ABC’s 9/11 Docudrama Mangles Facts, Smears Washington Post

[RamboLiberal]

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/05/abc-smears-washington-post/

ABC’s planned docudrama The Path to 9/11 contains numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Here’s another one.

On the second night of Path to 9/11, a CIA analyst makes the following complaint:

Besides, ever since the Washington Post disclosed that we intercepted his calls, UBL stopped using phones altogether. He’s using couriers now, like they did a thousand years ago.

This isn’t true on a number of levels. First, as Daniel Benjamin makes clear, the publication at issue is the Washington Times:

Here’s what happened: On Aug. 21, 1998, the Washington Times, the capital’s unabashedly conservative newspaper, which regularly breaks more intelligence-related stories than any other daily, ran an article saying that Bin Laden “keeps in touch with the world via computers and satellite phones.” This occurred less than two weeks after the destruction of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam by al-Qaida and the day after the United States had bombed al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. After that report, Bin Laden stopped using his phone and let his aides do the calling. This story is recounted in both The Age of Sacred Terror (2002), which I co-wrote with my National Security Council colleague Steven Simon, and the 9/11 Commission Report.

[datadiva]

1. GWB this morning on CSPAN

said Al Qaida uses the internet. That doesn't sound too much like couriers to me.

[Sinti]

2. See but this is why you shouldn't complain over the wiretapping thing

They could have caught Usama before 9/11 if we hadn't demanded so much damn freedom, and liberty and stuff... :sarcasm:

[MADem]

3. Complain, see how, here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2055552

[farmbo]

4. Actual malice.WP could sue ABC for libel, if they weren't GWB's butt-buddy

:grr:

[flyarm]

5. i do believe this is going to backfire and the backlash will be great

against karl rove, little lord pissy pants and abc...

my neighbor lost their son in the wtc..and i was talking to her in the street today..while on a walk..and she is furious over this..and she said her daughter in law is all worked up about it and angry beyond words..

this may play well in kansas..but not in NJ or NY..

people here will be mighty pissed!!

come on wake up kansas!!..( i use kansas, because i used to live there..no negative reference to those enlightened from kansas!!)

fly

[Canuckistanian]

6. Ah, yes, the ever-disloyal "librul media"

It's too bad thay have to LIE to try to prove every falsehood about the media.

It's amazing how many lies are being perpetuated in this one little "docudrama".

That same old shit, now warmed up and served with a new condiment.

[cascadiance]

7. How can Disney justify airing this crap and hold off distributing F-911

Remember how they "didn't want to be controversial" to the public and held back from allowing Miramax to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11 to the theaters and Michael Moore had to do it himself through separate arrangements? This action exposes the earlier action and this action as CLEARLY partisan actions by a network who SUPPOSEDLY is taking such actions in interest of "profit and the public welfare". F'ers!

[autorank]

8. Play with fire, you are going to get burned. Faustian bargains are no

bargain. Washington Post, you brought this crap on yourselves. A plea to the board, fire Graham, Downie, and all the high visibility reporters except Van de hei (sic?)... you know, Milbank, Schmidt, those other effete, artlessly ironic folks...

[w4rma]

9. And they are trying to sell grade school text books on this BS. (nt)

[samsingh]

10. the washington post is mistreated by the repugs

yet they keep whoring for them.

[RobertSeattle]

11. Wasn't this Orin Hatch's big mouth's fault?

IOKIYAR

If I recall, he was blabber mouthing on 9/11/2001 about how we had intercepted Osama's calls.