Dear Karen Hughes: Does "W" Stand for the Women of Iraq?

Dear Karen Hughes - According to the State Department website, here's one of the things that you said when you accepted the nomination for Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs on March 14th of this year: "I'll never forget visiting a literacy program overseas where young women were learning to read and I listened through a translator as a 13-year-old girl told me of her dreams of becoming a writer and her belief that women should be able to go to school and work and choose their own husband. And as I was leaving, the translator stopped me and said she wants to tell you something else. Please don't forget them, she said. Please help them live in freedom."

Mrs. Hughes, it looks like you're about to get that job, as a Senate committee approves your nomination on July 26th, no questions asked. But I have a few and here they are: Now that the rights of Iraqi women are about to obliterated, according to the new draft constitution, what are you going to say to that young girl? What will you say when some guy waves the Koran and takes away her pen? And later, her job? And then tells her she has to marry him? What will you tell her when her dream has become a nightmare? That you're sorry? You didn't think freedom would turn out this way? And what do you say to us, to Americans who are paying for this war? To Americans, including women, who are dying for this war? Will you say what you said in the last election? You remember -- "'W' stands for women"? Which women are those? Mrs. Hughes, please do not forget that little girl who stopped you on your way to the airport. Do not forget that many women voted for "W" and now their own kind in Iraq are about to be sent back to the Stone Age.