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The Bloody Lottery in Iraq
by Ruben Arvizu*, July 11, 2003

The families of American soldiers in Iraq have a high chance to win a lottery; this one is not money or a nice gift but blood and loss of lives.

Taking into consideration that there are about 148, 000 US servicemen and women in Iraq the odds that someone gets killed or wounded are much higher that the best expectations to win the state lottery. In other words, since May 1st when President Bush declared "that major combat had ended" more than 70 military families in the US have been "awarded" this news.

The escalation of violence continues in the occupied Arab nation and there are no real signs that the situation will change for the better.

With more information surfacing every day about the credibility of evidence from the Bush administration for the real causes for war, an investigation from the Congress is more likely to happen.

Top officials of the Bush administration are now making statements that are exposing the deceit to have a pretext for the urgency of this war.

The BBC comments: "In the United States, a recently retired State Department intelligence official said on Wednesday the Bush administration gave an inaccurate picture of Iraq's military threat before the war and that intelligence reports showed Baghdad posed no imminent threat. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said the United States did not go to war with Iraq because of dramatic new evidence of banned weapons, but because it saw existing information in a new light after the September 11 attacks. Weeks earlier, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz said the U.S. decision to stress the weapons' threat as a reason for war was taken for "bureaucratic'' reasons. "("Bush under fire over Iraq claims", 7/9/03)

Congressman Dick Gephardt stated "President Bush's factual lapse in his State of the Union address cannot be simply dismissed as an intelligence failure."

Is it really that bad the Intelligence services of the U.S. and the United Kingdom? It is possible to believe the unbelievable miscommunication and contradictions between powerful agencies such as the Secret Service, the CIA and the Pentagon? If that's so then it is totally scary the thought of a nuclear war based on such "intelligence".

The American people and the world in general demand and deserve a thorough investigation to clear once and for all the political atmosphere that day by day becomes more rotten.

Meanwhile, the wheel of misfortune continues turning in Iraq and new families will be informed of the loss of their loved ones.

* Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.