Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert Gates, President Bush's choice to lead the Pentagon, has argued that the United States should be talking with Iran instead of shunning it.He has said that U.S. spy agencies misled the president on whether Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction — but he also thinks the nation should never launch another pre-emptive military strike without "unambiguous" intelligence. Gates, a former CIA director, has expressed his beliefs during three decades of experience at the spy agency, the White House and at the helm of Texas A&M University. It's a trail of words that senators will pore...

In the opinion of US Ambassador William Brownfield, Venezuelan Vice-President José Vicente Rangel was kidding when he labeled as "toilet paper" the annual report on human rights issued last week by the US State Department. "I think that my good friend, the Honorable Vice-President was joking a little bit with us when he referred himself to the report as toilet paper, because, as you know, my government is a government of the 21st Century and we do not use paper for our reports. It is an electronic report. Therefore, in no way he was serious," Brownfield said. The diplomatic noted...