I hope Torie Bosch and Opinion Page Editor Mike Walbert can claim ignorance and say they both didn't do enough research for her recent column ("Swapping ideas with conservative pals results in liberating experience," Feb. 2).

In describing a debate about the reasons for war in Iraq, Bosch writes: "I mentioned falsified documents used to claim that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium."

I think it's safe to assume she's talking about the uranium from Africa. She goes to say how her conservative friends denied that charge, saying that "our government wouldn't tell public lies."

First of all, with regard to the "claim that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium," the U.S. government did not once make that claim. In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Whether or not Saddam "tried to purchase" uranium is immaterial because neither the U.S. government nor the British government made that assertion.

Secondly, and more importantly, the British government's claim that Saddam "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" is in fact true. What's more, Lord Hutton's report last week exonerating Prime Minister Tony Blair from BBC-reported charges that his government "sexed up" evidence against Iraq.

From Chapter 6 of the Hutton Inquiry: "On the uranium from Africa, the agreed interpretation of the intelligence, brokered with some difficulty with the originators and owners of the reporting allows us only to say that he has 'sought' uranium from Africa."

Bosch's friends, it turns out, were right.

Our government and the British government did not lie or knowingly deceive the public in order to bolster the case for war.

It should be asked if Bosch and Walbert, her editor, were aware of what the U.S. and British governments actually said.