Iraq

I just returned from visiting my sister in North Carolina. She's an 18 year veteran of the Marines, worked her way through the enlisted ranks and is now an officer. Coming from a family long in distinguished military service, not to mention the ongoing challenges of being a female Marine, I'm very proud of her.

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Now, close your eyes and imagine what we could to with a year out of Iraq.

The American people overwhelmingly (and correctly) believe that George Bush misled them about the need to go to war in Iraq, polls show. But the debate has continued about whether Bush deliberately lied, or was merely duped. Either conclusion is, of course, corrosive to trust in our democracy and the ability of the press and Congress to provide a reality check on presidential war powers.

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Cheney "gets it right" in 1994 -- Warning that Iraq invasion would lead to a "quagmire" -- and so very wrong today. "And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."

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I was watching the nightly news tonight when I heard about this alarming story. Apparently, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff has a gut feeling that America might be attacked this summer. On Tuesday, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, told the editorial board of The Chicago Tribune that he had a “gut feeling” about a new period of increased risk. He said he based his assessment on patterns of terrorists in Europe and intelligence he would not disclose.

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