We ask you to use critical thinking in reporting on Iran’s alleged weapons involvement in the Iraq war as a justification for U.S. bombing of Iran.

Iran fought a five-year war against Saddam Hussein, and surely Iranian weapons were left behind and are on the open or black market. If other countries went to war with us on the basis of their opponents having American weapons, hundreds of countries would have reason to fight us, as we manufacture and sell two-thirds of the world’s weapons, which are now used on every side in every country where there is conflict.

The Bush method of going to war is to form a policy, and then invent a pretext for carrying it out. We see this now, in hindsight, about Iraq. Four years ago, the newspaper reported, without questioning, Iraq’s supposed “weapons of mass destruction” which did not exist, and you continue to use the phrase “war on terror” in connection with Iraq stories, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

Now we are being told that Iranian weapons are responsible for killing about 170 out of the more than 3,000 American dead, and we are therefore justified in bombing Iran. Is this Bush’s real plan, or is it just meant to divert our attention from the disaster in Iraq?

Please use critical and historical knowledge in reporting these “facts.”

Joan Braun, Weld