(Washington, DC)—Former White House and congressional public affairs senior staffer Bob Weiner says, “In the State of the Union, President Bush should use the UN inspectors to stop war, not start it.”

    On Alan Nathan’s “Battle Line” on the Radio America network, Weiner appeared live today together with former Bush I speechwriter Michael Long.  Weiner stated, “As long as the inspectors are in place, there will be no war. Hussein will never do anything stupidly war-provoking while the inspectors are there. He is forced to be on best behavior. That is a very good thing!  President Bush should utilize that fact and state to Saddam Hussein, ‘We will support leaving the inspectors in place, as a monitor against your known previous actions.  If you conduct any activity that demonstrates current weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, biological, or chemical – we will remove the inspectors and launch our coalition against you.’”

    Weiner asserted, “What President Bush will undoubtedly fail to report is that ‘The State of the Union is annoyed.’

    “He will fail to report that the American people want real facts, and that the American people, more and more in the polls, believe the administration is spinning propaganda rather than reporting reality about Iraq’s current threat to us.

    “He will fail to report that ‘doing in’ Iraq will do nothing to clear the equally serious threat to us in Al Qaeda cells in 60 other countries.

    “He will fail to tell us that he is creating around the world the indelible recurring image of not only the ugly American but the bully American.

    “Of course Saddam is a horrible person.  But is he worth war given our other foreign and domestic priorities?” Weiner asked.

    “Bush will refuse to tell us that an Al Qaeda operative who bombs the Brooklyn Bridge at rush hour, joined by another one at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and still another at the Sears Tower in Chicago and still another at the open-field doorway of the Capitol Building, will do the kind of damage that fighting Iraq has nothing to do with and for which we remain unprepared.

    “On domestic issues and the economy, Bush will fail to say he will balance the budget as Clinton did his last four years. He will refuse to say the obvious about his tax cuts, that he is digging deeper when the economy is already in a big hole, and he will refuse to say he has helped cause the record state deficits that now force governors themselves to raise taxes.

    “He will refuse to tell us that it is brilliant strategy to deflect the attention of the American people -- and their money – from these kinds of possibly ultimately unsolvable security issues, as well as the domestic issues they care about even more than Iraq by 3-to-1 according to current polls.

    “He will fail to lay out a health insurance solution for the 40 million uninsured and the 1½ million more since his administration began two years ago;

    “He will fail to say that he cares more about corporations than the environment when he weakens air, water, logging, mining, toxic dumping, and oil drilling standards that threaten our safety and future.

    Weiner concluded by saying that “Bush will even refuse to advocate his earlier Democratic originated tax strategy of direct payments to families and individuals.”

    Since serving 6½ years in the Clinton White House and fifteen years as a top aide on Capitol Hill for congressmen Conyers, Rangel, Pepper, and Koch, Weiner is now president of a public affairs and issues strategy company (Robert Weiner Associates).