To the editor:

Until now, Sen. Pat Roberts has been fighting attempts to convene an independent commission to investigate intelligence failures. After all, he wrote in the Washington Post, the intelligence was used by President Clinton to justify Operation Desert Fox. Odd, then, that in 1999, Sen. Roberts wrote in his statement on the impeachment that the reasons for that operation were “unclear.”

He went on to say that many people were accusing President Clinton of trying to distract people from his legal troubles, but, he added, even if it were true, it wouldn’t be important. “Whether those charges are true or false is no longer material. What is material is that the President of the United States is not credible … It is precisely this kind of situation, I am convinced, that worried America’s Founding Fathers as they devised the impeachment mechanism to remove a sitting president whose actions endanger the republic.”

If Roberts were serious about those beliefs, he would be first in line today, pushing for the impeachment of President Bush. The president has led us down a false road. Whether he did this knowingly is irrelevant. What is important is that, due to his altering of U.S. policy toward pre-emption, we have attacked a country which did not threaten us. We have lost credibility as a nation.

Roberts, as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, could help repair some of this damage by demanding a truly independent commission to investigate the intelligence that led us to war, instead of a commission nominated by a president who has tarnished not only his own image, but the image of this great nation.

Terry L. Welch,

Lawrence