Bush is still lying about Iraq

To the Editor:

Bush is still lying to the American people about Iraq. He invented reasons to invade Iraq and now he can't see to level with the American people about the truly dismal state of the British and American military occupation of Iraq.

In many ways, the people of Iraq are probably, on the average, worse off under the Blair and Bush military occupation than they were under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam. How can anyone possibly say this? Well. if you examine some objective standards, such as electricity service, water service, employment levels, personal and civic security you will find that most of these indicators have declined since the British and American invasion of Iraq. The unemployment rate in Baghdad is now about 60%, the electricity service is sporadic at best, water service is intermittent, personal security and civic security have also declined. Now, instead of worrying about Saddam's secret police, Iraqis now have to worry about armed British and American soldiers harassing them, searching them, arresting them and shooting them, accidentally or otherwise. At least under Saddam, Iraqis had jobs that paid money, they had electricity and water service and their streets were safe (except from Saddam's secret police, of course).

Even the vaunted "liberation" and "freedom" in Iraq, which the Bush Administration is always is crowing about, is essentially a fraud. The highly publicized pulling down of the statue of Saddam was a staged event that done for the benefit of the American media. It was not done by ordinary Baghdad citizens. The Iraqis are not allowed to print anything in their newspapers which might incite the Iraqi people to violence against the invading and occupying forces. This is exactly the attitude that the English King George the Third had in 1776 about the American revolutionaries. The "democracy" and "elections" seem to be slipping further and further away into a distant and receding future

Bush, Wolfowitz and the Secretary of War, Donald Rumsfeld, all refuse to even estimate the cost and duration of our occupation of Iraq. We know that this stupid occupation is costing American taxpapers about $4,000,000,000 per month. This is roughly a billion dollars each week and these enormous costs are not even listed in the Federal budget, which is now running record annual deficits of about $450,000,000,000, due in large part to the massive and growing tax cuts for the rich.

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

10 August 2003