LOCAL RETIRED MILITARY REACTION

Those who claim that the military is 80% (or some other high number) behind Bush seem clearly mistaken. Even in North Carolina, an Elon College poll found that most active duty soldiers think poorly of the Bush presidency and the war. Locally, we had these two LTEs:

In the face of ever-increasing opposition to the unnecessary, disastrous war in Iraq, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are accusing the Democrats of rewriting history.
It should be remembered Bush refused to wait for United Nation approval because of his certainty of an imminent WMD attack. During this period, Condoleezza Rice stated we didn't want to wake up to mushroom clouds; George Tenet asserted it was a "slam dunk" that Saddam Hussein had WMD, and bloodthirsty, draft dodger Cheney was persistent in his belief that Iraq was involved in Sept. 11. With such dire predictions of an imminent WMD attack, how could congressmen not vote to support the war?
The U.S. Army has a saying that "the commander is responsible for all his command does or does not do." This is particularly appropriate to the foolhardy decision our commander-in-chief made to launch a preventive attack. The responsibility for the resulting quagmire is his alone, and the blame cannot be shared with Democrats.

George W. Peterson
Retired U.S. Army colonel and former lifelong Republican, Tucson

Turn Iraq over to the Iraqis
Re: the Nov. 22 letter to the editor "Real Americans won't pull out."
The writer speaks of real Americans as he puts down Rep. John Murtha for saying what many of us are beginning to believe must happen soon.
Military people obey orders and don't routinely have press conferences or write letters to newspapers, but there are many of us who agree with Murtha.
Six months, more or less, should be enough time to turn the situation over to the Iraqis. They can do a better job than we are doing now.

Joe Spitler
Retired colonel, U.S. Army, Tucson