SADDAM AND BUSH BOTH SHOULD BE IN CUSTODY

Connie Cook Smith's "What America Needs to Know"

My reaction to the announcement that Saddam Hussein is in custody is the same as thousands of people in America and around the world: When are they going to get George W. Bush in custody?

It's a felony to lie to Congress, and we've all grown weary of counting Bush's lies, to Congress and to the world. Like the popular bumper sticker says about this president: "Over a billion whoppers told." But unlike a previous president's harmless lying about his sex life, our soldiers are dying because of Bush's lying.

As perhaps the most horrific example of his deceit, his administration was clearly told by the intelligence community that Saddam getting uranium from Africa never happened. Yet Bush psychologically terrorized us all with that false claim to the contrary. Then Cheney and Rice went on the road with the same psy-ops con-game, dishonestly frightening people with images of "mushroom clouds" from Saddam Hussein.

Well, now just look at the powerless man-in-the-rat-hole that Bush immorally manipulated us into fearing. If Saddam had nukes or other WMD, he would have used them against our troops during the invasion in March. He had nothing, and he's been on the run with nothing.

Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell said on tape in 2002 that Saddam was "no threat." But that was before Bush's arrogant epithet was reported in Time Magazine: "F*k Saddam, we're taking him out." That was before Bush's goofy grin and stupid statement in September of last year: "This is the guy who tried to kill my dad."

I say, how dare this little thug -- who hid out from Vietnam in the National Guard and never even completed those duties -- how dare he lie to us about reasons for a pre-emptive strike, and then send our loved ones to death and destruction in a war that has had absolutely no justification!

Let's hope at Saddam's war-crimes trial it becomes crystal clear that Rumsfeld's and Bush Sr.'s deals with Saddam in the 1980's were precisely what kept Saddam in power. Bush Jr. now says "a dark and painful era is over," even though his father's deals helped create it. I join with thousands of outraged citizens in hopes that our own "dark and painful era" -- under both Bushes' monumental deceits and destructions -- will also soon be over.

Connie Cook Smith