I was proud and happy to vote for President Barack Obama twice. I have been extremely pleased with his leadership. However, it was always unlikely that I would agree with him on all issues over his two terms. My major disagreement occurred very early when President Obama announced that he was not interested in launching an inquiry into the Bush War. It was President Obama's judgment that the country should move on.
The American people had been sold a bill of goods regarding the presence and potential use of weapons of mass destruction against our country. We went to war based on lies. The United Kingdom has just released the extremely damaging Chilcot Report which has shed new light on the buildup to war and has taken former Prime Minister Tony Blair and members of his cabinet to task for allowing Britain to enter such a phony war based on lies and the absence of good leadership. The British people have been angered by the extensive loss of life for no valid reason ("Britain and Blair painfully revisit the invasion of Iraq," July 8).
I remember the drumbeat emanating from the George W. Bush administration in the selling of this war to the American people. I heard members of the Bush administration including Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld making the case that failure to attack Iraq would cause them to attack us with Iraq's supposedly hidden arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. This violation of Iraq's sovereignty has been the leading cause of destabilization in the Middle East which has resulted in the world becoming even more dangerous. The loss of American lives as well as the loss of many more Iraqi lives is a direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Our government has since spent so much tax money on a war with no justifiable cause that we will feel the budgetary effects for generations. No member of the Bush administration has been held accountable. In fact, these people who have done such harm to their country have benefited financially by authoring books and memoirs in which they have had the audacity to justify their actions. Ironically, we have just witnessed the Republican led inquiry into the Benghazi attack which occurred on one day and killed four Americans. The Republicans own the Iraq War. They should take responsibility and set up hearings to determine what happened and to establish accountability.
Why are we giving war criminals a free pass? Ignoring this extremely sad and unfinished chapter of our nation's history will not cause us to forget nor can we ignore the call to justice.
Edward McCarey McDonnell, Baltimore