Truespeak

President Bush is still having to defend his decision to go to war in Iraq. Sixteen months later, and he still feels like he has to convince us. The problem is that we are becoming increasingly more skeptical (finally).

President Bush asserted Monday that the war against Iraq has made America safer as he sought to counteract the findings in a Senate report late last week that the U.S. intelligence community distorted and exaggerated the weapons threat posed by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq," Bush said during a brief visit to east Tennessee. His remarks came amid fresh evidence that support for his Iraq policies continues to decline. A new Washington Post poll found that 45 percent of the public believes the war was worth fighting, compared with 49 percent in May and 57 percent a year ago.

Bush's remarks -- his most extensive on the Senate report -- represented an attempt to regain political footing on an issue that his advisers had expected to be a strong selling point in his reelection campaign but that has stirred public skepticism.

Confronted with unanimous findings by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that the administration had relied on unfounded intelligence in going to war, the president essentially sought to reframe the debate. Hussein's removal, he said, was part of a three-prong strategy for peace.

"We are defending the peace by taking the fight to the enemy," Bush said in a subtle reformulation of the idea of "preemption" that has been a centerpiece of his foreign policy since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "We have followed this strategy -- defending the peace, protecting the peace and extending the peace -- for nearly three years. We have been focused and patient, firm and consistent."

Peace was never threatened by Iraq. This is an empty statement to make you think the government is doing you a favor by "protecting" you. Not only was peace never threatened, neither was my freedom. I'm tired of hearing that the troops are "fighting for my freedom." I was already free and Iraq did not have the capabilities to take my freedom from me.

However, I think the focus of this discussion about the war in Iraq needs to focus on the concept of preemption. What we did in Iraq was not preemptive. It was preventative. John W. Dean does a good job of explaining the difference between preemptive and preventative military policy in his book Worse Than Watergate.

"By design, Bush does not distinguish between "preemptive" and "preventative" war. There is a difference. Those who launch "preventative" wars are aggressors - notwithstanding efforts to claim, as all such aggressors do, that they are acting in self-defense. On the other hand, those who engage in "preemptive" wars are viewed as acting in self-defense, with the preemptive action being akin to a quick-draw response to an obvious threat. International law has long accepted preemptive actions and rejected preventative wars."

This would explain why many of our allies were so strongly opposed to our Iraq policy. It also points out another deception by the Bush administration. We were not acting in self-defense. We were the aggressors. We were arrogant in our policy and our approach.

Fortunately, the American people are beginning to see the light. According to the latest poll numbers, people see Bush as arrogant.

President Bush is viewed by more American voters as decisive and arrogant than Democratic rival John Kerry, according to an Associated Press poll. Voters are more likely to see Kerry as intelligent.

Maybe we're getting some where.