We recieved this letter commenting on our coverage of Ed Peck: It is a rare thing for me to write to a political blog.  However, the subject article raised my hackles.  In my nearly 30 year foreign service career I was fortunate to meet some outstanding foreign service officers.  Many courageous, some brilliant and most dedicated to advancing United States interests abroad.  Ed Peck is not among those just mentioned. In the early 1980's I was dispatched on an interim basis to bring order to our badly mismanaged  USAID programs in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.  Upon arrival in country I immediately undertook a series measures to track the status of various development assistance projects and match this status to funds expenditures.  In short order a number of financial anomalies were discovered.  Accordingly I called in officers from the USAID Regional Inspector Generals office.  In turn they discovered widespread corruption and...(Read Full Post)