I 03/19/03 - Posted 12:19:32 AM from the Daily Record newsroom
By Rob Jennings, Daily Record
MADISON - The "most trusted man in America," retired CBS Evening News
anchor
Walter Cronkite, put aside his journalistic impartiality Tuesday night and
issued a blistering dissent to President Bush's decision to wage war with
Iraq.
n his filmed speech, Cronkite summarized his admiration for the American
people, particularly for coming through the tumultuous decade of the
1960s.
What were Cronkite's thoughts on the current situation with Iraq, on the
eve
of war?
Cronkite said he is very disappointed and "considerably worried" that
affairs had come to this pass. He said that, as always, the military is
more
confident than perhaps it should be. He nevertheless predicted the
military
will perform its mission quickly, and with a minimum of casualties. What
concerns him most is the aftermath of our "adventure in Iraq."
Allies in Western Europe have turned their backs on us, Cronkite said, but
we will need their moral support, and their financial help, when Iraq's
new
government is set up. He said Bush's "arrogance" in addressing our allies
"has been exceptional," and they have taken "great umbrage" with this.
Without their help, Cronkite said, it will be hard to maintain that the
U.S.
went into Iraq with the mission of liberating its people from a cruel
dictator, and did not simply have the intention of taking over the
country.
"The cost of this episode, this adventure, is going to be terribly
severe,"
Cronkite said. He blamed Congress for not demanding an accounting of the
expense involved. He said that as the troops are paid, as equipment is
replaced when the sands destroy it, and as Navy ships have been deployed
and
waiting out at sea for months, Congress should be doing its job and
calling
out these expenses.
Huge expenditures, huge national indebtedness and lower taxes are
combining
into a disaster, Cronkite said, warning "we are going to be in such a
financial fix when this war is over, or before this war is over," that we
will hardly be able to meet the everyday expenses of government. He
predicted this will lead to the printing of more money, and inevitably
inflation.
He said of the cost of war draining already light national coffers, the
U.S.
"won't have money to fulfill education promises, medical care and our
infrastructure."
He held up Franklin Roosevelt's Depression-era programs, the Works
Progress
Administration (WPA) and the Public Works Administration (PWA), as one
approach to some of the problems the future holds for us. In these
programs
in the 1930s and 1940s, the government hired and paid citizens to work on
highways, schoolhouses, and bridges.
"We beat the Great Depression by paying people to work for the good of the
country," Cronkite said. Even this would prove impossible, he said, if
there
is no money left over from the war.
"We cannot wait for the terrorists to get nuclear weapons," allowed
Cronkite.
He added gravely, however, that this new paradigm, this "theory of
preventive war" undertaken "without being attacked," is setting an example
for the troubled countries of the world, especially in the case of African
border wars - and perhaps imparting a lesson on the importance of owning
weapons of mass destruction.
Cronkite has had some interviews that stand out from others over the years
-
some ignominious. He said President Herbert Hoover was "about the dullest
man I ever met," and President Jimmy Carter was the smartest. Cronkite's
dream interviews would have been Pope Pius VII, who was accused by the
Russians of favoring the Germans in World War II, and Adolf Hitler
himself.
"I'd like to have seen his face as he tried to explain what he'd done,"
said
Cronkite.
Cronkite has been approached many times to run for political office, but
maintains that journalists should never use their position to build a
political base. The journalist's job is to be accurate and fair, he said,
and for one to run for national office "would sully the reputation of the
profession."
©Recorder Newspapers 2003
And little more:
By ANNA WEISGERBER , Contributing Writer
03/27/2003
He (Cronkite) doesn't care for the President, declaring him "arrogant" and
comparing him to a chimpanzee at one point, and unflatteringly referring
to
President Bush's advisers as "cohorts," while elegantly labeling the
advisers to Bobby Kennedy as a "coterie."
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