To the editor:

The pursuit of war against Iraq was based on lying to the American public at worst, or grossly misleading it at best. What else could explain the sad fact that 72 percent of our citizens believe Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were partners in the Sept. 11 attacks and that Iraqis participated in the events, when the finest intelligence sources in the world, including ours, can find absolutely no substantive connection between the two?

Recently, we were told that an independent team of investigators, dispatched by the White House, had concluded the window of opportunity for preventing the onset of absolute chaos in Iraq is rapidly closing. Eighty-seven billion dollars, straight out of your pocket and mine, will supposedly wedge that window open a little longer. Still, George Bush speaks confidently and casually of installing an effective democracy there.

This day, in the United States, millions of children will go to bed hungry, 50 million citizens will have little or no access to any but the most basic of medical services, college tuition will rise menacingly toward dollar amounts that only the wealthy can afford, millions of elderly will have to choose between purchasing life-critical drugs or eating, we will fire teachers but retain football coaches, our prisons will house more citizens per capita than any other developed country, and bodies will continue to be prepared for shipment home from a distant war that was supposedly won months ago.

What fools we are that we have been led to believe we can, or should, do for another country, another people, that which we have proven so incapable of doing for ourselves.

Dick Walker,

Baldwin