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Democrat Silvestre Reyes may be a great guy, with many great policy ideas, but is he the right person to head the House Intelligence Committee?  Like many he can’t answer basic questions about current Middle East conflicts.

From an interview by Congressional Quarterly:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

Al Qaeda, they have both, Reyes said. You’re talking about predominately?

Sure, I said, not knowing what else to say.

Predominantly, probably Shiite, he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong. Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

…

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah…

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?

http://public.cq.com/public/20061211_homeland.html

Ugh.

Of course, Reyes is not alone.  As the Iraq Study Group points out (http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_study_group_report/report/1206/index.html), and Congressional Quarterly notes, only six people in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad are fluent in Arabic, and only about two dozen of the embassy’s thousand employees have some familiarity with the language.

This entry has been filed under issues, political.