To the editor:

How about a question from the “holier-than-thou crowd?” I would like to ask Ms. Mangan (Public Forum, Nov. 26) and the rest of you who support this war as an excuse to “get rid of that evil man,” why did you wait so long to get so passionate about removing Saddam Hussein from power?

In 1982, the State Department removed Iraq from its list of states that supported international terrorism, and in the summer of 1983 the U.S. had intelligence describing Iraq’s constant use of chemical weapons against both Iranian forces and Kurdish insurgents as well. In the face of this information, the Reagan administration did little to condemn the Iraqi chemical weapons program. In fact, it was in December of that year that Rumsfeld met with Hussein himself and did not bring up the use of chemical weapons indicating silent consent. This is after Hussein effectively removed all of his opposition in the government by having them executed.

How many years was Hussein able to torture and murder his own people before you took it upon yourselves to demand his removal? And after he got his wrist slapped for invading Kuwait, how many of you actively campaigned for his removal then?

As far as your “abused children” analogy, the United States has known since Hussein’s accession to power what he was doing to his people — it was not “unbeknownst to the authorities” — so why didn’t we do something earlier? Of course, the main question, why didn’t we use this as our excuse to invade Iraq?

Corey Williams,

Lawrence