"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Iraq Trust Gap: You've got a credibility problem, Mr. President

11:41 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 22, 2004
The Dallas Morning News

A time comes in most administrations when supporters tell the president
he has a problem. Bob Dole told Ronald Reagan he should worry about the
deficit. Tip O'Neill told Jimmy Carter he better improve his icy
relationship with Capitol Hill. And George W. Bush told his father that
White House chief of staff John Sununu needed to go.

The supporters find themselves like skunks at the garden party. They
back the president but see a problem. And they decide to speak out.

We find ourselves in that position with President Bush and the war in
Iraq. We supported his presidential candidacy. We backed the war in
Iraq. But we now wonder: What happened?

U.S. troops have found no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. And the
9-11 panel says there was no working partnership between al-Qaeda and
Saddam Hussein. President Bush presented both WMD and the
al-Qaeda/Hussein link as reasons for striking Iraq before it attacks us.

The president has a credibility gap here, and he needs to address it
right away. Vice President Dick Cheney tried but failed miserably. He
said, in effect, "we know more than you and you better trust us."

The country did just that when we went to war in Iraq, but things aren't
working as promised. The administration needs to respond with specifics,
not like members of a secret society with keys to the kingdom.

If the president or any member of his administration knows of concrete
links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, we implore them to speedily
present that information to the 9-11 commission. Commissioners say
they'd welcome contradictions to their claim that al-Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein were not in cahoots.

A poll conducted by Republican Bill McInturff and Democrat Stanley
Greenberg for National Public Radio shows 54 percent of Americans think
the country's off track. Those are serious numbers, Mr. President.
Arrogance will not change Americans' perceptions. Plain-speaking will.
The country needs that, sir.

Poor Harry. He doesn't realize that the American public will get flooded
with a deluge of proof linking Saddam to al Qaeda between the end of the
Summer and November.

Why should the Bush admin leak all of the good stuff this early?