Damn Inappropriate

By: Brian Balta

A week ago, President Bush signed the bill which gave him permission to use force against Iraq. At the same time, the administration admitted that, weeks beforehand, North Korea told a U.S. Representative that it had the capacity to build at least two atomic weapons.

These two issues are connected in many fundamental ways. Supposedly, we're going to fight Iraq to prevent Iraq from gaining access to the same weapons which North Korea just declared that they have. And, most importantly, the administration knew that North Korea had the ability to build the bomb at the same time as the U.S. Congress was voting on whether or not he could use force against Iraq.

In fact, according to the Washington Post, the Bush Administration has known for a lot longer that North Korea has these weapons, and they wouldn't tell. On Oct. 22, columnist Richard Cohen wrote that the Bush administration informed Japan's Prime Minister about North Korea's weapons on September 12^th, the same day as Bush made his speech to the U.N.

Therefore the merits of a war with Iraq have been chewed upon for at least a month without the people debating that war having all the facts. How exactly would Congress be able to determine whether or not their constituents feel that North Korea's weapons are a greater threat without their constituents knowing about those weapons?

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush has managed to avoid giving out information by saying that it would threaten U.S. intelligence gathering abilities if we did. In North Korea, however, we did not find out about their weapons through important intelligence tools, we found out about it because they told us. No intelligence assets would have been at risk by revealing this fact, but the choice was made not to.

The Bush administration had the information about North Korea's weapons for the entire month that Congress was debating both the defense appropriation bill and a War Powers Resolution on Iraq. That information could have had a direct affect on both of the votes that the Congress made. The information was purposely withheld, under the justification that Mr. Bush needed time to consider what it meant.

Democracy only works when the people voting are informed. By holding back this information, President Bush has managed to ensure that the debate focused entirely on Iraq, and whether or not we should invade Iraq. There was no debate on whether or not North Korea was a greater threat than Iraq or if the administration was focusing on the right target.

The Bush administration, by keeping this information secret until after the Iraq resolution passed, made absolutely certain that nothing would threaten their Iraq resolution. The withholding of important points of information may make a vote go the way that you want, but it's certainly not how democracy is supposed to work.

A good analogy for what Mr. Bush has done with this resolution would be having Congress debate a tax cut without telling them about $200 billion of defense spending. Congress would be able to make a decision about whether or not a tax cut would be a just thing, but they wouldn't be able to even consider whether or not it was the right time or whether the tax cut was feasible. Information plays an absolutely vital role in any debate, and withholding information that could even remotely affect a vote is manipulative and treacherous.

This action by the administration is absolutely indefensible. Congress and the American people should be outraged that this information was withheld until after the vote was taken on Iraq. When secrecy starts to undermine the democratic process, then everything that we have ever fought for is at risk.