ourselves safe in the long term, we're going to have to rebuild relationships and re-establish American credibility. Bush's mistakes don't have to become America's misfortune for the long term, and it's my job to undo his mistakes and turn this into a success.

If you send troops into Iraq, how will you be able to tell them they're not risking their lives for a mistake?

Because I'm going to make it a success, 'cause we're going to win. We're going to do what we need to do to get this job done. And I'm committed to doing that -- and I know how to do it. I'll put a foreign-policy team together that talks the truth to the American people.

What do you mean when you say you know how to do it?

I've spent thirty-five years dealing with these kinds of issues. When I came back from fighting in a war, I fought against the war here in America. As a senator, I led the fight to stop Ronald Reagan's illegal war in Central America. I helped expose Oliver North and Manuel Noriega. I've been at this for a long time. You know, I led the initial efforts to change our policy on the Philippines -- which ultimately resulted in the elections, and became part of the process that helped get rid of Marcos.

I negotiated personally with the prime minister of Cambodia, to get accountability for the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime. I've negotiated with the Vietnamese to let me and John McCain in and put American forces on the ground to resolve the POW-MIA issue. I've spent twenty years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; I've been chairman of the Narcotics Terrorism Subcommittee. I have five times the experience George Bush does in dealing with these issues, and I know that I can get this done.

What is America's role in the world? What are you going to tell the world about the United States right now?

We are going to live up to American values in our foreign policy. Rather than building a new set of nuclear weapons, like President Bush is, we're going to lead the world in containing nuclear weapons -- with a whole new protocol for tracking and dealing with precursor chemicals and with nuclear fissionable materials. We're not going to wait to intervene in places like Liberia or Darfur, where another genocide is taking place.

An America that is not just there for its own goals and ends. We're going to re-engage with our Latin American neighbors in a positive way -- unlike this administration. We're going to implement the global AIDS initiative that I wrote four years ago, that this administration is still dawdling with. We're going to offer the moral leadership with respect to environmental catastrophes that are staring us in the face. We're going to go back to the table on global warming. We're going to deal with poverty and disease in the less-developed nations in a more effective way. Those things will help to bring nations to our side. That will make us more effective in the war on terror and make our country safer.

If you're elected, what would be your number-one environmental priority?

Number one is global warming.

How bad do you think that is? How real?

Very serious. The science is real.

Do you have a time frame for dealing with it?

Well, we can't meet the 1990 standards that we set, because we're too far beyond it now. So we're going to have to sit down with our scientists and our businesses and see what's feasible. But I intend to set America on the course of energy independence -- hopefully within ten years. And we're going to accelerate our research and development into alternative and renewable fuels.

We're going to greatly encourage the use of more fuel-efficient vehicles. We're not going to mandate them -- we're going to offer people choices that make sense economically. So we're going to give a big tax credit for people who purchase a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Al Gore says the era of the internal-combustion engine is ending. Do you see that? And how can we get beyond that?

I wouldn't make that kind of a bold pronouncement. I respect Al Gore's work on that stuff a lot. I mean, we're going to be drilling oil and natural gas for forty or fifty years to come, at least. But I've laid out a very aggressive energy policy. We're going to move rapidly to be independent of Mideast oil and reduce our fossil-fuel base as fast as we can. I'm going to create the incentives that excite the research and development. We're going to create a race for the new sources of energy -- whatever they may be.

How do you face the opposition of the oil and auto companies?

Let me tell you something: As gas prices go up, and fuel hits sixty bucks a barrel, I'm going to have a lot of allies. This does not have to be combative and confrontational. I'm going to reach out to the companies and offer them a very significant helping hand in the retooling and transformational costs.

I want American workers working; I want American cars made in America; I want American cars to be able to be sold anywhere in the world. I want to lead the world in these technologies. So I want these companies part of the solution -- not the problem. I think we can get there -- I really believe that.

How big a priority is that for you?

Huge. Creating jobs is one of the top five priorities of my administration. First of all, make America safe, and deal with nuclear proliferation and the global confrontation. Second, we have to create jobs and be fiscally responsible -- so that we're creating the framework for America to be strong at home.

Third, we have to have a system that provides health care for all Americans, and I have a plan to do that. Fourth, we're going to have education that works for everybody -- that lifts people up. Ongoing adult education -- a system that works. And fifth, we're going to have an environmental policy that leaves this planet to our kids in better shape than we got it from our parents.

That's it -- that's the agenda.

Why has environmental policy disappeared from the radar this election cycle?

I don't think it has.

But why do we hear so little about it?

Well, you have Iraq blowing up on the front pages of newspapers every day. But every speech I make, wherever I go, I talk about energy independence. I've talked about energy independence every single day of this campaign.

Will you communicate to the American people the size of the crisis we face?

I'm doing it in the course of this campaign. I'm already talking about it -- and I will as president. Look: I'm a person who has always believed that you tell people the truth and they'll make reasonable decisions. Truth is powerful.

