Letters to the Editor
slb
Published Letters: 158 Editor's Choice: 10
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In fact, others DID reach the same conclusion as Wilson
[Read the article: Plame: I was covert until they outed me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No matter who was sent to Niger, they would have come to the same conclusion: The Bush Administrations claims were false.
And, in fact, there was at least two others who had independently reported back the same conclusion that Wilson had come to. One was 4-star Marine General Carlton W. Fulford, Jr., who traveled to Niger just a month before Wilson to investigate whether al-Qaeda was seeking Nigeran yellowcake. Like Wilson, he concluded that because the Niger had no independent mining capability, it was unlikely that significant quantities could be smuggled out. See http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=express&s=ackerman072303
Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, who was the US Ambassador to Niger at the time, had (even before Wilson and Fulford, I believe) filed a report with the same conclusion.
From the assessment of the question by the Carnegie Endowment for International Piece:
To obtain 500 tons of yellowcake as outlined in the NIE, Iraq would have had to: 1) import one-sixth of the uranium that Niger produces in an entire year, and 2) hide these imports from the consortium that tightly controls the mines and pre-sells the uranium to its members before it is even mined. These are not trivial matters. Even on a much smaller scale, French, international or U.S. authorities would certainly have detected such activity-especially after Niger signed a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA in June 2002.
The numbers tell us that Iraq's alleged interest in Niger uranium - even if true - never represented an immediate or significant threat to the United States. Simple math and common sense confirm that the claim should never have appeared in administration statements as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapon program.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1595
Simple math and common sense. Too bad the ability to do the first and the possession of the second seem to be so rare.
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@Patrick Dunn
[Read the article: I do not like green eggs and ham]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with Patrick -- Al Gore was more than just an actor in that film. He was its guiding spirit, and isn't it the case that much of the film was taken from the slide show presentation that Gore had carried on the road earlier?
Besides, is there anyone who doubts that if the movie had been a bomb, the MSM would have forever referred to it as "Al Gore's embarrassingly disastrous movie"?
Give credit where credit is most assuredly due. Gore put his credibility on the line with that film; he deserves the kudos that have come his way as a result of its success.
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@ "No Name"
[Read the article: Wait until they hear about those parking tickets]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How is this NOT news?
You've been watching too much Faux News. This is news like "The barking dog did not bite anyone" would be news. What on earth is newsworthy about it? Absolutely nothing.
(and by the way, the "hometown baghdad" popup that obscures half of the screen where one attempts to type in comments is extremely irritating. Once more with the refrain, "glad I'm not paying for this...")
If you were paying, you wouldn't be seeing that.
But I notice that even though you think this site too lame to be worth paying for, you nevertheless keep coming back...
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@Jonathan
[Read the article: What Bush is hiding]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And then the felonious five (with one replacement) that put Bush in the White House in the first place will simply stonewall the whole thing.
Two replacements, actually: Alito for O'Connor and Roberts for Rehnquist. But I doubt Kennedy would be willing to throw his hat in with them this time around.
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This is noteworthy -- how?
[Read the article: That's what friends are for]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This strikes me as about as newsworthy as John Solomon's front-page WaPo story some weeks back hinting scandal at John Edwards because the guy who bought Edwards's Georgetown house bought it through a limited-liability corporation (something that is commonly done in large real-estate transactions) and the buyer turned out to be a known union antagonist and the subject of an SEC inquiry.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe:
1. Vilsack is a long-time political ally of the Clintons. It's no surprise he would endorse Hillary's candidacy. In fact, when Vilsack first announced his candidacy, there was speculation that part of his purpose was to help Hillary's candidacy by removing the pressure to win the Iowa caucuses, or some such thing.
2. At the time of the 2006 election, there was a lot of grumbling about the amount of money Hillary Clinton had amassed in her war chest which was obviously not needed for her Senate campaign, so why didn't she share the wealth a little. Well, here she is sharing it, and there is still grumbling.
Politicians who are flush with cash give money to the campaigns of other politicians all the time. They also trade favors all the time -- this is the stuff of politics. What's the big deal here?
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Evil Radar, indeed!
[Read the article: Kyle Sampson, under oath]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The mistakes I made here were made honestly and in good faith.
Shouldn't that have been transcribed with scare quotes?
The mistakes I made here were made honestly and in "good faith."
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I think Joe found a new playground
[Read the article: Keeping secrets -- or not]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Check out http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/preview_buying_the_war.html (Click my signature)
Dunno if that's the same Joe in the comments over there or not, but he's sure singing the same tune!
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Don't hold your breath
[Read the article: "Worse than Nixon"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Resign and leave office before their terms run out? Don't hold your breath. I just hope they will leave peacefully when their terms do expire -- has anyone checked the "Patriot" Act to see if Specter's aide slipped any other secret provisions into it in the dead of night? Like giving the Boy King the power to declare himself President for Life?
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Ah, South Carolina
[Read the article: GOP senator blames Democrats for troop deaths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ah, South Carolina, home of the fire-eaters. One 19th-century South Carolina statesman, James Louis Petigru, on being asked the way to the insane asylum in Charleston, replied, "My dear Sir, take any road, you can't go amiss. The whole state is one vast insane asylum."