In light of Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales' recent visits to Corpus Christi, I've dug up the following letter, which I submitted to the Caller Times on Aug. 17, 2005. It never ran, but here it is:
Local media outlets reported last Wednesday (Aug. 11) that Karen Hughes, an adviser to President Bush, spoke before Bay Area Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse on promoting a positive image of the United States abroad. According to the Caller Times, Hughes insisted that the U.S. must counter "hateful speech and propaganda in the Middle East."
Amazingly, nothing was said of Hughes' own propagandism. Hughes, who also served as director of communications for President Bush when he was governor of Texas, was a member of the highly secretive White House Iraq Group (WHIG), whose purpose was to "educate the public," in one participant's words, about the threat posed to the United States by Saddam Hussein and Iraq's purported WMD. Shortly after WHIG formed in August 2002, the Bush administration's claims about the threat posed by Iraq escalated, culminating in the March 2003 invasion. WHIG's role was pivotal in conjuring public support.
Many Americans now know that Iraq did not have WMD. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to conclude that WHIG and the Bush administration knew this all along: Many of the claims that Iraq was hiding WMD were based on the testimony of Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law, to UN weapon inspectors after he defected from Iraq in 1995. In that same testimony, Kamel also revealed that, "All [of Iraq's] weapons -- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed," which the Bush administration conveniently overlooked.
In other words, Hughes arguably contributed to an egregious war crime. In a democratic community, this should not go unnoticed.
DC Tedrow
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