You go ahead and jump to a conclusion at your leisure. I'm gonna go ahead and jump based on GW's recall of the short hair. The story notes Kirk saying GW was cautious and that he clearly took pains to investigate. This is deadly serious stuff and NO ONE is indispensible---when caught screwing off you are guilty until proven innocent and you may never get the chance to prove your innocense. Everybody seems to agree there was a pile of un-distributed stuff in the embassy----NUFF SAID!
However, I have a problem with Miniter saying this in the article:
More than $57 million has been paid to 43 people who provided credible information about the whereabouts of known terrorists since the program's founding in 1984. But little has been paid since the September 11, 2001, attacks.
That statement simply is not true.
Secretary Powell today [8/01/03] approved the payment of a $30 million reward to the individual who provided a critical piece of information that led us to the location of Uday and Qusay Hussein. We are pleased with the results in this case. We are pleased that we were able to pay this reward. It is the largest ever paid under the Rewards for Justice program.
IOW, at least $30 million has been paid since September 11, 200l thru the Rewards For Justice program...$30 million of the total $57 million? I do not consider that 'little'.
Why would Miniter lie about something so readily known to be 'not true'? Or, if he's not lying intentionally, maybe he's just being sloppy? If so, what else is sloppy about the article, I ask myself. When I find such blatant factual errors in an article, I tend to take everything else in the article with a grain of salt.