Bush or Kerry

The '04 presidential election is just days away. Must admit, I'm still undecided. I've always leaned toward Kerry for the very fact that I hold a very bitter grudge against Bush for his rushing the U.S. into invading Iraq.

I remember well the weeks and months leading up to the invasion .. the Bush administration placed a full court press in the Senate and House, as well as in the United Nations, to convince us that Iraq possessed 'weapons of mass destruction'.

Though the UN was never won over, the Senate and House did side with Bush. That was crucial to my own support for the invasion - which I based on the fact that the Senate/House were swayed by the administration's closed-door, confidential disclosures of the threats posed by Iraq. I figured if the legislative branch was swayed, then there surely must be something to the assertions about Iraq's danger.

Yet as the war dragged on and on it became clearer and clearer that the threat did not exist. Eventually it was admitted that the intelligence upon which the administration based its reasons to go to war was, for the most part, bogus.

I see two interpretations of the administration's role in all this:

1. They could have been duped by bogus information.

2. They know it was bogus, and they decided to mislead the American public.

Obviously in the later case the administration must accept the consequences of being found out (eg, being voted out on election day).

In the former case, however, many would defind the administration, claiming it wasn't their fault the intelligence was bad. Well, I think quite the opposite is the case - if they're going to put this country to war then the reasons for that war must be extremely correct, accurate and truthful. Therefore it is absolutely the job of the administration to insure the accuracy of its intelligence. This was sadly not done at all. Hence, the administration is culpable even in this former interpretation.