***osama bin Laden is a fervent terrorist and Saddam Hussain is a former autocrat. one used fear because he wanted to change things around him, while the other used fear to maintain the status quo. George Bush has used fear to overcome fear and then turned it into an opportunity. But then fear is opportunity so long as it is a state of mind. George Bush is beating around the bush, so that the truth never comes out. He is more scared than his enemies are. Because he knows that if the truth is known, he has nowhere to hide.***

TIME to write about Iraq again, because George W. Bush has been beating around the bush. The US President was cocksure in the State of the Union Address on 28 January 2003. He said, "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." In May 2003, a cavorting Bush told reporters "I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons programme of Saddam Hussein -because he had a weapons programme." Now six months into the invasion of Iraq, he wants to mount a weapons hunt, which has cost $300 million already, and needs $600 million more.

So, what can you say? This is perhaps how George Bush likes to run his business. He burns down the house before he finds the rodents. But then we all know that there is another practice in the police force. If they kill the wrong person in an encounter, they fire from a backup gun and then throw down the weapon next to the victim. It is to claim that he was killed when the police had returned his fire. George Bush has been using the same pretext these days. He has recently claimed that it was right to remove Saddam from power, because he was a threat to the United States. What else could he do? His popularity is shrinking, the condemnation of his invasion of Iraq is growing, and he is now eager to engage the same United Nations, which he once spurned, in the mad rush to conquer an oil-rich nation.

What else could he do, really? He tried other means to prove that the WMDs were in Iraq. Last month, David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector, who now reports to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), submitted his progress reports to two Congressional Committees. So far, he concluded, that no nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons have been found in Iraq. Skeptics believe that Kay, who leads the Iraq Survey Group, a team of 1200 multinational inspectors looking for WMD, is George Bush's anchorman in his desperate bid to legitimise the invasion.

But Kay has been cautious in his conclusion. "We have not found at this point actual weapons," he said. "It does not mean that we've concluded there are no actual weapons. It means at this point in time -- and it's a huge country with a lot to do -that we have not yet found weapons." It's hard to believe that Saddam Hussain, who couldn't hide his sons and colleagues from the US search, has been able to stash away his large depots of WMDs so that nobody could find.

Kay must have taken his cue from what happened to an earlier dissenter named Joseph C Wilson IV. Wilson, a veteran diplomat, had been dispatched by the CIA to check whether Iraq had been trying to buy "yellowcake" uranium from Niger. The White House brushed aside his report when he concluded that there was no evidence of any such effort. When Walter Pincus of The Washington Post reported on Wilson's trip, Wilson himself went public in a New York Times_op-ed essay on 6 July 2003. Seven days later on 14 July, Robert Novak, a Republican stalwart, retaliated with a story that Wilson's wife, who was a CIA operative, had been instrumental in sending Wilson to Africa.

In fact, George Bush has hard time staying focused on the truth that he has used a false pretense to justify his war on Iraq. Perhaps it's his conscience that keeps him astir, shifting his mind from reflex to reflex as he tries to escape from reality and take refuge in the chimera. But someone needs to tell him that he has become a big drink of water with all his cock and bull stories about WMD in Iraq. And even if he claims to have found any proof of WMD after all these months, you can bet him dollars to doughnuts that people are going to find it difficult to be convinced by his monkeyshines.

Sorry, if I sound indiscrete in my criticism of the leader of the free world. If you carefully consider, George W. Bush has razed to the ground many twin towers of this civilization. He has destroyed decency first of all, and then humanity, freedom, democracy, honesty and truth afterwards. One of the guiding principles of justice is that nobody is guilty until proven. Yet Bush has violated the sovereignty of a country and is now trying to prove why he has done it.

Therefore, he has been beating around the bush. He has been telling from one thing to another, waffling around excuses while changing his tone. So, what if Saddam was a threat to the USA? Once the USSR was a threat to the USA, but did the USA ever dare to invade the USSR? Instead it had engaged in the cold war with a formidable foe, which couldn't be bullied. The whole encounter was to contain the conflict, not to seek a final solution.

George Bush invaded Iraq because he knew that the country's military strength was no match for his might. He knew Iraq could be easily taken, and that is one reason why Donald Rumsfeld sent fewer troops than wanted by his military commander. That is why, he didn't wait for a UN resolution or the support from other nations. He knew that the UN inspectors had already inventoried Iraq's arsenal, and there was no weapon deadlier than Saddam's big mouth.

In February 2003, George Bush carped in a radio address, "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorised Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons-- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." The whole world knows for record and there were many embedded reporters, who did live telecast of the Iraq invasion, that not a single chemical weapon was used on the American soldiers. Even till today, after the US soldiers killed his sons, Saddam hasn't ordered use of chemical weapons on them.

For a long time to come, why George Bush went to Iraq will remain a mystery. It could be because he wanted Iraqi oil. It could be to give Saddam his comeuppance. One could argue that Bush went to Iraq to eliminate the only threat not to USA but to Israel. Perhaps Bush will say many more things to justify one of the most nefarious invasions of a free nation. But one thing will stick out in the face of all odds that he terrorised Iraq to get rid of its dictator. That he accomplished one of the most ludicrous contradictions in the annals of military conquest.

Osama bin Laden is a fervent terrorist and Saddam Hussain is a former autocrat. One used fear because he wanted to change things around him, while the other used fear to maintain the status quo. George Bush has used fear to overcome fear and then turned it into an opportunity. But then fear is opportunity so long as it is a state of mind. George Bush is beating around the bush, so that the truth never comes out. He is more scared than his enemies are. Because he knows that if the truth is known, he has nowhere to hide.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.