By Matt for the TIB Network:
Last week on WMD, we highlighted an article from the Washington Post that claimed a Treasury Department official signed off on some deal involving an American oil shipping company and illicit sales of Iraqi oil.Turns out that the Washington Post didn't do their homework.
In the post, I indicated that it was important to know the identity of the woman who gave the okay. They still haven't released the name, but they have verified that she didn't work at Treasury, but rather the infamously liberal State Department.
Here is the correction running at the top of the story today:
A Feb. 17 article on U.S. acquiescence in illicit oil shipments from Iraq to Jordan cited an e-mail identifying the official who allowed the shipments as an employee of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The Treasury Department, which declined to comment while the article was being prepared, subsequently said she did not work for the department. The official, who declined to discuss her role in the trade, has acknowledged that she was working for the State Department at the time. The State Department declined to comment on the transaction.Again, this doesn't absolve the US government. However, I would like to point out that this isn't some Chimperor Bu$Hitler McShrubbenBu$h Conspiracy Theorytm either. This is nothing more than when Dick Clarke okayed the bin Laden family to leave the country after 9/11. That decision went no higher than a disgruntled, arrogant bureacrat...I suspect the same happened here.
And for those of you who think this should silence the opposition in Congress over Oil-for-Food...dream on, my friends... The UN is still a worthless organization riddled with corruption and greed. Nothing changes those facts.
Mark's Remarks
Just because a rogue US state department official engaged in approving this deal, does not mean that Bush KNEW (tm)! and it is all part of some grand conspiracy. What I find amazing in all of this is the level of robot-like willingness of the Left to accept even the most bizarre of conspiracy theories (like Wall Street caused 9/11 and allowed it to happen in some coverup nonsense) but refuse to deal in concrete facts. They get some minor incidence of analogous events and turn it into a concrete theory, despite hard facts to the contrary, despite hard evidence to the contrary. Who are the blind followers of a party line now, eh?
