Parallels

Over the past few days, there have been demands from some quarters to have Jennifer Wilbanks (the runaway bride), repay the costs accrued by law enforcement for a fruitless and needless search. The mayor of Duluth, Georgia has indicated publicly that her office is considering doing just that. If it is meritorious for her to pursue such an endeavor as many have suggested, then is it meritorious for the Congress of the United States to pursue the recovery of some 300 plus billions of dollars (less costs for Afghanistan) spent on the fruitless and needless search for WMD in Iraq. The obvious purveyors of the search are: President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former National Security Advisor Condeleezza Rice and their underlings and minions.

Those in defense of Ms Wilbanks say that she did not ask law enforcement to spend any money to secure her whereabouts and that the only thing she is guilty of is giving a false report to authorities about being kidnapped. Her detractors claim that, since she is an adult, she should have been cognizant of the the outcome of her actions and should pay the costs. If the latter argument wins the day, then the aforementioned adminstrative officials ( being that they are adults and should know the consequences of their actions) should be held responsible for the costs of the fruitless and needless search for WMD incurred during the Iraqi Freedom War. Perhaps Paul Wolfowitz's elevation to the World Bank is the beginning of the payback to the U. S. Treasury especially since he said that the Iraqi oil revenues would absorb those costs. What the administration believed or knew is not the point. The point is that responsibility for costs belong to the perpetrators.