David Sanger Speaks About Iraq

In a speech given Friday at Weber State University to an audience of about 70 people, David Sanger talks about what it is like to cover war and things that President Bush has kept from the American public.

Sanger, a seasoned journalist who has covered the president for the New York Times for the last seven years, has seen many things going on in Washington that much of the American public doesn’t know about and many mistakes that the United States government has made during President Bush’s term. Some of things the government has asked him not to publish. In the end, the newspaper can decide to print it or not. The government can’t say what to print or not.

Sanger said governments can make errors because they are made up of human beings. This is not said to excuse all of the mistakes that the government made. Sanger went on to say that the government was able to get around proper legislation in order to start the war on terror in Iraq.

The government has made many other mistakes during and leading up to the recent wars. Sanger said, the government has made many presumptions that have proven to be false. It was believed by Bush that if the United States was able to establish a democratic government in Iraq that it would spread throughout the Middle East said Sanger.

The conflict in Afghanistan put a false sense of security in the minds of government officials. Things were settled in Afghanistan so quickly that the United Sates thought things would go equally as quick in Iraq.

Afghanistan was called “the good war” by many, said Sanger. But, “it is at risk to go bad.” With things in Iraq going so poorly it is making things that happened in Afghanistan worth nothing. All of the accomplishments made in Afghanistan are starting to disappear. The United States is focusing so much on Iraq that Afghanistan is being forgotten, and they are going back to their old ways. Iraq was supposed to be an 18-month long war. The fact that we are going on well over four years now is making Afghanistan seem like it was useless.

Other mistakes have been made by the government, including not worrying about Iran during the Iraqi war. According to Sanger, Bush and his administration thought that things in Iran would not proceed due to what they saw in Iraq. “They were wrong.” said Sanger. They thought that Iraq would become the example to the rest of the middle east and they wouldn’t have to worry about Iran or any other middle eastern countries.

The Bush administration denies secret prisons have been set up throughout the world. The current administration thought it could keep it a secret from the American public, but it has become harder and harder with more time spent in Iraq. Sanger said that this is just another example of mistakes that Bush has made. All of these things would be unknown without the press.

The press is a very important part of the United States. “Only the press could have shown what is going on,” ,in Iraq Sanger said. “The government never would have said anything.” The press is given the rights to publish what it wants to disclose any of these secrets by the Constitution. The war has been a difficult case for the press to cover.

“Hard cases make bad law, but they make good journalism.”

This is the type of attitude that Sanger expressed throughout his speech. Sanger is one of many journalists in the country that help the American public realize the truth about what is going on in Iraq. He takes this duty very seriously. It is a responsibility that he feels must not be taken lightly. The American public has the right to know what is going on in the war in Iraq.