War Against Iraq

WASHINGTON -- CIA director Robert M. Gates has provided a new, detailed account of one of the most historically significant and controversial actions of the Bush administration: the decision to leave Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the Persian Gulf War.In an interview with the Los Angeles Times this week as he prepared to leave office, Mr. Gates, deputy national security adviser at the White House before and during the war against Iraq,...

On the eve of President Bush's deadline for diplomacy over war, hundreds of people encircled Baltimore's Washington Monument last night, clutching candles and holding signs declaring, "No Iraq War" and "War Is Not The Answer" - a small action that was part of a worldwide vigil for peace. Collectively called Global Vigil for Peace, the vigil was one of more than 2,500 candlelight gatherings, beginning in New Zealand, that crossed the planet in protest of the anticipated U.S.-led war with Iraq.

WASHINGTON -- Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a message to American television audiences, portrayed the Persian Gulf crisis as an American-British-Israeli conspiracy to deprive Arabs of their "dignity and humanity" and said that Kuwait had waged economic war against Iraq.Insisting that the American purpose was one of politics, not principle, Mr. Hussein told Americans that President Bush is "sending your sons to a war that has no human value or meaning save fatal arrogance."Accusing Mr. Bush of "repeating the mistake of Vietnam," Mr. Hussein warned that if the president "starts a war, it won't be up to him to end it."

WASHINGTON -- George Bush, a politician often accused of being cautious to a fault, has now taken the ultimate political gamble by risking his presidency on the outcome of a war against Iraq.The heady reports of the success of the initial strikes against Saddam Hussein seemed to promise that the gamble would pay a high return. But even in the early euphoria the hard truth remained that the president needs not just an initial success but an early and complete triumph to emerge as a winner.

With her son's life at stake in the ground war against Iraq, Baba Whisler did not expect to move a muscle away from her television set last night."We're watching it very closely," said Ms. Whisler, whose son, Pfc. Matt Whisler, 20, serves in the Army's 82nd Airborne. "We know he's in the midst of it.""It's going to be a long night. I can tell you that."She was not alone. Across Maryland, people turned on their televisions after the ground war was launched and waited for details of the invasion.

WASHINGTON -- What's the rush? Why is this country plunging pell-mell toward a war against Iraq at such haste that a full-blown public debate on the merits or folly of the exercise must be sacrificed? Both President Bush and Democratic congressional leaders are insisting that Congress vote on a war resolution before the November congressional elections to keep the issue "out of politics." What kind of nonsense, or even insanity, is this? The president insists that Congress act before the matter of U.N. support is decided as a goad to the world body to march in step with him. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt say a resolution should be approved to "get it off the table" so voters will concentrate on Mr. Bush's domestic vulnerabilities in a time of national economic distress.

BOSTON -- The news crawled across the bottom of the screen as a surreal footnote to the president's speech on Iraq. President offers federal help for victims of sniper shooting ... Oliver North is 59 ... Audiences hunger for Hannibal as Red Dragon tops box office ... Sometime between the news of soccer players unionizing and the Nobel Prize for medicine, the president made his case against a "homicidal dictator." He warned the country that without action against Iraq, the United States would "resign itself to fear."

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, in belatedly declaring his support for President Bush's war resolution, said, "It is important for America to speak with one voice at this critical moment." Both the House and Senate have decisively given the president a free hand to use force against Iraq, with that hand obviously strengthened in seeking a U.N. resolution that would make it unnecessary for America to go it alone. But it was clear from the debate in both houses that Mr. Daschle's Democratic Party does not speak with one voice on the matter.

Ever look back on an unsettling dialogue and think of something meaningful you could have said, but didn't? It happens to me all the time. I think I'm better at writing than at talking. Slow brain function, I guess. For that reason, I hate public speaking engagements and rarely accept them. Last week I did accept one because an old friend and colleague had asked me to speak to a group of retirees who meet for lunch a few times a year. "What will you talk about?" he asked me before I was introduced.

New Year's resolutions: So easy to make; so hard to keep. Barely into the New Year, I'm failing. But these were practically unkeepable resolutions. Resolved, had I, to stop being suspicious of all that the Bush administration does, invoking God all along the way to war and deficit spending and environmental enhancements whose consequences will endure for generations. No more suspicions expressed about the reasons Bush said America had for going to war against Iraq. No more talk about the ever-elusive weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein was stockpiling, including nukes that posed an imminent threat to the security of the United States and warranted a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.