Earlier this week, white ribbons appeared on trees around campus. They were hung by members of Pax Christi, according to Mary Becker, who explained that “the white is for peace and the ribbon is a rememberance of everyone on both sides who has died and a hope that peace will come soon.”

The ribbons were hung this week because Sunday marked the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

It’s good to see that some folks still have a memory that’s longer than a 24-hour news cycle.

Most folks, including politicians and journalists-the people who are supposed to be our leaders-cannot continue asking important questions beyond the point where they become unpopular.

Consult most any news report these days that mentions Iraq and the phrase “civil war” is sure to be looming somewhere near the lede.

It’s the latest in a long string of detatched topics concerning the status of our favorite little democracy that could-debates that sound important but really don’t matter and tend, in fact, to distract from urgent, unanswered questions.

Is there really any doubt that civil war is brewing in a country whose own prime minister admits that his people are suffering 50 to 60 deaths each day-and qualifies such stats with statements like, “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is”?

The most important question I would like President Bush to answer is, Why are we even involved with Iraq in the first place?

It’s a good bet that we’re not spending hundreds of billions of dollars (by conservative estimates) to stabilize a country on the other side of the world. It’s also unlikely that anyone in the administration wholeheartedly believed Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the security of the United States.

The real reason most likely has something to do with the strategic positioning of major, military staging bases in the Middle East.

Perhaps more important than an actual answer, though-considering it will probably be decades before the American public knows the whole story-is the appaling fact that few people seem to care why this country invaded Iraq in the first place.

That’s not to say everyone has forgotten this question.

Helen Thomas, a veteran of the White House press corps and possibly the one reporter with the least bit of tolerance for presidential prattle, flat-out asked the president at a Tuesday press conference why he invaded Iraq.

In asking her initial question, Thomas was good to note that most of Bush’s publically-stated premises-like the existance of nuclear or biological weapons or an alliance between Saddam and al Qaeda–have been debunked.

Yet Bush completely ignored Thomas, and began to recite a tired line about Sept. 11 and Afghanistan.

Thomas did her best to keep the president on topic, but he dodged the real question by simply saying, “I also saw a threat in Iraq.”

If anything, Thomas’ exchange with Bush proves that the people who know the real reasons for the invasion won’t willing divulge it.

To that end, Congress should take legal action to get to the bottom of this mystery. This might mean going so far as bringing Bush to trial, as Harper’s Editor Lewis Lapham suggests in the latest issue of his magazine.

Or it could mean something less theatrical, something along the lines of the investigation of pre-war intelligence that has been conducted in Senate committee.

Regardless of what form it takes, such a query will be meaningless if legislators are unwilling to punish members of the administration who were negligent-or perhaps even maliciously reckless-in making important national security decisions.

Bush can weasel out of a reporter’s question about Iraq and stay within the law, but that’s not the case when it comes to Congress.

Perhaps the greatest mistake any nation can make is to forget or ignore the lessons of history, which is precisely what Bush would prefer we all do.

I’d like to believe that even folks who think the world began on Sept. 11, 2001 could at least remember-and make some attempt to analyze-what this country did just three years ago.