The Bush administration’s prewar claim that Iraq had ties to al-Qaida was based in large part on statements made by a prisoner in Egyptian custody, The New York Times reported. The prisoner has since said that he made up the story to avoid harsh treatment.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told European nations last week that the United States “does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances.” But the report raises questions about whether the administration secretly relies on Third World countries to do the dirty work.
And it underscores a point that we have made in the past: Torture doesn’t work. It’s a bad policy that often yields bad intelligence.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
We have a holiday feature on our editorial pages today in which some public officials recommend books. Some examples: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius recommends the coffee-table book “Forever KANSAS!”; Sen. Sam Brownback picks “A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”; and Connie Dietz, president of the Wichita school board, chooses “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.” Got other book recommendations?
One sidebar: I asked Wichita native and U.S. Secretary of Interior Gale Norton to be part of the feature, but her ethics department ruled that she couldn’t. Cabinet members can’t endorse any products, and apparently that includes recommending a book.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had a few loaded words for the media during a Johns Hopkins University speech last week. Portraying Iraq as a failure “is not the accurate picture, and further it’s not good journalism.” As journalists report on U.S. casualties, he said, they should also report “what they died for, or more accurately, what they lived for.” I’d counter that most media outlets strive to do the latter, especially in the hometowns of the fallen. But the rough daily reality of Iraq makes explaining what they died for the more urgent and difficult question.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Kansas Republican Party made its ideological breakup official with last week’s formation of the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority — seemingly a moderate bookend to the conservative Kansas Republican Assembly. Predictably, the latter denounced the former as “a liberal front group for Democrats.” None of this serves Kansas Republican Party chairman Tim Shallenburger’s worthy goal of unity. Meanwhile, Kansas’ Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, newly named by Time as one of the nation’s five best governors, is enviably positioned to win re-election next year. How is that possible, given that Kansas has 783,000 Republicans and 454,000 Democrats? Because Kansas Republicans seem to be having trouble with math as well as science these days.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It eases the sticker shock to know that all but $151,000 will come from the sales commissions rather than from taxpayers, but $3.9 million still seems like a lot to pay a Cleveland consultant to secure naming rights and sponsorships for the downtown arena. And Sedgwick County Commissioner Tim Norton had it right when he suggested it doesn’t take an out-of-town expert to know which local “big players” are most likely to want their names on the building. In any case, the pressure is now on Superlative Group to live up to its name — and on the local business community to answer voters’ show of support with some buy-in of its own.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