This administration disrespects the truth, because they have a different credo. The truth unfortunately works against their interests, because their interests are in keeping power and in making money. And so they feed the drug industry, and they feed the oil industry, and they feed the big power companies.

And that's the difference between us. I'm fighting for the middle class -- he's fighting for a tax cut for people who earn more than $200,000 a year. He won't raise the minimum wage -- I'm going to raise the minimum wage. He won't give people extended unemployment benefits -- I will. He cut job training -- I'm going to restore job training. He's made it more expensive for kids to go to college -- I'm going to raise the Pell grants and the Perkins loans. He gave the drug industry a windfall profit of $139 billion -- while he was shutting down the ability of people to bring drugs in from Canada and shutting down Medicare's ability to negotiate a lower price for drugs. That's wrong -- morally and economically.

People say this is the most important election of our lifetime -- do you agree?

I believe it is. And I want your readers to stop in their tracks and consider what's at stake for them. Because not enough people connect the things they hate, or feel or want, to the power of their vote. And they've got to be willing to go out and work in these next couple of weeks.

How do you yourself feel? What burden does it place on you?

You know, I've been in public life all my life -- with one brief exception, when I was a lawyer and started a small business. I accept the weight, but I don't feel it. I've lived out so much frustration over the last few years that this is a liberating experience for me. I feel excited by it. I feel energized by it. I welcome it. And I just want other people to understand what's at stake here.

I mean, the next president may appoint three or four justices to the Supreme Court. The rights of Americans may be affected for the rest of our lives by what happens on November 2nd: whether or not we're going to have equal opportunity; whether we fight against discrimination; whether we're going to have equal pay for women; whether we protect women's right to choose; whether we're going to have a country in which people can grow up and live out the full measure of citizenship.

Why do you think you'd be a good president?

Because I'm a good executive, I'm a good leader, and I know what we have to do. I'm tough, I'm strong, I'm decisive. I know exactly what this country needs to do to move forward. All my life I've never shied away from standing up and telling people what I think, and what I think is true -- and I've taken the consequences of it. I'm even hearing about what I said in 1971.

What have you learned about yourself in this campaign?

That the intrusiveness is greater than I thought it would be. And there are parts of me that dislike that more than I thought I would, but it's something I have to put up with in order to achieve what I want to get done. I always knew that I was tough enough to do it; I always knew there'd be tough moments and I'd be tested -- because everybody is tested on the road to the presidency. But I think the intensity of it is greater than I could imagine. It is, actually, beyond description. You have to experience it to know what that is.

How did you feel when you first saw those Swift-boat ads?

Disappointed -- a sense of bitter disappointment. That people will stoop to those depths of lying -- for their personal reasons.

Did you get angry at Bush personally?

Look, I know politics is tough, and I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what they do to me. But I do worry, and I am angry, about what they do to the American people. That's what this race is about. It's not about me. I can take it -- I don't care. I've been in worse things. I was on those boats -- I got shot at. I can handle it.

What I worry about is that they lie to America. What I worry about is that they tell the middle class, "We're giving you a tax cut," and the top one percent of America gets more than eighty percent of the rest of the people. I worry that they are unwilling to do anything about the 5 million Americans who have lost their health care.

I worry that there are twenty-eight states in America where you can't go fishing and eat the fish, because of the quality of the water. I worry that they've gotten us into a war where young kids are dying, and they haven't done what's responsible to protect them. That's what I worry about. The rest of it is small pickings.

You don't get angry when Bush outright lies about you?

No, I don't get angry at it. I think it's sort of pathetic.

Were you surprised by how the Swift-boat thing blew up?

I was surprised that the media, even when they knew it was lies, continued to cover it and treat it as entertainment.

Looking back, do you think you handled it correctly?

I think so. Look, when people hold up something that's a complete and total lie, it takes a few days to show people and convince them. We did. They've been completely discredited.

How do you stay normal during a campaign?

Eat a hearty meal.

How do you stay fit?

I'm not. I'm in the worst shape I've been in in a few years. I'm not getting enough exercise.

You were criticized for wearing a windsurfing outfit.

It shows how pathetic and diversionary they are. They can't talk about having created jobs for America; they can't talk about giving people health care; they can't talk about having protected America and made it safer.

Did anyone say, "Senator, you shouldn't be wearing windsurfing clothes"?

Yeah, a few people said . . .

And you said, Fuck it?

You're damn right. I said, "I'm going to be who I am" -- I think people care about authenticity. There are much bigger issues.

What do you think of Karl Rove? Is he an evil genius?

I don't know him. I've met him once. I'll tell you November 3rd.

What do you think of the Vote for Change concerts that Bruce Springsteen organized?

I haven't been able to go. I'm jealous of everybody who is. It's separate from us -- they've done it by themselves. But I'm obviously elated. His music has been the theme song of our campaign from Day One. To have him out there is both a privilege and exciting. I hope it has an impact on the outcome.

Who are your favorite rock & roll artists?

