Follow up on Nancy Powell.
Yesterday I promised to address How a Lone Diplomat Compromised the Hunt for Bin Laden Congressman Launches a Probe and Reaches the President by Richard Miniter. After reading it carefully and hunting around for more information on the topic all I can say is I don't have enough information to make a call on this one. Someone once told me there are at least three sides to every story: mine, yours and the truth. I don't know what took place with the match books, but I do know that I am not counting on throw away reward announcements to find bin Laden and end the war with al Qaeda. I am not defending the non-distribution of any materials, mind you, it just seems this article is a little light on the facts. TigerHawk goes a step beyond that and has fisked the heck out of this piece:

You can't believe everything you hear from the State Department, but in this case it is a little difficult to see why a "senior State Department official" would bag the Department to protect Nancy Powell. The Sun does not explain why we shouldn't take the State Department at face value on these two facts -- that the program was terminated before Powell received her credentials, and that it was substantively ineffective.

I am curious to see where this one goes, and I'll be watching closely. Until then, it is one piece, from one journalist with a bunch of suspect facts. Thanks to all who sent this one by e-mail, sorry for a less than exciting rebuttal, but there doesn't seem to be much to say at this point that TigerHawk has not already said.

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3/29/2005 01:20:00 PM posted by Dr. Demarche