253. Administration motivated by oil

It is becoming increasingly obvious that President Bush's goal is not to disarm Iraq. Had this been the case, the destruction so far of 16 out of about 100 missiles that Iraq voluntarily declared, the private interviews with Iraqi scientists that have resumed, and the additional documents Iraq provided about the destruction of its biological and chemical agents would have been enough to show that disarmament is in progress.

But, as Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, said on CNN's Inside Politics of Feb. 28, "I think if we want disarmament, there's still a possibility . . . If we want regime change, it will have to be war." In fact, according to PBS's Frontline of Feb. 20, the idea of going to war against Iraq was talked about immediately after 9/11, even though no links were established between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Bush's administration decided early on to go to war and then went on a fishing expedition to find a pretext. That's why the reason given kept changing from "Saddam is a threat" to "spreading democracy" to "liberating the Iraqis." The idea that this war is about liberating Iraq is as ludicrous as the idea that the first gulf war was about liberating Kuwait. In a moment of truth, Jim Baker, then secretary of state, said the first gulf war was about oil. This one is also about oil.

Shame on an administration that is putting its commercial interests over human lives! Such mendacity needs to be exposed.