http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20030623&s=baker'Scoops' and Truth at the Times
by RUSS BAKER
{from the June 23, 2003 issue}
<snip>Here are typical Miller headlines from May:
May 21: "U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ Arms"
May 12: "Radioactive Material Found at a Test Site Near Baghdad"
May 11: "Trailer Is a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning Out Bioweapons, a Team Says"
May 9: "G.I.'s Search, Not Alone, In the Cellar of Secrets"
May 8: "U.S. Aides Say Iraqi Truck Could Be a Germ-War Lab"
A Miller appearance with CNBC's Brian Williams during the pre-invasion propaganda campaign shows how the game is played. Here's the intro:
Page one in this morning's New York Times, a report by Judith Miller that Iraq has ordered a million doses of an anti-germ warfare antidote. The assumption here is that Iraq is preparing to use such weapons....
WILLIAMS: Iraq's attempt to buy large quantities of the antidote in question was first reported by veteran New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller in this morning's edition of the newspaper. She is also, by the way, author of the recent book on terrorism called Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War. And she is with us from the Times newsroom in New York tonight.
Miller then explains that "what worried people" was that although the drug in question has civilian uses, it's unlikely that Saddam would order a million doses for benign purposes. "That really got heads up in Washington," she tells Williams. The anchor asks her if the "Western assumption" is that Saddam is planning to protect his military with the antidote. "Right, exactly," she replies. Consider: The highest priority of the Bush Administration was to persuade the world that Saddam Hussein constituted a grave threat. It found indications of that threat and gave them to Miller, who rushed to break the story.