President George Bush and the War in Iraq
E. Noel Preston. M.D.

   Back in October, I went to a granddaughter's two year old birthday party. Her other grandpa and grandma had come down from North Carolina (we do things like that in our family -- it's a great excuse to see each other again, even if Lily, the birthday girl, doesn't remember it). The other grandpa, like me, has never voted for a Democrat for President, ever. Both of us thought it was right for the U.S. to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein and find and destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction. Both of us think it would have been worse if John Kerry had been elected.

   But now the United States is in a huge pickle. I think now there aren't/weren't any weapons of Mass Destruction after all. I don't think George Bush lied to everyone in the country, but I think he was fed false information about Iraq in the first place, failed to verify it, and led us into a war that looks now like a terrible mistake. The other grandpa disagrees. He thinks the wily Iraqis did have Weapons of Mass Destruction and have hidden them or buried them somewhere. He thinks George Bush, like Abraham Lincoln before him, is the President during an unpopular war and is laboring under tremendous opposition to preserve the Union, and that sometime in the future he will be regarded as one of our greatest and finest Presidents.

   I cannot predict the future, and will not try to do so. But at the birthday party here in Atlanta and far away from the fighting, surrounded by my 12 grandchildren and their friends and parents on a beautiful, warm sunny day, I noticed my first grandchild, Luke, now nine years old, chasing one of his cousins across the back yard with a Darth Vader Laser Stick. The war in Iraq has already gone on more than five years, and President Bush and his generals have said it might last another five or ten years into the future. There is a program on public television at night on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer that usually ends with the "Honor Roll of Deceased Military Personnel Killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here, in silence, are __ more." At least 80 per cent of the people shown are less than 30 years old, and most of them are younger than 25. A heartbreaking number of them are only teenagers, and ten years from now Luke will be 19 years old. I do not want to hear his name on the News Hour. I do not want him to die.

   I do not want this war to go on.

   For all that I did not like President Clinton, I remember his telling a newscaster that while he was President he did try to kill or capture the terrorist leader Osama ben Laden. President Bush had access to the Clinton administration's records on ben Laden. He had eight months in office before 9/11 to catch him, but apparently didn't even try to do so. President Bush had intelligence warnings an event like 9/11 was being planned by the terrorists, but either took no action or the actions he took were inadequate. And so no, I disagree that George Bush will come to be regarded as one of our finest Presidents.

   But what to do now about this terrible mess we are in? I do not know.

It was a devastating blunder for us to go in, but I think it would be a worse mistake for us to leave Iraq in the hands of the incompetants in charge of the Iraqi government. I believe they are lazy, frightened, corrupt, or all of the above, and that they will not take charge of their own destiny as long as we are doing it for them. I think we should let them decide whether to subdivide into three separate countries or remain a sort-of-united republic, we should give them a timetable for accomplishing certain tasks to provide for their own security, and then I think we should get out.

But what do I know? I'm just a grandfather.

E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553. More information can be found at www.PeachtreeCornersPediatrics.com

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