03/06/2003 10:47:20 PM

Questions for Donald Rumsfeld.

A couple of days ago on CNBC's Capital Report with Alan Murray and Gloria Borger, they invited viewers to email questions for tonight's interview with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Here are the questions I submitted:

1. Since the CIA found that before 9/11 there were telephone calls from al Qaeda in Germany to Saudia Arabia and Egypt and some other mid-east countries but none to Iraq, why are we going to war with Iraq and not Saudia Arabia, which also was home to 14 of the 19 hijackers?

2. Do you think it was a mistake to anger all of Europe by refusing to go along with the Kyoto global warming treaty and to ignore Russia's concerns by unilaterally ripping up the ABM treaty? Why should other countries help us out when we just do what we want without considering their needs.

3. Do you think past administrations erred in helping Saddam Hussein develop chemical and biological weapons when he was fighting Iran and supporting and giving weapons to the Taliban when they were fighting the Russians? Since you consider Saddam Hussein and the Taliban terrorists, don't these actions prove that the United States sometimes aids terrorists if it serves our immediate purpose.

4. Why do you expect other countries to support United Nations resolutions when the United States sometimes refuses to do so? For example, we do not support UN Resolution 242 from 1967 that requires Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied that year and we ignored the Security Council when they ordered us to terminate our actions against Nicaragua several years ago.

Of course they did not ask anything along these lines, but instead they asked the same dumb questions that he's answered numerous times before like "what would you say to the American people on the eve of war with Iraq" and "what would you say to the war protesters in this country".

What is the use of a free press when reporters do not ask good questions? Do they ask the questions they do because they cannot think of tough ones or is it because if they asked real questions no one would be willing to appear on the show? Are there other possible reasons? I want to be the one who asks the questions; let me know how :-).


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