Oh, gosh. I'm, you know, a huge Rolling Stones fan; Beatles fan. One of the most cherished photographs in my life is a picture of me with John Lennon -- who I met back in 1971 at an anti-war rally. But I love a lot of different performers.

Do you have a favorite Beatles song -- or Stones song?

I love "Satisfaction" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "Brown Sugar." I love "Imagine" and "Yesterday."

You're a greatest-hits kind of guy.

My favorite album is Abbey Road. I love "Hey Jude." I also like folk music. I like some classical. I love guitar. Oh, God. I mean, you know -- Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Buffett . . .

OK -- enough. Let's talk about movies quickly. Of the Vietnam movies you've seen, what's the most accurate? And your favorite?

The most powerful Vietnam movie, to me, was The Deer Hunter, which was more about what happened to the folks who went, and about their relationships . . . and about what happened to this small-town community. I thought it was a brilliant movie, because the metaphor of Russian roulette was an incredible way of capturing the fatalism about it all: the sense that things were out of your control. And it really talked to what happened to the folks who went. So I thought it was a very, very powerful movie. Also, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Coming Home, Born on the Fourth of July -- those are powerful too.

How about Apocalypse Now? Was that what it was like going up river, on those boats?

That's exactly how it was, man. Sitting in that river, waiting for someone to shoot you -- but the later part of the movie, after the point where they get to the bridge, then everything becomes a little psychedelic. That got a little distant from me.

Finally, if you were to look back over eight years of a Kerry presidency, what would you hope would be said about it?

That it always told the truth to the American people, that it always fought for average folks. And that we raised the quality of life in America and made America safer. I want to be the president who gets health care done for Americans. I want to be the president who helps to fix our schools and end this separate-and-unequal school system we have in America. And I want to be the president who re-establishes America's reputation in the world -- which is part of making us safer. There's a huge opportunity here to really lift our country up, and that's what I want to do.

(From RS 961)

From the NY Times:

Checking the Facts, in Advance

By PAUL KRUGMAN

t's not hard to predict what President Bush, who sounds increasingly desperate, will say tomorrow. Here are eight lies or distortions you'll hear, and the truth about each:

Jobs

Mr. Bush will talk about the 1.7 million jobs created since the summer of 2003, and will say that the economy is "strong and getting stronger." That's like boasting about getting a D on your final exam, when you flunked the midterm and needed at least a C to pass the course.

Mr. Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a decline in payroll employment. That's worse than it sounds because the economy needs around 1.6 million new jobs each year just to keep up with population growth. The past year's job gains, while better news than earlier job losses, barely met this requirement, and they did little to close the huge gap between the number of jobs the country needs and the number actually available.

Unemployment

Mr. Bush will boast about the decline in the unemployment rate from its June 2003 peak. But the employed fraction of the population didn't rise at all; unemployment declined only because some of those without jobs stopped actively looking for work, and therefore dropped out of the unemployment statistics. The labor force participation rate - the fraction of the population either working or actively looking for work - has fallen sharply under Mr. Bush; if it had stayed at its January 2001 level, the official unemployment rate would be 7.4 percent.

The deficit

Mr. Bush will claim that the recession and 9/11 caused record budget deficits. Congressional Budget Office estimates show that tax cuts caused about two-thirds of the 2004 deficit.

The tax cuts

Mr. Bush will claim that Senator John Kerry opposed "middle class" tax cuts. But budget office numbers show that most of Mr. Bush's tax cuts went to the best-off 10 percent of families, and more than a third went to the top 1 percent, whose average income is more than $1 million.

The Kerry tax plan

Mr. Bush will claim, once again, that Mr. Kerry plans to raise taxes on many small businesses. In fact, only a tiny percentage would be affected. Moreover, as Mr. Kerry correctly pointed out last week, the administration's definition of a small-business owner is so broad that in 2001 it included Mr. Bush, who does indeed have a stake in a timber company - a business he's so little involved with that he apparently forgot about it.

Fiscal responsibility

Mr. Bush will claim that Mr. Kerry proposes $2 trillion in new spending. That's a partisan number and is much higher than independent estimates. Meanwhile, as The Washington Post pointed out after the Republican convention, the administration's own numbers show that the cost of the agenda Mr. Bush laid out "is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion" and "far eclipses that of the Kerry plan."

Spending

On Friday, Mr. Bush claimed that he had increased nondefense discretionary spending by only 1 percent per year. The actual number is 8 percent, even after adjusting for inflation. Mr. Bush seems to have confused his budget promises - which he keeps on breaking - with reality.

Health care

Mr. Bush will claim that Mr. Kerry wants to take medical decisions away from individuals. The Kerry plan would expand Medicaid (which works like Medicare), ensuring that children, in particular, have health insurance. It would protect everyone against catastrophic medical expenses, a particular help to the chronically ill. It would do nothing to restrict patients' choices.

By singling out Mr. Bush's lies and misrepresentations, am I saying that Mr. Kerry isn't equally at fault? Yes.

