Joe Wilson's boondoggle

Niger's anguish
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

The administration apologists are fond of implying that Joe Wilson's trip to Niger to explore allegations that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire "yellowcake" was merely a "boondoggle" set up by his wife.

"On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction."

Here's the tragedy of Niger that those ignorant whores think is such a vacation spot.

ELKOKIYA, Niger, Aug. 3 - At sunset Wednesday, in an unmarked grave in a cemetery rimmed by millet fields, the men of this mud-walled village buried Baby Boy Saminou, the latest casualty of the hunger ravaging 3.6 million farmers and herders in this destitute nation.

At 16 months, he was little bigger than some newborns, with the matchstick limbs and skeletal ribs of the severely malnourished. He had died three hours earlier in the intensive care unit of a field hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, where 30 others like him still lie with their mothers on metal cots.

One in five is dying - the result, many say, of a belated response by the outside world to a disaster predicted in detail nine months ago.

Niger's latest hunger problem, like Baby Boy Saminou's tragedy, is more complex than it first appears. As aid begins to trickle into some of the nearly 4,000 villages across southern Niger that need help - the vanguard of a flood of food brought forth by television images of shrunken babies - the rich world's response to Niger's worst nutrition crisis since the 1985 famine is, in fact, proving too late for many.

Unseen on television, however, are the shrunken infants who die all but unnoticed even in so-called normal years. Of each 1,000 children born alive in this, the world's second-poorest nation, a staggering 262 fail to reach their fifth birthdays.

Five of Baby Boy Saminou's seven brothers and sisters were among them. The longest-surviving of those who died reached 4 years of age. Asked what killed the last three, Saminou's father, Saidou Ida, said simply, "Malnutrition."

The Post reporter should name the administration official who called the trip a "boondoggle." And should there be a God, He should damn him.