WASHINGTON, 30 March 2003 — US veterans were invited to the White House on Friday to applaud President George W. Bush’s Iraq campaign, but others who fought for their country vehemently oppose the war. “It looked to me like he was taking advantage of selected veterans who were predisposed to his position,” said Seth Pollack of Veterans for Common Sense. “I wouldn’t expect anything better from Bush. It was shameful.”
Pollack’s association sent a letter — signed by about 1,000 veterans including two retired vice admirals and the actor Kris Kristofferson — to the president on the eve of the war rejecting the case for the use of force against Iraq and seeking a meeting to discuss their humanitarian concerns. Their appeal was ignored, fitting into a pattern of behavior the anti-war veterans say is typical of an administration run largely by people with no war experience — starting with Bush himself, who served in the National Guard in Texas during the Vietnam War.
With the war into its second week and US casualties mounting, combined with televised images of fierce attacks on US supply lines and the surprised reaction of soldiers and officers alike to the heavy resistance they have encountered, anti-war veterans are not the only ones questioning the military strategists.
Adding to the veterans’ anger and fueling a growing sense of betrayal, last week the House of Representatives voted to approve a $25 billion cut in veterans’ benefits — including disability benefits — over the next 10 years at the same time as Bush is seeking massive tax cuts for a wealthy few. “The president’s words about supporting the troops are quite empty, on two counts,” Erik Gustafson, who fought in the 1991 Gulf War, said of Bush’s speech Friday. “One, there has been a series of miscalculations that put a lot of people in harm’s way unnecessarily, and secondly supporting our troops doesn’t mean turning our backs on our veterans, especially when we’ll be having a whole new generation of Gulf War veterans,” he said.
