http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/retarded.html

Reasonable reality check. The media knee-jerk reporting reminds me of engineers making ridiculous calculations based on misassumptions and not doing a simple reality check to show them they were FUBAR.

The article above gives as a source the same skeptical report I heard on News Hour. My first question was, How did they know these women had Down's syndrome? Down's syndrome does not cause severe retardation, in any case. And it was until recent decades that people with Down's didn't expect to live to be adulthood, though this has changed withn the US. But adults with Down's were rare and likely still are in Iraq.

Of course, the tone in the US is ideological, with anyone doubting the admin a leftist, one of those words that is as meaningless as conservative (why is it that conservatives create the biggest governments and the biggest deficits?). Forget what really happened, forget questions, accept or reject based solely on ideology. Or, in other words, what you want to believe.

This is blatant misuse of an event to gain support for the US in Iraq that is now "winning" the war. Maybe they can get McCain elected on the basis of his support of the surge.