Mr. Kerry sometimes uses verbal shorthand that offers nitpickers things to complain about. He talks of 1.6 million lost jobs; that's the private-sector loss, partly offset by increased government employment. But the job record is indeed awful. He talks of the $200 billion cost of the Iraq war; actual spending is only $120 billion so far. But nobody doubts that the war will cost at least another $80 billion. The point is that Mr. Kerry can, at most, be accused of using loose language; the thrust of his statements is correct.

Mr. Bush's statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr. Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers.

From stltoday.com:
DECISION 2004: Kerry for president

Sunday, Oct. 10 2004

BASED ON HIS RECORD, President George W. Bush has not earned re-election. He
has mishandled the war on terrorism, shut his eyes to disagreeable facts, left
the next generation in hock and presided over a sharp loss in jobs, health
insurance and prosperity for millions of Americans.

Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., understands that Mr. Bush took a wrong turn by
transforming the war on terrorism into an invasion of Iraq. He understands the
importance of working with our traditional allies and the world community to
fight terrorism. And he wants to step up efforts to address real nuclear
threats by disposing of nuclear materials in Russia and dealing directly with
North Korea and Iran.

Mr. Kerry would reverse the tax cuts for the very wealthy and use the money to
improve health care and help middle-class families pay for college. His strong
environmental record offers the prospect of a president whose environmentalism
extends beyond cynical slogans such as "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests."

In the troubled election of 2000, Mr. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative
who wanted to create a "lockbox" for Social Security and unite the nation,
while conducting a humble foreign policy that eschewed nation-building. He
pried open the lockbox, conducted an arrogant foreign policy, tried to grow a
democracy in burning sand and left the nation more divided than at any time
since Vietnam.


The case against Mr. Bush

After Sept. 11, 2001, a stunned, angry nation and much of the world stood with
Mr. Bush to depose the Taliban who had harbored al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
Victory was swift, but Mr. Bush made a critical strategic blunder by failing to
send U.S. troops to try to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora. Instead, Mr.
Bush redirected forces toward Iraq.

In the surge of patriotism, there were a few voices of restraint. Sen. Richard
Lugar, R-Ind., head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there was a
lack of planning for postwar Iraq. United Nations weapons inspectors said they
had not found weapons of mass destruction. Traditional allies asked Mr. Bush to
give inspections more time.

But Mr. Bush would not hear of it. The prediction that our troops would be
welcomed with flowers, and that a democracy would flourish in Iraq and spread
throughout the Middle East turned out to be wishful thinking. Those idealistic
dreams look absurd today after the deaths of 1,000 Americans, the growth of an
Iraqi insurgency, the alienation of Muslims, the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and
the estrangement of the United States from traditional allies.

Still Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney cling blindly to their story
line. When the Iraqi Survey Group concluded last week that Saddam had no
weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Bush insisted the report had justified the
war. He even came up with a new, ludicrous rationale: Saddam's corruption of
the U.N.'s oil-for-food program justified the pre-emptive invasion.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush turned his back on the Geneva Conventions and Attorney
General John D. Ashcroft conducted an inept and heavy-handed crackdown that
violated civil liberties. Prosecution after prosecution failed, and the U.S.
Supreme Court rejected Mr. Bush's violations of the Constitution.

Mr. Bush's apparent inability to accept facts that are at odds with his
ideology is perhaps his greatest vulnerability as a leader. Just as he refuses
to recognize reality in Iraq, he has advanced domestic policies that are at war
with science. The administration has pooh-poohed global warming, downplayed the
value of embryonic stem-cell research, claimed a link between abortion and
breast cancer and removed scientific papers from government Web sites.

The failure of Mr. Bush's economic policy is evident in the numbers:

A decline by 821,000 in the number of Americans with jobs since he took office,
the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover.

A decline in median household income, when adjusted for inflation. This means
the average family is doing a little worse now than four years ago.

The $236 billion annual budget surplus he inherited has turned into a $422
billion annual deficit. We will pass this massive debt on to our children.

Mr. Bush entered office facing a mild recession. His remedy was sharp tax cuts.
But in giving those cuts primarily to the rich, he limited the economic lift,
while draining progressivity from the tax code. Working families pay higher
rates than rich families living off their investments.

Even Mr. Bush's "compassionate" agenda - the No Child Left Behind education
law, the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the anti-AIDS effort in Africa
- have fallen short. Mr. Bush underfunded the school program and the AIDS
initiative, and he refused to give the government leverage with drug companies
to get lower prices for seniors.


The case for Mr. Kerry

Mr. Kerry has a distinguished record in foreign affairs and a program that
addresses the nation's three most serious problems: the health care crisis, the
sputtering economy and the war.

Under his health plan, the government would cover catastrophic health costs,
triggering lower health insurance rates. In addition, Mr. Kerry would expand
health coverage for children, a federal program that he helped start. The
number of uninsured people, which rose to 45 million from 40 million during the
Bush years, would be halved.

Mr. Kerry would steer a more moderate economic course, restoring fairness to
the tax system and fiscal responsibility. He would raise the minimum wage and
restore overtime pay for low-level white-collar workers.

