Letters

(2 of 4)

An Honest Gift Card

Re your article on gift cards and some companies' practice of subtracting a monthly dormancy fee from the value of their cards [Dec. 6]: It deeply offends our company that it was associated in any way with this article, since our gift-card policies are the exact opposite of those criticized in your report. A photograph of the Sharper Image gift card appeared prominently in your table of contents, next to the statement "Gift cards can lose their value if you don't use them in time." Another, smaller image of our gift card, along with 20 other cards, appeared in a photograph with the full story. Sharper Image gift cards have absolutely no limitations no expiration time, no fees, no service charges, no interest, no dormancy charges and no fees for carried balances. While we believe it is important to warn unwitting consumers about the tactics of unprincipled gift-card sellers, it is a serious mistake to imply that the Sharper Image card has any similarities to those of offending retailers that offer cards with fees and conditions attached.
ROBERT SCHULTZ, VICE PRESIDENT
BUSINESS AND LEGAL AFFAIRS
SHARPER IMAGE CORP.
San Francisco

Is Reform for Real?

Columnist Joe Klein argued that the U.S. "needs a single, unified computer network that contains at the very least all the available information on the world's bad guys" [Dec. 6]. That may be correct, but the rest of the intelligence- reform movement spawned by the 9/11 commission is just a Bush Administration ruse to make the "system" take the blame for the government's mistakes. The intelligence warnings about 9/11 were clear, but no one was paying attention.
TIMOTHY C. HOHN
Lake Forest Park, Wash.

Klein says President Bush cannot support both the 9/11 commission reforms and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's policy preferences. But as the passage of the bill has shown, Bush will continue to do what he wants to do; he has always had his own agenda. It is not the neoconservatives who have taken over his mind. Bush is resolute, certain, and says what he means and means what he says. The danger to the U.S., however, is that in the past four years, the President has been shown to be bullheaded, inexperienced, closed-minded, dishonest and overly confident.
MAGGIE LEIGH
Fredericksburg, Va.

Debating the War

TIME reported that Iraqis who are resisting the U.S. have moved into urban areas of the country [Dec. 6]. Until we understand that the Iraqi "insurgents" are freedom fighters struggling to get occupiers out of their country, much like the French under Nazi occupation, the U.S. won't really be able to own up to its inevitable defeat. We are in a war that should never have been, in which even those we are pretending to liberate are fighting against us. Is it any wonder that the U.S. has become the most hated nation in the world?
TONI BOUTWELL
Myrtle Beach, S.C.