To the editor:

Sunday’s Journal-World told us that pollsters were “startled” to discover that a substantial number of Americans erroneously believe that Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons before the war and even used them against U.S. troops during the war, and that Iraqis were involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Startled? How could they be startled when that trifecta of Big Lies was recited repeatedly by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and reported regularly by the Journal-World and other media as justification for the attack on Iraq. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell dutifully read the script handed to him and outlined to the United Nations the underwhelming evidence that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and alleged alliances with al-Qaida somehow constituted a true threat to the United States.

Let’s not forget the Big Lie enablers such as the Journal-World’s stable of right-wing columnists and the flag-wavers on Fox Television, who now insist that Saddam has been ousted and it doesn’t matter that a pre-emptive war was launched to eliminate the threat of weapons that did not exist. Tell that to the 3,500 Iraqi civilians, 10,000-plus Iraqi troops and 120 U.S. soldiers who died in the war (not to mention the American soldiers who will lose their lives during what promises to be a long and bloody occupation). Truth was a casualty before this war ever started.

Ted Frederickson,

Tonganoxie