Calling Judith Miller: You have some explaining to do

[qanda]

Raid on Chalabi Puts 'NYT' Even More on the Spot
Still waiting for that corrective editor's note.

By William E. Jackson Jr.

(May 21, 2004) -- In a front page New York Times article this morning, David E. Sanger quotes a senior U.S. intelligence official's assessment of Ahmad Chalabi's information on weapons of mass destruction, which was distributed so avidly by the Times itself in the run-up to the Iraq war: "useless at best, and misleading at worst."

Yesterday, American and Iraqi forces raided and ransacked the Iraqi National Congress leader's office in Baghdad, completing his fall from grace as what the Times terms a "favorite" of the Bush administration. Today, two front-page articles in the paper, and an editorial titled "Friends Like This," take a harsh view of Chalabi. One would never know that the Times itself once relied on him heavily for its "scoops" on Saddam's WMD stockpiles.

In fact, one must painfully recall the now famous May 1, 2003, e-mail to the paper's Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns from star Times reporter in Iraq, Judith Miller, who wrote: "I've been covering Chalabi for about 10 years, and have done most of the stories about him for our paper. ... He has provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper."

Oh, how quickly the Times forgets its friends, Chalabi must be thinking today.

(more)

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000516946


Ah Judy, we're waiting for your explanation too. How come we at DU (well, most of us) were able to get it right and yet all the powerful and mighty were as wrong as two left shoes?

[Scairp]

1. HA!

You'll get old waiting for the Times to correct this. They have joined the Shrub committee to reelect and are not going to say a word until the administration endorses it.

[gratuitous]

2. It's on their to-do list

Right after apologizing to Wen Ho Lee for the hatchet job they did on him. Oh yes, and Jeff Gerth's credulous reportage on the Clinton Administration. And Pina Colada's (okay, her name is really Tina Kolata -- it's a joke) environmental and science stories.

[Jacobin]

3. When they fire Judith Miller, Tom Friedman and David Brooks

I might start glancing at that rag again.

Until they do, its nothing more than one of the CIA's great Wurlitzers and is due nothing more than scorn and ridicule.

[kaitykaity]

5. Add Jodi Wilgoren and Kit Seeyle to that list

as well. (Unless Seeyle is Washington Post. Oh what the
hell, she's still a media Heather ho.)

[stanwyck]

4. She needs to come forward

and be honest about her relentless cheerleading for Chalabi. I remember her slanted commentary from CSPAN's Washington Journal. How can such a person consider herself a "journalist"? Lobbyist would be more appropriate. And kinder than the more accurate term she deserves. Liar is also kinder. It's her job to find out the truth. She didn't bother. She bought Chalabi's con man swindle and now hundreds of our troops have died and thousands of Iraqi civilians. Nice work, Judy.

[SEAburb]

6. Maybe she will write a book about it

I'm amazed at all the crap the 24 hr news channels are reporting about Chalabi now, when they should have reported it a year and a half ago.