In the Senate, Mr. Kerry was active in investigations of Iran-contra, the CIA
connection to Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and the corruption of the Bank
of Credit and Commerce International. Long before Sept. 11, 2001, he called for
regulating electronic money transfers and using the CIA against international
criminal organizations.

Mr. Kerry was a leader on global warming, the ban on oil drilling in the Arctic
and the effort to raise automobile fuel-efficiency standards - a sharp contrast
to Mr. Bush's dismantling of environmental safeguards.

Mr. Kerry has had trouble explaining the consistency of his position on Iraq.
But his views reflect those of many Americans. Like most people, he favored
giving the president strong authority to eliminate weapons in Iraq, but wanted
the president to act through the United Nations and as a last resort. Like most
people, he was shocked that Mr. Bush had not planned well for the occupation
and refused to recognize the realities of the insurgency.

Mr. Kerry's plan to "win" the war in Iraq may be no more realistic than Mr.
Bush's. But Mr. Kerry's Vietnam record as a warrior and a protester has taught
him about the limits of American power and the importance of a president
playing it straight.

America needs a leader who sees the world as it is, who knows how to rebuild
international alliances, who focuses on threats to homeland security, who runs
the government for the benefit of all Americans. By virtue of his knowledge of
world affairs, his life story of national service and his moderate values,
John Kerry is that leader.

Factory farm meat not on menu for Feast of St. Francis

By MATTHEW SCULLY
Dallas Morning News
October 4, 2004

In the week leading up to today's Feast of St. Francis, it fell to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to decide whether the sale and production of foie gras should be terminated in California on the grounds of cruelty to animals. At first, the governor called the proposal another "silly" example of a legislature with too much time on its hands. But then Wednesday he signed the bill into law, apparently finding that the cruelty questions are not so easily shrugged off.

Following the usual pattern of these debates, advocates gave us the harrowing details of how the product is made – by repeatedly shoving a pipe down the throat of a duck or goose, until the creature's liver has swelled to 10 or 12 times its natural size.

Opponents, meanwhile, expressed indignation at being lectured to about their habits and favorite fare. David Shaw, food critic for the Los Angeles Times, called the whole business a "ridiculous excursion into political correctness," adding: "I'm not ready – never will be ready – to give up steaks, lamb chops, roast chicken, veal chops or anything else just because a bunch of fanatics want to suck on celery sticks and make goo-goo eyes over farm animals."

I'm always struck by this attitude, as if one should be able to have foie gras, veal, "or anything else" without being burdened with the knowledge of how it was obtained. Foie gras and veal are both, by definition, the product of sick, maltreated animals.

However one cares to react to this datum, it is not fanatical or ill mannered to point it out, but a frank acknowledgment of the moral costs. Nor is it clear, in Mr. Shaw's case, that a man rising in angry defense of a table treat has any business telling other people to get serious.

To his credit, however, at least this food critic makes no pretense of any loftier motive than having his favorite delicacy. For those who profess a higher code, it is a different matter.

Christians in particular, as they honor the example of St. Francis today, would do well to examine some of their own attitudes about the treatment of farm animals.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, leader of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was asked recently to weigh in on these very questions. Animals, he told German journalist Peter Seewald, must be respected as our "companions in creation."

While it is licit to use them for food, "we cannot just do whatever we want with them. ... Certainly, a sort of industrial use of creatures, so that geese are fed in such a way as to produce as large a liver as possible, or hens live so packed together that they become just caricatures of birds, this degrading of living creatures to a commodity seems to me in fact to contradict the relationship of mutuality that comes across in the Bible."

Sometimes the most radical thing is to be confronted by one's own standards, and if the cardinal is correct here, then we've got some real problems. Across America and the world, millions of our companions in creation are locked away in industrial "mass-confinement" farms, never feeling soil or sunshine. If they ever see pasture land, it is only from trucks hauling them to industrial abattoirs that kill at a hellish pace of thousands per hour.

On hog farms like the Smithfield facilities I toured a few years ago in North Carolina, even the littlest mercies – a bit of maternal care, room to roam outdoors, straw to lie on – have long since been taken away as needless and costly luxuries.

News reports following each new "mad-cow" scare – of calves fed a swill of blood and excrement, of downed animals unable even to walk to their death – give the merest glimpse of all the moral shortcuts and man-made miseries of the factory farm. Moral concern has surrendered entirely to economic calculation, leaving no limit to the hurt and privation that "growers" are willing to inflict upon animals to keep costs down and profits up.

And far from "making goo-goo eyes" at farm animals, as Mr. Shaw puts it, we don't think of them at all. Or else we readily accept the pious-sounding justifications invoked by factory farmers to cover their cruelties – a little cheap grace to go with their cheap meat.

Critics like Mr. Shaw want us to take a hard, unsentimental view of animals. They never seem to take a hard, unsentimental look at themselves and the demands they place upon the humble animals. Hence this sniveling about the loss of a frivolous little meal starter, as if his pleasure is everything and their suffering nothing.

