United States Ambassador to Ghana, Mrs. Pamela Bridgewater has debunked the carefully crafted misinformation churned out to the public by sections of the media and some leading opposition figures that American President George Bush did not know or could not remember the name of President J. A. Kufuor during the Ghanaian leader?s recent visit to the White House weeks ago. Speaking of the Kufuor and Bush meeting at an encounter with media personnel from the state-owned and private-owned media, Ambassador Bridgewater described the allegations as false.?I was in the White House; I was with President Bush, I was there, so that story or that rumour is not true,? she stressed.

The misinformation, which was first churned out on radio Gold?s Alhaji and Alhaji programme weeks ago and subsequently picked up and repeated by pro-NDC newspaper suggested that either the American leader was so dumb he could not remember the name of his guest, or that the meeting, which discussed issues of the all-important Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), was so unimportant to Bush he could not remember the name of his guest and had to call State Department officials 15-minutes to the meeting to ask who ?that African head of state was.?

Interestingly, that was about the seventh meeting between the two leaders since they both became leaders of their respective countries. In an equally important denial, the United States government has reiterated for the umpteenth time that it has no plans to set up a military base in Ghana as published by sections of the media and repeatedly loudly by some NDC officials. ?There is absolutely no truth to it. There?s absolutely no truth to it, and make sure you all hear that? she said in a forceful but humorous manner, insisting that she could not understand why sections of the media persist with those reports.

G. N. Concord