Allawi Points to Coalition Negligence

The withering credibility of the Bush administration was further undermined as Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi blamed the U.S.-led multinational forces for the massacre (he called it “martyrdom”) of unarmed Iraqi troops, dressed in civilian clothes, on leave from duty (Oct. 27). This guy was in Washington just a few weeks ago, stumping for the Bush plan to bring democracy to Iraq, and now he publicly admits that the very forces protecting him dropped the ball yet again.

The terrorists posed as Iraqi policemen operating a checkpoint. The “coalition” forces are stretched so thin they have no idea what’s going on right in front of them. A war waged on the cheap is a war that’s lost before it’s begun. It’s already been made clear that President Bush is losing the fight to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Now this latest debacle, along with the administration’s admission of having lost 380 tons of powerful explosives, makes it clear that sensible, informed, rational and America-loving voters will run the whole lot of them out of town on Nov. 2.

Eric Potruch

Westchester

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It could be argued that Bush attacked Iraq for the same reason President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Germany on Dec. 11, 1941. After killing thousands of his own people, Adolf Hitler ventured out to all the countries adjacent to Germany as well as those far away, like England.

Bush invaded Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein (who, like Hitler, had killed thousands of his own people) from a gruesome, unprovoked attack on Middle Eastern nations and Western countries like the United States.

Jeane Burke-Foley

Palos Verdes Estates

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Possibly the worst mistake the administration has made during the Iraq war was disbanding the Iraq army. To send more than 500,000 soldiers home with their guns and no chance for a job was not smart. We should have given the Iraqi soldiers a 10% pay raise and deployed the Sunni soldiers to protect facilities such as oil refineries, power stations, transmission lines, museums and arms depots in the Shiite sector of the country, and the Shiite soldiers to do the same in the Sunni sectors.

This would have prevented the looting that took place and given the soldiers a reason not to become insurgents.

James T. Phillips

Torrance