Seeing is believing: The quest for truth about the war in Iraq

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Iraq is the first war the United States has ever undertaken where most of the people have no common understanding of why we went into it. Was it for oil, for God, for freedom, for democracy, for revenge, for patricide, for anti-terrorism, or what?

Listening to the White House only adds to the confusion. Spokespersons announce "facts" and appeal to patriotic values when the observed facts and actions are quite to the contrary. For example, they say our troops are "war heros," but in fact they treat them like so much cannon fodder.

The Bush administration purports to "support the troops" in Iraq - by keeping them there. That's the slogan, anyway. In reality, as U.S. Congressman Chris Murphy recently pointed out on the floor of the House, President Bush's latest budget slashes $20 billion (that's billions, not millions) from the budget for medical care of our veterans (that's $4 billion a year for each of the next five years).

Those are astronomical figures. Bush has effectively nullified the recent budget increase for our troops and veterans that Congress had just voted for. So Congress has to start all over again.

This reduction in funding for our wounded veterans comes on top of the $1 billion a year that Rumsfeld took from the VHA hospital budget in each of the last four years - just when thousands of our troops are returning with missing arms and legs, and suffering from other serious medical problems. Does that look like supporting the troops? Many of our troops do not know the services and benefits to which they are entitled as a matter of law. They need help to find their way through the myriad of application forms to obtain the benefits and services to which they are entitled by law.

Predictably, the Pentagon and Department of Defense deny they ever suggested that VHA staff should refrain from helping our wounded veterans fill out their legitimate medical claim forms. Now a memorandum turns up in Washington, D.C., showing that is exactly what happened. The policy of the Bush administration is to minimize medical claims. They have "other priorities." Is this the thanks of a grateful nation? Does the fact that almost none of the Bush leadership has ever served in combat play a role here? So much for the declared "support" for our troops.

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Moreover, the Bush administration is in denial about the human cost of its misadventure in Iraq. They say that only bona fide insurgents and enemy combatants are targeted by U.S. weaponry, with minimal "collateral damage." Really? Our bombs must be awfully "smart."

Actually, witnesses on the ground from the UN, WHO, Red Cross/Red Crescent and other organizations, who see events with their own eyes, report that Rumsfeld's opening "shock and awe" fireworks demonstration over Baghdad alone cost the lives of more than 100,000 innocent men, women and children, while the cumulative total "overkill" for Iraq under Gates now exceeds 250,000, not to mention over one million gravely injured and disabled. For what?

Already, more than 4,000 Americans have died in Bush's war, including a number of civilians whose deaths and injuries are being under-reported. The death toll does not include the tens of thousands of Americans who have lost limbs and suffered egregious injury - while President Bush slashed the national budget for their medical care, as if it were unnecessary "pork-barrel spending" (his term).