Religious people answer to a different standard, however, as we were reminded in this weekend's blessing of the animals. It was said of St. Francis that "he walked the earth like the pardon of God." What would this man make of our factory farms, and what Christian in his presence would dare defend them?

From the NY Times
Getting Junior's Goat
By MAUREEN DOWD
How strange that George W. Bush had his appointment in Samarra: his commanders taking a stand against the relentless Iraqi insurgents, trying once more to turn the corner in a war with endless corners.
Mr. Bush is reminiscent of the protagonist of "Appointment in Samarra," by John O'Hara - Julian English, the son of a WASP-y, aristocratic, renowned, ineffectual father. Julian's pals were "the spenders and drinkers and socially secure, who could thumb their noses and not have to answer to anyone except their own families."
Bristling with filial tension and nurturing the chip on his privileged shoulder, the son refuses to follow in the proper father's footsteps and instead engages in, as John Updike put it, "impulsive bellicosity," falling into a self-destructive spiral that starts when he throws a drink into an ally's face at the club.
O'Hara prefaced the novel, his most brilliant, with a quotation from Somerset Maugham about the futility of using a reverse playbook to avoid your fate: The servant of a Baghdad merchant runs into Death at the marketplace and gallops off as fast as he can to Samarra, thinking Death will not find him. But, it turns out, their appointment is not for Baghdad on that day, but for Samarra that night.
W. has rocked the nation and the world as he gallops fast, frantically trying to avoid his dad's electoral fate.
He no longer has to chafe at his father's imposing shadow. If he wants to go to war with Saddam without even discussing it with his dad, he can. If he wants to keep his dad from having a speaking slot at the Republican convention, he can.
Even though the president, waving off any attempts to put him "on the couch," refuses to acknowledge any Oedipal sensitivities, John Kerry artfully drilled into the sore spot in the first debate.
Senator Kerry evoked the voice of Bush 41 to get under 43's thin skin. The more Mr. Kerry played the square, proper, moderate, internationalist war hero, the more the president was reduced to childish scowling and fidgeting, acting like a naughty little boy who refuses to sit in his seat and eat his spinach and do all the hard things a parent wants you to do.
"You know, the president's father did not go into Iraq, into Baghdad beyond Basra," Mr. Kerry said, as W. blinked and burned. "And the reason he didn't is, he said, he wrote in his book, because there was no viable exit strategy. And he said our troops would be occupiers in a bitterly hostile land. That's exactly where we find ourselves today. There's a sense of American occupation."
Mr. Kerry told the now-and-then Guardsman about the "extraordinarily difficult missions" of our troops in Iraq: "I know what it's like to go out on one of those missions where you don't know what's around the corner. And I believe our troops need other allies helping."
Playing the Daddy card was part of the Kerry makeover by the Clintonistas - Bubba eye for the Brahmin guy.
In their '92 debate, Bill Clinton used the same psychological trick to rattle Bush 41. Objecting to the Republican pinko innuendo about a trip he had taken as a young man to Moscow, Mr. Clinton reminded the first President Bush that his father, Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, had stood up to Joe McCarthy: "Your father was right to stand up to Joe McCarthy. You were wrong to attack my patriotism."
The Bushes get very agitated when confronted with the specters of fathers who made them feel that they never measured up.
And even though Mr. Kerry is more of a stiff loner than Poppy Bush, they share enough - that patrician, dutiful son, star of the class and the playing fields, hero on the killing fields, stuffed résumé, Council on Foreign Relations, multilateral mojo - that he can easily get W.'s goat.
It was a sign of how unnerved W. was that he had to rely on his own dark, foreboding and pathologically unapologetic surrogate Daddy, Dick Cheney, to clean up his debate mess and get the red team back in the game.
The vice president shielded the kid by treating John Edwards as even more of a kid.
Mr. Kerry may take on the voice of Daddy Bush again in Friday's domestic debate, pointing out that W.'s father tried to fix the deficit, rather than mushrooming it to $415 billion.
The Clintonistas have infused the Kerry campaign with a new motto: "It's the couch, stupid!"

