Gulf News, A roadside bomb brings the tally of American soldiers killed in Iraq to 500. Iraqi casualties go ignored. While the Pentagon puts out slick propaganda videos, there are others doing the rounds of the Internet showing the cold-blooded killing of Iraqis; in one case a wounded man writhing in pain is shot repeatedly, while another shows a calculated death sentence carried out by Apache pilots. The war may be over but serendipity is evasive.
Forgotten are the fabled weapons of mass destruction. Forgotten are the so-called links to Al Qaida. Forgiven are the rows with Rumsfeld's “Old Europe” and the errant Security Council, which shuffled its collective feet when it came to doing Bush's bidding.
Even as we learn from former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that 10 days after Bush took office, the ousting of Saddam topped his presidential agenda, there is an absence of outrage. Even when we hear the president himself confirm it was always about regime change, credible voices crying “foul” are strangely ignored.
Strategic mistake
Former four-star general Wesley Clark said Bush invaded Iraq without adequate justification. “I think it was a strategic mistake and wrong for America,” he said.
Kenneth M. Pollack, an Iraq expert, whose book Threatening Storm: The case for invading Iraq was influential in the run up to the invasion has made a significant U-turn.
The formerly pro-war pundit now writes: “
