NEWS AND COMMENT


The other day, President Bush said that "It's time" for a unity government in Iraq. How about here? Isn't it about time that the Bush adminstration cooperated with Congress, giving it the documents needed for judgments on NSA eavesdropping and other issues?

Yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unveiled an indictment of 50 Colombians for drug trafficking. Of course, we don't have these 50 in custody. So Mr. Gonzales well might now proceed to indict insurgents in Iraq.

In today's New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert summarized a study showing that the true cost of our war in Iraq is over one trillion dollars.
We could have bought the country for a lot less than that. In fact, we probably could have bought Saddam Hussein's departure for less than 100 million.

SUB-ROSA NEWS

Some of the News
That may be True


NEWS ITEM An inquiry found that a U.S. public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles. The military had used the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, to plant upbeat articles written by American troops in Iraqi newspapers while hiding the source of the articles.

COMMENT In Washington, it has been widely rumored that the Lincoln Group will soon hire Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, often referred to as Baghdad Bob. Mr. al-Sahaf was well-known for his repeated pronouncements of victories by the Iraqis just as Baghdad was falling.to the American army. His knowledge and experience would provide credibility to the positive news being disseminated. In the meantime, the White House denied that the Bush administration was contemplating reconstitution of its policy of paying reporters to broadcast good news stories supporting administration policies.