To the editor:

I want to thank Sen. Harry Reid for bravely calling the Senate into a closed-door session to insist that senators discover and report the truth about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In his statement, he calls for an inquiry into the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), set up in August 2002 by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and chaired by Karl Rove, for the purpose of marketing the war and squelching doubters. Card is the person who on Sept. 6, 2002, said, “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August,” to explain why the administration waited until after Labor Day to make its big push for invading Iraq.

In his statement, Sen. Reid reminds us of people who were not only ignored but punished for speaking the truth: Gen. Shinseki, whose military career ended when he said several hundred thousand troops would be needed; OMB Director Larry Lindsay, whose career ended when he predicted the war would cost $200 billion; IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, who narrowly escaped being removed because he raised questions about the administration’s claims of Saddam’s nuclear capabilities; Joe Wilson, whose wife was identified as a CIA agent because he dared to say that the nuclear claims were false.

Some Republicans are trying to spin the Senate closure into a mere political “stunt” to call attention to Libby’s indictment. They know as well as anyone that the problem goes far deeper than that. Thank you, Sen. Reid.

Malika Lyon,

Lawrence