To the editor:

According to recent comments by the Bush administration, any questioning of how and why we went to war in Iraq gives “aid and comfort to the enemy.” In other words, I now stand accused of being a traitor to my country. Hmmmm.

The Bush administration also defended itself by saying that Congress received the same pre-war intelligence as they did, and that both a bipartisan Senate committee and an independent committee exonerated the administration of intelligence manipulation in the run-up to war. I will address myself to these latter two assertions.

As to the claim that the White House and Congress received the same information, why then is Congress only now finding out that:

¢ The State Department was convinced that a Niger/Iraq uranium claim was false, yet Bush still used it in his State of the Union speech?

¢ The Department of Energy never believed aluminum tubes had anything to do with an Iraq nuclear program, yet Bush still used it in his State of the Union speech?

¢ The administration’s primary source of information about Iraq’s chemical/biological programs was an alcoholic, deemed unreliable by his own agency, German intelligence?

In regard to the “Bipartisan Senate Committee” and the “Independent” Robb-Silberman Committee (appointed by Bush), neither of these committees was even allowed to look into how information was used (or misused) by the Bush administration.

Any wonder that a majority of Americans now question Bush’s honesty? As a people, we might move a little slow, but we’re not stupid.

Daniel Patrick Schamle,

Lawrence