Friday, August 19, 2005

Iraq War: Seattle's angst

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Seattle, broadly speaking, never wanted the war in Iraq. People said so before the invasion. They said so loudly, clearly and peacefully in the 2004 election.

Now, thanks to Cindy Sheehan, Seattle is again quietly but firmly expressing its convictions about a war whose continuing justification is as elusive as a Dick Cheney-induced dream of poison-gas cylinders, biowarfare trucks and Iraqi agents spiriting yellow cake uranium out of Africa. The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq inspired 1,500 people here to turn out again for a war protest at Green Lake.

Some of us who oppose the war are not convinced that Sheehan's preferred solution -- complete withdrawal of U.S. troops -- could be accomplished quickly without disastrous results. But President Bush ought to be talking directly with her and with America about the thorny options for making the best of a bad situation, his reasons for staying and whether there is a plan for Iraq.

Instead, the president huddles with the same neoconservatives who proclaimed "mission accomplished" after entering Iraq with too few troops, paltry international support and a deliberately incoherent lack of planning to secure the country. For the moment, Sheehan has dropped her vigil, because of a family illness. Her protest hasn't ignited the country as much as it has shone the light of truth on a White House that's on vacation while crime, chaos and improvised explosive devices torch another Iraqi summer.