Poor track record

In his letter (December 16) Raymond Bencini referred to John Negroponte's translation of his name from Italian into English and metaphorically made a connection to the film A Bridge Too Far. However I would be more concerned about Mr Negroponte's track record than what the translation of his name might imply.

John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras 1981-1985 during which the Iran-Contra scandal took place. During his tenure the Honduran military carried out systematic murders of refugees from war-torn El-Salvador and just eliminated domestic political opponents.

The infamous battalion 316 trained by the CIA and the Argentine military tortured and killed hundreds. And the grounds of the El Aguacate air base was used for the torture and burial of many of the corpses. Now during this time US military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to over $77 million.

Maintaining this aid required Mr Negroponte to certify that Honduras was in compliance with human rights requirements set down in American laws. And Mr Negroponte gave Honduras a clean bill of health; denying the existence of death squads, political prisoners and politically motivated killings. He even allegedly joked that his report could easily have been applied to Norway instead.

So maybe John Negroponte is the right man for Iraq after all!