From STLtoday.com
PRESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTABILITY: There are many reasons to vote for Bush. But why would you?
By Eric Mink Of the Post-Dispatch
We measure re-election potential on the incumbent's record. The president fails that test. Voting for president in 2000 - assuming you were allowed to - was hard work, as President George W. Bush likes to say. Al Gore, vice president at the time, had spent eight years eclipsed by the outsized charisma and appetites of President Bill Clinton, while Bush had been dabbling with elective office as governor of Texas. Neither had a track record that was particularly helpful in judging what kind of president he might be. It's a lot simpler with an incumbent running for reelection: You examine what the guy in office has done. If you want more of the same, you vote for him. If not, you vote for the challenger. Looking back at the past 3 3/4 years, I understand some things: People who think it's a good idea to start turning Medicare over to drug manufacturers, insurance companies and for-profit health-industry conglomerates and open up Social Security for plundering by the brokerage-investment industry should favor Bush. People who believe that loosening regulations on polluters keeps our air and water clean should favor Bush. People who think the best way to help Americans who are hungry, homeless, sick and impoverished is to bleed aid programs dry and rebate taxes to the super-rich should favor Bush. People who believe America can remain the world leader in science by subjecting scientists and their research to religious and political litmus tests should favor Bush. People who think that negligent corporations should be free to hurt consumers with defective products and that the injured should be denied their day in court should favor Bush. People who are convinced that government works better when career public servants take orders from political hacks and special-interest lackeys should favor Bush. And people who believe that government should mind its own business, except when it comes to their neighbors' reproductive choices and sexual orientation, should favor Bush. Many things, however, I do not understand, and at the top of that long list is this: Why would anyone who is concerned about the safety of his family, the security of our country and the fight against Islamist terrorism favor Bush? His administration's record on these issues has been a litany of incompetence and failure. Speaking in Des Moines last month, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that electing the wrong person in November could increase the danger that "we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set. . . ." Bush owns nine months of that mind-set. It's not fair to blame Bush for those attacks, although six of the 10 "missed opportunities" to stop them identified by the 9/11 commission occurred on his watch. But it is fair to hold him responsible for the rigidity of his White House bureaucracy and the lackadaisical attitude toward al-Qaida, both of which made America more vulnerable before Sept. 11, 2001. The U.S. military won a stellar victory in Afghanistan in 2001, but Bush failed to follow through on the pursuit of Osama bin Laden and, much more important, failed to fulfill commitments to secure and rebuild the country. As a result, tribal warlords again control much of the country, Taliban and al-Qaida elements continue to terrorize areas near the Pakistani border, the country is a cesspool of opium production, and the elections scheduled for Saturday are already tainted. American forces delivered another victory in the spring of 2003 in Iraq, only to see their triumph dissolve into the wanton violence and chaos of today because of repeated administration mistakes. Bush has blamed faulty prewar intelligence for his mistaken belief that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction required that it be disarmed. But even at the time, branches of the intelligence community were raising doubts about some information and the reliability of some sources. Bush failed to recognize the gravity and implications of these concerns and started the war anyway. Bush failed to adopt detailed plans drawn up by the State Department for securing and managing the occupation of Iraq. He also failed to heed the warnings of seasoned commanders that more troops would be needed to maintain the peace. These failures, compounded by the hasty disbanding of the Iraqi army, have allowed competing factions of Iraqi insurgents to band together and mount the coordinated, lethal guerrilla war that ravages U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians alike. Bush's failure to abide by the terms of the Geneva Conventions created confused conditions that contributed to the abuse, torture and deaths of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush's defiance of the Constitution in handling prisoners at Guantanamo, Cuba, led to a stern rebuke by the U.S. Supreme Court. As a result, Arab governments are even more reluctant to provide the cooperation we need to fight terrorism effectively. Meanwhile, incidents of terrorism worldwide have increased since Bush took office. Here at home, Bush has failed to provide the resources necessary to equip first responders, secure hazardous chemical plants and many nuclear installations or inspect more than a paltry percentage of shipping containers entering U.S. ports. And we're still looking for the anthrax killer.Bush doesn't like the idea of accountability. None of his cadre of principal advisers - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to name just two - has been fired, despite their repeated, flagrant errors. In a 2002 interview with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward (thanks to syndicated columnist Richard Reeves for recently citing it), Bush described the dynamic in Oval Office meetings: "I'm the commander," he said. "I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." Fine. That's what elections are for.

