Repairing Iraq now our national duty

William Parrot's Nov. 24 letter misleads us to the ideas that bipartisan intelligence got us into the Iraq war and prayer will return our soldiers.

It was fraudulent intelligence that convinced bipartisan leadership this war was justified and we need far more than prayer to return our troops safely while saving our national pride.

Any objective researcher need go beyond Parrot's "cursory visit" to Lexis-Nexus. Google +Curve ball +Germany, or +Valerie Plame +yellow cake or +Downing Street Memos for a start.

You will read how intelligence was manipulated by Bush's Republican team to obtain support for their war. Or you can read George Will's belated column of Nov. 11007 for excerpts.

These resources reveal the sad reality of this war. Iraq is in ruins. Colin Powell, understanding America's heritage and the importance of its leadership in the world, once told President Bush, "You break it, you own it."

If America is to regain its pre-eminence in the world, we have to find some way to return Iraq to a condition better than it was before we began the bombing.

There is nothing to celebrate about Iraq and we shouldn't only pray for our courageous troops' safe return. We should demand their return from our legislators. And if we want to once again be viewed as a great nation, we should demand the appropriate levy on our population to repair their broken country.

And pray we are capable of the hugely creative efforts which need to be directed toward that end. That is the truly inconvenient reality.

Arthur P. Malm

Elgin