Recently, a group of concerned citizens visited our congressman, Mike Michaud, to ask that an independent, bipartisan commission be formed to investigate Bush administration claims regarding Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction. At long last, the American people need to know the truth.

In the months leading up to the war, President Bush told us that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s links to terrorism posed an imminent threat. Those allegations now appear false. After months of scouring the Iraqi countryside, U.S. forces have found little evidence of an ongoing program to develop these weapons, and absolutely no evidence that they represented an immediate threat to the United States. Hussein’s links to al-Qaida have also been unsubstantiated.

Moreover, it has become clear that many members of the intelligence community had come to these conclusions even before the war began. So why did the Bush administration tell us otherwise?

The House and Senate have begun closed-door hearings on the possibility that the Bush administration deliberately manipulated intelligence to justify a war it desperately wanted. This is not enough. We need a full-scale investigation with open testimony resulting in an unclassified report. The administration already has spent billions of dollars and hundreds of soldier’s lives to get us into this quagmire.

The citizens of the United States deserve to know why.

James Richter, Lewiston

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