We all know the "wag the dog scenario." It's no secret Republicans are in big trouble heading into the November elections. Lately it seems war is the only GOP issue, as the economy sinks into a Double Dip W. Bush recession. Republican candidates shun Bush as they rush to embrace Democratic or "Democrat-lite" positions on issues like campaign finance reform, the Sarbanes business watchdog law, and even prescription drug benefits for seniors.

We don't want to believe the Bush administration would create a war for partisan politics, but Bush's top advisor Karl Rove did admit that war is their best - if not their only - issue. We consider questions of war and peace nonpartisan matters. According to Ritter, the Bush administration he supports doesn't agree.

"This is not about the security of the United States," Ritter contends. "This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation."

Several other experts on Iraq confirm Ritter's understanding that Iraq poses no clear and present danger to American security. Among them General Brent Scowcroft - the National Security Advisor for Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush; the Honorable Edward Peck - former Ambassador to Iraq; Erik Gustafson - a Gulf War Veteran, and an expert on Iraq working with the EPIC organization; and Issam Shukri - an Iraqi Dissident and an Iraqi Gulf War Combat Veteran. These experts agree we can contain the Saddam threat without resort to invasion. If so, then why is Bush beating the drums of war?

War in Iraq will cost 10,000s of American lives and 100s of $billions in taxes. We went into Germany and Japan in 1945, and into Korea during the 1950s. We're still there. After all these years we still have 10,000s of troops based in those nations, costing us $billions a year. We'll have to stay in Afghanistan to maintain that fledgling regime against Taliban retribution. Is the risk worth the cost?

Candidate Bush mocked Al Gore during the debates for spreading our forces too thin. Bush practically spat the words, "nation building" so profound was his scorn. Why the turn around? Why does Bush want to spread our military thinner than ever? Why does he commit us to building another nation - before we're close to finished in Afghanistan - by waging war in Iraq? Why now? His own lack of understanding regarding the military, yes, but even worse: partisan politics.

If there were a "liberal media," the TV news and newspaper headlines would read: "AWOL Bush, the Chicken Hawk seeks to send Americans to die in Iraq to boost his political prospects." AWOL Bush? Did I write that right? Yes, I am going to "rehash" that troubling aspect of George W. Bush's record. Clinton critics voiced sincere concern that a man who never saw combat might not appreciate the gravity of ordering troops into harms way. This point applies to Bush who - military records show - was absent without leave during time of war.

This goes beyond Bush's profound lack of military knowledge: he repeatedly referred to naval personnel as "soldiers." This is about Bush's actions, taking and breaking an oath to defend America during wartime, and then compromising our national security several times since taking office. Several sources confirm that Bush went AWOL.

The Boston Globe ran an article on 5/23/2000 under the headline: "One-year gap in Bush's National Guard duty, No record of airman at drills from 1972-73." In it, Globe staffer Walter V. Robinson reported: "Bush himself, in his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, recounts the thrills of his pilot training, which he completed in June 1970. 'I continued flying with my unit for the next several years,' the governor wrote.

But Bush's military records, obtained by the Globe, contradicts these claims. "In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen." Bush claims he was serving. His records show he wasn't there.

This wide gap between Bush's word and deed is troubling enough, if it were about some political promise broken. This is about breaking an oath to serve the United States of America. Did Bush really go AWOL? The Globe reports: "From May to November 1972, Bush was in Alabama working in a US Senate campaign, and was required to attend drills at an Air National Guard unit in Montgomery. But there is no evidence in his record that he did so. And William Turnipseed, the retired general who commanded the Alabama unit back then, said in an interview [in 2000] that Bush never appeared for duty there." Absent With Out Leave. That spells AWOL.

Bush has claimed that he returned to his Texas Air National Guard unit after he went missing in Alabama, but even that appears to be a lie according to contemporaneous official military reports, as the Globe confirms: "After the election, Bush returned to Houston. But seven months later, in May 1973, his two superior officers at Ellington Air Force Base could not perform his annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973 because, they wrote, 'Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report.'"

Why is this important? As the Globe reported: "[T]he puzzling gap in Bush's military service is likely to heighten speculation about the conspicuous underachievement that marked the period between his 1968 graduation from Yale University and his 1973 entry into Harvard Business School. It is speculation that Bush has helped to fuel: For example, he refused for months last year to say whether he had ever used illegal drugs. Subsequently, however, Bush amended his stance, saying that he had not done so since 1974."

The Globe article examines troubling echoes of an unexplained past: "The period in 1972 and 1973 when Bush sidestepped his military obligation coincides with a well-publicized incident during the 1972 Christmas holidays: Bush had a confrontation with his father after he took his younger brother, Marvin, out drinking and returned to the family's Washington home after knocking over some garbage cans on the ride home."

According to the Globe, [Retired Colonel Albert Lloyd Jr., the Texas Air Guard's personnel director from 1969 to 1995] who has studied the records extensively, said he is an admirer of the governor." Lloyd added that he "helped the Bush campaign make sense of the governor's military records, [because] Bush's aides were concerned about the gap in his records back then." [Lloyd determined that] "Officially, the period between May 1972 and May 1973 remains unaccounted for."

