This news source issues a long overdue apology for what was supposed to be an inside joke that appeared in its April Fool's day edition seven years ago. That joke described how decimated Iraq supposedly was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, both chemical and biological. Frankly, we thought the story was so ridiculous that nobody would believe it.We were wrong.
Unfortunately, the myth was picked up by former President Bill Clinton, who obtained all of his news from this website. It spread to the current Bush adminstration. Other nations bought into it, and even the United Nations thought it was serious enough to look into. For his part, Saddam Hussein, looking to bolster his badly tarnished tough-guy image in the middle east, "denied" that he possessed such weapons in a manner so coy that everyone assumed he was lying, which is what Saddam intended.
We learned our lesson and have never carried another fabricated story. We regret we cannot undo the harm we've caused, and have worked hard ever since to regain the trust of our readers.
THE HON. RUFUS PECKHAM
