From BBC Online
A senior US state department official has said that the US has shown “arrogance and stupidity” in Iraq. Alberto Fernandez made the remarks during an interview with Arabic television station al-Jazeera.
The state department says Mr Fernandez was quoted incorrectly – but BBC Arabic language experts say Mr Fernandez did indeed use the words. It comes after President George W Bush discussed changing tactics with top US commanders to try to combat the unrest.
Mr Fernandez, an Arabic speaker who is director of public diplomacy in the state department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, told Qatar-based al-Jazeera that the world was “witnessing failure in Iraq”.
Fernandez has now reportedly retracted his comment. He 'Seriously Mis-spoke' apparently – whatever that may mean in proper English. But it's very sad that there are so few individuals of real principle at senior levels in most Governments.
Honesty and Integrity are clearly not attributes for successful politicians, then. That raises the question of why the public chooses to vote for what are obviously lying scumbags. The electorate can't be that gullible, surely? Maybe it's just that they are voting 'against' previous governments, witness the demise of the Conservatives and now the declining days of the New Labour experiment. An experiment which has cost us all very dearly in so very many ways.
Incredible how when someone speaks the truth the government then says he didn't really mean it quite the way it sounded. Let's convince the ole boy to retract what he said, I'm sure was the word in Washington.
Wish we had more people who would just speak the truth and tell it like it really is.