Editorial: Bush needs to live up to reputation

Shortly after President Franklin Roosevelt died while in office,
President Harry Truman placed a now-famous sign on his desk. It
read: “The buck stops here.”

Now, it’s not clear where the buck stops.

The White House acknowledged in the past week that a statement
in President Bush’s State of the Union address, made while he
argued the necessity of disarming Iraq, was based on bad
intelligence. The admission set off a round of finger-pointing and
weak excuses by administration officials.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell predictably
tried to downplay the discredited claim. Central Intelligence
Agency Director George Tenet “fell on the sword,”
taking blame for not striking the faulty assertion.

But though Bush has teams of speech-writers, advisers and
editors, he made the statement, and he must answer for it.

Administrative officials are arguing otherwise, saying Bush
should move on, that the uranium claim was of little significance
““ just a small part of his broader argument for war.

But the statement is also just a small part of a body of dubious
information coming from the Bush team. Though Democrats and a few
congressional Republicans should be commended for demanding Bush
more thoroughly explain his statement, the uranium claim is only
part of a whole pattern of mysteries making Bush’s reasons
for war seem more and more faulty:

“¢bull; More than two months after Bush declared combat over in
Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction, or evidence of such weapons,
have been found.

“¢bull; Two former state department officials said
administration claims of relationships between Saddam Hussein and
al-Qaeda were exaggerated and misleading, The Associated Press
reported Saturday. The same report said a United Nations terrorism
committee has no evidence, other than statements made by Powell, of
such ties.

“¢bull; Making a case for action against Iraq to the UN
security council, Powell cited a British government report on the
threat Iraq posed. Much of the report was plagiarized from a paper
written by former UCLA student Ibrahim al-Marashi and published in
Middle East Review of International Affairs. At points, the British
dossier even repeated al-Marashi’s typos and grammatical
errors.

“¢bull; Despite rhetoric about a liberated Iraq, and though an
interim government was finally inaugurated, Iraqis still live in a
country whose future stability is far from certain.

Reports surface and questions swirl as young Americans die
halfway around the world. And Bush is silent, except for a few
short statements leaving more questions than answers.

Republicans and media pundits tout Bush as a common-folks
president, the polar opposite of an elitist Bill Clinton who
quibbled over political consequence, and could not, if he tried,
speak from the heart. They admire how Bush wanted Osama bin Laden
“dead or alive”; how he called unfriendly nations an
“axis of evil”; how, as guerrillas attack U.S. troops,
he told foes to “bring it on.”

Bush is advertised as bold and blunt, a man who speaks in frank
terms to American people. Though the public may be more reluctant
to trust him now, Bush needs to live up to his reputation and
communicate directly and honestly about the claims he made before
war.

If he doesn’t, Americans must remember his silence and
cover-up when he runs for re-election and, more importantly, if he
tries to send any more young people into harm’s way. Does the
buck stop with Bush, or doesn’t it?

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