From the NY Times:
The Nuclear Bomb That Wasn't

Of all the justifications that President Bush gave for invading Iraq, the most terrifying was that Saddam Hussein was on the brink of developing a nuclear bomb that he might use against the United States or give to terrorists. Ever since we learned that this was not true, the question has been whether Mr. Bush gave a good-faith account of the best available intelligence, or knowingly deceived the public. The more we learn about the way Mr. Bush paved the road to war, the more it becomes disturbingly clear that if he was not aware that he was feeding misinformation to the world, he was about the only one in his circle who had not been clued in.
The foundation for the administration's claim that it acted on an honest assessment of intelligence analysis - and the president's frequent claim that Congress had the same information he had - has been steadily eroded by the reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 commission. A lengthy report in The Times on Sunday removed any lingering doubts.
The only physical evidence the administration offered for an Iraqi nuclear program were the 60,000 aluminum tubes that Baghdad set out to buy in early 2001; some of them were seized in Jordan. Even though Iraq had a history of using the same tubes to make small rockets, the president and his closest advisers told the American people that the overwhelming consensus of government experts was that these new tubes were to be used to make nuclear bomb fuel. Now we know there was no such consensus. Mr. Bush's closest advisers say they didn't know that until after they had made the case for war. But in fact, they had plenty of evidence that the claim was baseless; it was a long-discounted theory that had to be resurrected from the intelligence community's wastebasket when the administration needed justification for invading Iraq.
The tubes-for-bombs theory was the creation of a low-level C.I.A. analyst who got his facts, even the size of the tubes, wrong. It was refuted within 24 hours by the Energy Department, which issued three papers debunking the idea over a four-month period in 2001, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency. A week before Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, in which he warned of an Iraqi nuclear menace, international experts in Vienna had dismissed the C.I.A.'s theory about the tubes. The day before, the International Atomic Energy Agency said there was no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program and rejected the tubes' tale entirely.
It's shocking that with all this information readily available, Secretary of State Colin Powell still went before the United Nations to repeat the bogus claims, an appearance that gravely damaged his reputation. It's even more disturbing that Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, had not only failed to keep the president from misleading the American people, but had also become the chief proponents of the "mushroom cloud" rhetoric.
Ms. Rice had access to all the reports debunking the tubes theory when she first talked about it publicly in September 2002. Yet last Sunday, Ms. Rice said that while she had been aware of a "dispute" about the tubes, she had not specifically known what it was about until after she had told the world that Saddam was building the bomb.
Ms. Rice's spokesman, Sean McCormack, said it was not her job to question intelligence reports or "to referee disputes in the intelligence community." But even with that curious job disclaimer, it's no comfort to think that the national security adviser wouldn't have bothered to inform herself about such a major issue before speaking publicly. The national security adviser has no more important responsibility than making sure that the president gets the best advice on life-and-death issues like the war.
If Ms. Rice did her job and told Mr. Bush how ludicrous the case was for an Iraqi nuclear program, then Mr. Bush terribly misled the public. If not, she should have resigned for allowing her boss to start a war on the basis of bad information and an incompetent analysis.

From the NY Times:
Sacrifice and Sabotage
By BOB HERBERT
Viola Gregg Liuzzo is not a name that rings many bells anymore.
Mrs. Liuzzo, a white woman who lived in Detroit, was 39 years old, married and the mother of five when she decided, early in 1965, to head south to volunteer her services in the brutal struggle to get blacks the right to vote. She told her husband it was something she just had to do.
She participated in the now legendary march along Route 80, the Jefferson Davis Highway, from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. The march was led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When it was over, Mrs. Liuzzo offered to drive some of the marchers back to Selma in her two-year-old Oldsmobile.
On the return trip to Montgomery on the night of March 25, Mrs. Liuzzo was accompanied only by a black teenager. On a desolate stretch of the highway, they were overtaken by a car filled with enraged Ku Klux Klansmen and an undercover F.B.I. agent. Mrs. Liuzzo was shot in the face and killed. The car ended up in a ditch. The teenager survived by pretending he was dead.
Last night's presidential debate was an important exercise in American-style democracy. But democracy has no real meaning when citizens qualified to vote are deliberately prevented from casting their ballots, or are intimidated to the point where they are too frightened to vote.
Disenfranchisement comes in many guises. Two professors at the University of Miami did an extensive analysis of so-called voter errors in Miami-Dade County that has not previously been reported on, and that gives us an even more troubling picture of the derailment of democracy in Florida in the 2000 presidential race.
Bonnie Levin, a professor of neurology and psychology, and Robert C. Duncan, a professor of epidemiology, said the purpose of their study was to examine the demographics associated with the uncounted votes in Miami-Dade, a county that disqualified 27,000 votes.
Most of the public attention surrounding Florida's disputed election focused on "under-votes," when machines failed to record a vote for some reason - because of the notorious dimples or hanging chads in punch-card ballots, for example.
Professor Levin told me yesterday that the study convinced her that a much bigger problem in Miami-Dade involved "over-votes," instances in which ballots were reported to have been disqualified because individuals cast votes for more than one presidential candidate.
In their analysis, the professors factored in variables associated with increased errors, such as advanced age or lower education levels. What they found startled them. The instances of voter errors, after taking all relevant variables into account, was much higher - higher than could reasonably have been expected - in predominantly African-American precincts. And, peculiarly, there was an especially high amount of over-voting among blacks.
"Although African-American and Hispanic precincts are similar in terms of household income and education, the African-American precincts have many more over-votes and under-votes," the professors wrote. "Interestingly, they differ strongly in party affiliation (African-American predominantly Democrat, Hispanic more Republican)."
Surprise, surprise.
Dr. Levin said she did not believe these were the kinds of honest errors one would expect to find in an analysis of voting patterns. Something else was at work. "The data show that it was so specific to certain precincts," she said. "It was so targeted toward African-Americans. There was nothing random about it."
She said, "The most important finding was that education was not a predictor for African-Americans."
Now, in the 2004 presidential election, we're already seeing widespread vote-suppression efforts, from the failed attempt by the Jeb Bush administration to use bogus, biased lists of alleged felons to efforts in many parts of the country to prevent the registration of new voters, especially African-Americans.
The people trampling on voting rights today are following the same ugly tradition that resulted in the disenfranchisement of millions of black Americans and led to the murder of Viola Liuzzo and others.
At one time it was the Democratic Party that produced the grandmasters in the art of disenfranchisement. Now that torch has been passed to the Republicans. President Bush could put a stop to it, but so far he's chosen not to.