A little email sent to CNN

I can't understand how you could possibly justify your coverage of Colin Powell's statement that intelligence on which he based his UN claims about Iraq having mobile bioweapons labs was "not solid."

According to my word processor, you used 102 words noting Powell's statement. You then used 794 words, over seven times more, rehashing Powell's arguments - including those about mobile facilities, without mentioning that these are the very claims Powell now admits are not "solid!"

Please don't tell me it was necessary in order to "provide context." The context was the nature of the speech, not the details of the individual claims.

That's especially true since even if the argument of "context" were to be granted, a simple ticking off of the points would have been more than adequate. More importantly, if context is what's required, it should also have been necessary on that same basis to note not only Powell's own doubts about mobile facilities - which you did not do - but also that questions have been raised about almost every other aspect of his UN speech - which you also did not do.

The net effect is to reinforce the very claims that have been cast into doubt by subsequent experience - indeed, to reinforce claims that were known to be doubtful at best at the time they were made.

Truly, a bad performance.