Downward Spiral

George Bush performed horrendously in the first presidential debate, but that was just the beginning of a downward spiral for him this week.

On Sunday, the New York Times stated that those infamous aluminum tubes that supposedly prove Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program were most likely intended for artillery rockets, not nuclear weapons.

On Monday, Donald Rumsfeld said he didn't know of any proof of a Saddam Hussein/Al Qaeda connection and former Iraqi Occupation Chief Paul Bremer said that there were not enough troops sent to Iraq to secure the country.

On Tuesday, what initially appeared as a draw in the Cheney/Edwards debate crumbled under scrutiny, as the lies and deceptions in Dick Cheney's arguments were easily exposed and became media fodder.

On Wednesday, a CIA report stated there is no evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Yesterday, the report from CIA chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer stated that prior to the war, Saddam Hussein had no WMDs and that he had no viable program to produce such weapons.

The mounting evidence leads to only one thing: there was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein. Bush had no justifiable rationale for a preemptive war.

In the face of all this, what did Bush have to say for himself?

"He retained the knowledge, the materials, the means and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "And he could have passed that knowledge on to our terrorist enemies. . . . In a world after September the 11th, he was a threat we had to confront. And America and the world are safer for our actions."

Dick Cheney seconded him by saying "delay, defer, wait wasn't an option".

Bush and Cheney's performance in the debates was a microcosm of how they governed the country in the last four years: with arrogance, incompetence and deceit. The above statements further prove this. They refuse to acknowledge that saying Saddam Hussein might have intended to produce WMDs that he might have passed on to terrorists is not good enough to wage a preemptive war that cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Their recklessness also placed us in greater danger. Not only has the war contributed to the terrorists' recruiting efforts but also encouraged countries like Iran and North Korea to speed up their nuclear weapons programs. Why would these countries disarm if they think they would suffer the same fate as Iraq? What if, fearing a preemptive U.S. attack, they attack us first?
John Kerry couldn't have said it better:

"This week has provided definitive evidence as to why George Bush should not be reelected president of the United States".

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