Bush should think before bombing Iraq

President Bush said Thursday that China may be helping Iraq build weapons of mass destruction.

Bored with Iraq yet? Because President Bush sure isn't.

Last week, the United States started bombing Iraq again. Politically, it seems like a smart move, as there are few quicker solutions to establish Bush as a treasured national leader than a "glorious" victory over an "evil" dictator.

United States allies such as France and Russia have already criticized our actions as unnecessary.

More than unnecessary though, our actions are deadly. The success rate of attacks on the radar station targets was only 38 to 40 percent. Pentagon officials referred to this as a C+ to B- success.

If China is aiding Iraq in building these weapons, it will take a lot more than 40 percent effectiveness to protect us from those weapons or from the potential disaster that is dragging China into all of this against us.

If students score only 40 percent on a test, they failed and proved that they haven't studied. If our bombs are only scoring 40 percent, we've failed and shown our president hasn't studied our own history.

Iraq has become the boogey man in the last decade. Each president brings up the fear of trouble in Iraq, overwhelms Iraq with our American might for a few months and sends a solid message of our power to the rest of the world and reaps the benefit of increased popularity.

But slapdash bombing runs like this are responsible for claiming large amounts of civilian lives — the same civilians we are supposedly trying to help endure Saddam Hussein's regime.

Civilians like the 1.6 million a decade our sanctions have already killed so that the bombs couldn't.

It's ironic then that shortly after ordering the first round of bombings last week, Bush also dedicated a memorial to 168 people killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

We remember one bomb on our soil with sorrow. Imagine an undisclosed number of times more than that on a third world country.

But we press on, true to our stubborn American nature. Secretary of State Colin Powell is meeting in the Persian Gulf with allies there to discuss issues surrounding Iraq.

Let's hope they convince him to tell his president to calm down and remember his views on the sacredness of life.

Editorial Board: Keith Thomas, Tom McHenry, Melissa Davis and Laura Pelner.

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