As the spring semester comes to an end, we students look back at an eventful time in the history of GCC, the state and the country.

We protested, then anguished, as war was threatened and then waged in Iraq. We did the same thing as we watched the GCC administration forced to cut classes, lay off employees and cut services as a result of the state budget falling into a billion-dollar deficit.

Despite our concerns, we got up early each morning and worked into the night to do what we had to do to keep nourished, solvent, and in school.
As for the war on Iraq, it appears that the rosy predictions of the Bush administration for a quick post-war transition to an interim Iraqi government are wilting as quickly as such a flower would in the middle of a Baghdad heat wave.

The Los Angeles Times reported on May 25 that thesituation “is reaching crisis proportions.” According to Baghdad University political science professor Wamidh Nadhmi, “the majority of the people are extremely unhappy because of the lack of services and the lack of security.”
The Times reports that the blame is falling on the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the civil administration in Iraq.

To turn the debate into who or what department is to blame is to miss the point. Is it that easy to pass the buck? Can I blame my left hand for the failure of my right hand?

How could a government with the wealth and resources of the U.S. fail so miserably at planning ahead?
Where have the grandstanding hawks of the pre war days gone?

Though the administration said that the Iraqi people would choose a government of their own, he recently said that an Islamic government was out of the question.

The Iraqi people and the world community were promised many things by the Bush administration. One of them was a severe reduction in terrorist activity because of the cash flow that would be lost when Saddam Hussein was removed. He was said to be a huge contributor to Al Qaeda, the clandestine international terror group.

The group has been named as the force behind recent attacks in Saudi Arabia and in Africa. The attacks were so well planned and so large scale that it is conceivable that the removal of the Hussein regime has had little or no effect on the group.

These questions cause concern even without discussion of the weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found.

To call these administration members outright liars is difficult; to say evasive and underprepared isn’t such a stretch.

Let’s hope, for the sake of our country and the world, they are not outright failures.