The facts are that Gallegly, most of his fellow Republicans and a few Democrats voted, in 2003, to authorize their Texas-Air-National-Guard-dropout of a president to invade Iraq on trumped-up charges of weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida. No doubt his and their votes somewhat altered the Air National Guard’s priorities.

Where was Gallegly when the roll-on, roll-off fire tanks were not delivered in 2003, 2004 and 2005? Where was the Air National Guard when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast that year? Perhaps they were more concerned with operations in the Middle East than in fire tanks.

Where was Gallegly when the fire tanks were not delivered in 2006 and 2007? Where were the remaining six unretired, Air National Guard fire tanks when they were needed in last week's Southern California version of Katrina? Some of them were in my former home state of North Carolina, which has also been suffering from a record drought, not pre-positioned here, as Bush's mouthpieces would have you believe.

Was it through acts of commission or acts of omission that the fire tanks were not delivered when promised in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007?

If the former, perhaps Gallegly and others are guilty of at least negligence in office. If the latter, they are "only" guilty of incompetence. Gallegly clearly has not been performing the duty of oversight in this matter that he was re-elected to do. That's not really surprising, seeing as how he and his party have been and still are rubber-stamping their president's big lies since he lost the popular vote to Al Gore in the 2000 elections and was selected by the Supreme Court for an office he clearly hasn't been suited to occupy.

It is entirely disingenuous, although hardly unexpected, for Gallegly to attempt to redirect responsibility in this serious matter. Perhaps he should re-reconsider his decision to re-rerun for re-re-election.

— Charles Duncan Felts Jr., Ventura