Madam, - Responding to reports on RTÉ News that some of the 147 CIA flights believed to have used Irish airports might have been "rendition" flights, the Taoiseach said: "We wanted to be sure that we were never used or abused. . . I looked at the great President Bush and I said to him, 'You know I want to be sure to be sure' and he assured me. I couldn't do any more than that."
Isn't this great President Bush the person who, in his 2003 State of the Union address, assured the members of the US Congress and world leaders that Saddam Hussein had an abundance of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological warheads, and had a missile delivery system which could be activated in 45 minutes. These assurances subsequently turned out to be entirely fictitious.
In his unquestioning acceptance of the President's assurance was not the Taoiseach unwittingly exposing himself to being used and abused? - Yours, etc,
ADRIAN CARROLL, Gladstone Street, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.