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Stingy Americans?: U.N. Official's Comment Hits Nerve of American Charity By John Heilprin Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A suggestion by a U.N. official that the world's richest nations were "stingy" irritated the Bush administration, especially when U.S. aid for Asia's earthquake is expected to eventually rise from the millions to more than $1 billion. The comment reopened the question of how to measure American generosity. The answer ultimately depends on the measuring stick. The U.S. government is always near the top in total humanitarian aid dollars - even before private donations are counted - but it finishes near...

I won't post the whole transcript. Click the source link to read it. I saw this reaired on C-SPAN today. Realplayer video is available on their website, or try this link: http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/archive/iraq/iraq102103_natsios.rm As always Natsios was excellent and, as usual, he took no shi'ite from the press. Here's the exchange with the financial times reporter: QUESTION: Alan Beattie from Financial Times. Mr. Natsios, as you know, there's been quite a lot of criticism of the lack of transparency of the -- of USAID's and the CPA's operations in Iraq -- MR. NATSIOS: I'm not aware of any criticism of AID....