What he said

Letter to the New York Times

Re "A Peephole to the War Room: British Documents Shed Light on Bush Team's State of Mind" (news analysis, June 14) and "Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made" (news article, June 13):

Two articles in two days about memos leaking from Downing Street have focused more on why the news was not news.

And therefore what? They did not need to be covered?

On the contrary, the documents include damning assessments from British intelligence that the Bush administration was doctoring the case for war, that it hadn't planned for the postwar period, and the suggestion that the evidence the administration had amassed on weapons of mass destruction was thin.

The bloggers have every right to be disgusted with the mainstream media, which once covered every stained dress, cigar and rumor (even giving advice to the parties in a presidential sex scandal); while pretending to be interested only in the "lies," they now deem evidence of lies in a rush to war "not quite so shocking."

If the administration's duplicity was so "old hat" to The Times in July 2002, why didn't you write as much at the time?

Hawley Rising
San Jose, Calif., June 14, 2005