On Iraq, Reporters May Be Missing Their Mark(et)

Remember when Mitt Romney's dad went to check things out in Vietnam?

A Purloined Letter?

I did call, I did write, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday in a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

Waxman, Loop fans may recall, wrote to Rice last week saying that she had not responded to many of his letters over the years asking about the administration's bogus claims that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger, how it handled classified information and other matters.

Because she hadn't responded, Waxman on Friday sent her an invitation to come up to the Hill for a hearing on April 18.

But yesterday, in a lengthy missive on her behalf by Jeffrey T. Bergner, assistant secretary for legislative affairs, the State Department said she has been quite responsive.

"Our records reflect that you have sent 49 individual letters . . . since 2003, 21 of which" went to Rice, Bergner said, and with the exception of one letter they haven't been able to find and a few recent ones they're working on, she's responded to everything.

"I'm sure that this thorough and comprehensive" response, department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday, will be sufficient to "obviate the need" for a formal hearing.

Stay tuned.

Can't Spell Limbo Without OMB

Susan E. Dudley will get one more hearing.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will, once again, take up her troubled nomination to oversee federal regulatory policy at the Office of Management and Budget.

Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) "is moving forward in the traditional manner with her nomination," committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips told our colleague Stephen Barr.

President Bush named Dudley to the OMB post last August, and her confirmation hearing was held in November. The Senate adjourned without voting on her nomination, which the White House later resubmitted.

While in confirmation limbo, she has been serving as counselor to Clay Johnson III, a presidential buddy and the deputy director for management at the OMB.

Before her first nomination, Dudley wrote about regulation for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and her critics assailed her comments involving air bags, arsenic limits in drinking water and workplace injuries.

Tripp Goes Back to Court

Linda Tripp, erstwhile pal of Monica Lewinsky, is scheduled to appear today in Fauquier General District Court in Warrenton in a dispute with the Pentagon Federal Credit Union over unpaid credit card bills. Tripp now owes $2,822.68, with attorneys' fees and such included, on a consumer loan, according to papers filed with the court.

It's unclear whether Tripp will make it, though. The county sheriff's office, which tried to serve her notice of the court date, says she moved from Marshall and left no forwarding address, though they note that she may be working at a store in Middleburg.

Heading Out . . .

Richard Lawless, the deputy undersecretary of defense for Asia and Pacific affairs and an expert on Korean matters and China policy, is reported to be leaving his job in the next few weeks, apparently for personal reasons. The authoritative Nelson Report has it that Lawless's deputy, Jim Shinn, formerly the CIA's national intelligence officer for Asia, is expected to be nominated assistant secretary of defense for Asia.