The Globe confirms that there is no evidence Bush served his nation as he promised to do. "Lloyd said he scoured Guard records, where he found two 'special orders' commanding Bush to appear for active duty on nine days in May 1973. That is the same month that Lieutenant Colonel William D. Harris Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian effectively declared Bush missing from duty." Specifically, "In Bush's annual efficiency report, dated May 2, 1973, the two supervising pilots did not rate Bush for the prior year, writing, "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of report."

Commenting on his search, Lloyd admitted that, "the only other paperwork he discovered was a single torn page bearing Bush's social security number and numbers awarding some points for Guard duty. But the partial page is undated. If it represents the year in question, it leaves unexplained why Bush's two superior officers would have declared him absent for the full year."

Here's the bottom line, as the Globe's Robinson reports: "160 pages of his records, assembled by the Globe from a variety of sources and supplemented by interviews with former Guard officials, paint a picture of an Air Guardsman who enjoyed favored treatment on several occasions."

The Globe was not alone. Others established Bush went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during time of war, and enjoyed special privileges before and after he broke his oath to defend his country. Others including The Times of London reported the National Guard grounded Bush for failing a drug test. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii said "During my service, if I missed training for two years, at the least, I would have been court-martialed."

Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran explained Bush's special treatment this way: "On the 27th of May when Governor Bush got out of Yale University, after having a four year deferment, during May 1968, there were 350 Americans dying every week in Vietnam. And he applied, as was his right, to the Texas Air National Guard. He applied to the Texas Air National Guard. In spite of the fact that there were 500 people ahead of him; he was accepted on the same day he applied. Now, I'll let him explain how that happened." Of course Bush refused to explain, but we all know how it happened. Special favors from his fathers' friends.

Kerrey brought the point home: "Governor Bush made a six-year commitment. And, he's making truth telling and character a big issue in this campaign. I heard him say recently in Pennsylvania, that the Vice President was guided by a controlling legal authority. He said, 'I won't be, I'll be guided by my conscience and I'll do what's right.' Well, if he's going to do what's right, he ought to release his military records, as John McCain did and let us know where he was during that six year period of time, because, there appears to be a period of time from June of 1972 to late until about October in 1973 that he didn't report…."

I've debated these issues with Bush apologists, and I have to say they just don't get it. They try to defend Bush's established lapses in service during wartime by saying he wasn't convicted of the specific UCMJ offense of going absent without leave. Their defense of Bush's desertion during time of war amounts to this: "Well, he wasn't serving as he swore an oath to do, and he had no leave to be absent, but he wasn't technically absent without leave." That explanation works as well as his daddy's defense that the malaise his failed economic policies caused wasn't technically a recession.

Senator Inouye is right, and we all know it. If any National Guardsman deserted in time of war but didn't have a big wheel protecting him, he'd have been court-martialed. It's not satisfactory for Bush's partisans to claim that AWOL Bush's daddy kept him out of trouble when he broke his oath to defend America. That admission of special treatment just rubs salt in the wounds.

Is this "ancient history" important? Of course it's important! Bush lied about all of this as recently as 2000, while trying to stake his claim to leadership on National Guard service he never fulfilled. He's planning to send American armed forces into Iraq. It's critically important that Bush come clean now. He must live up to his commitments to tell us the truth, however belatedly.

Just as Bush hasn't explained the lapses in his National Guard service, he hasn't told us why we have to go to war against Iraq when containment is working. He hasn't revealed what he plans to do to win the peace after we win that war. Does he even know? Based on his spotty military experience and moral lapses, we have real reason to worry.

Bush's failure to live up to his National Guard commitments is of a piece with his other irresponsible and even erratic behavior at the time and since. His actions establish a profile of fecklessness. Here is the most important aspect of this sordid morality tale: George W. Bush broke his oath to the military in the 1970s. We know that beyond any question. He swore to serve, but he just wasn't there. Worse, he's done nothing to inspire our confidence in his honesty or competence since then.

How is the George W. Bush of today much different from the man who underachieved in school, drove drunk with his younger brother, threatened to attack his father, and broke his oath to defend his nation in the 1970s?

How is today's Bush any better than the one who failed in business, brokered favors and skirted insider trading laws in the 1980s?

How can we trust Bush today knowing he lied under oath to protect political patrons in the 1990s and lied about all of this during the 2000s?

Can we trust Bush to lead us into war? Is this about national security, oil, revenge against the man who threatened his father, or is it all just partisan politics?

These questions are all relevant. We have to know the answers. Now we have to know if he will betray our military again by using our men and women in uniform as pawns in a partisan political game. Best we know the answer before Bush commits our American forces to kill and die in Iraq, rather than after. By then it will be too late.

Sources:

About Scott Ritter.

Coverage of Scott Ritter speech, RED ALERT: October War in Iraq.

Excerpt from Ritter's book Endgame, Solving the Iraq Problem -- Once and for All.

Was Bush AWOL? Weblinks pro and con.

The Boston Globe 5/23/00 - One-year gap in Bush's National Guard Duty.

Times of London quoted in Salon.com - Bush failed drug test, lost his pilot's clearance.

Kerrey, Inouye News Conference Requesting George W. Bush's Military Records.